Pillars of Eternity is a 2015 role-playing video game developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Paradox Interactive for Windows, OS X, and Linux. The game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale series, along with Planescape: Torment. Obsidian started a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter for it in September 2012, raising over US$4 million. The game uses the Unity engine.
The game takes place in the fantasy world of Eora, mainly inside the nation of Dyrwood. The infants in the Dyrwood are plagued by a recent phenomenon in which they become "hollowborn" upon birth, meaning they are born with no soul. During the beginning of the game, the protagonist experiences an awakening of power due to a disastrous supernatural event, discovering they are a "Watcher": a person who can see past lives and interact with souls. The objective of the game is to find out what caused their awakening and how to solve the hollowborn problem.
Pillars of Eternity received generally positive reviews from critics, who praised the game for its world and immersive writing, along with the strategic combat, and also said that it is a worthy successor to the games it was inspired by. The game also won various awards and accolades, including best RPG of 2015. It had sold over 700,000 units by February 2016. A two-part expansion pack, The White March was released in August 2015 and February 2016, respectively. A sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire, was released in May 2018. A game set in the same shared universe as the Pillars of Eternity games, Avowed, was announced in 2020 and released in 2025.
