Baldur's Dash: Pillars Of Eternity Beta Begins Next Month

If I were to explain how I feel about my gaming diet right now using an extremely overwrought simile, I would say it's akin to swimming in a giant pool of alphabet soup where the only letters are R, P, and G. 2014 has been extremely generous on that front, and while Divinity: Original Sin and Shadowrun: Dragonfall are splitting my time right now, I've got Wasteland 2 and Pillars of Eternity on the horizon. The former has been in beta for quite some time, but the latter will finally be set out to cool on the windowsill next month. The only downside? It's backer-only, for now.

Obsidian's Brandon Adler announced the date in the most recent POE post:

"With production moving into the finalization phase for Eternity, the team and I are hunkering down to finish up the game over the next few months. Going forward, we will be spacing out our backer updates a bit more from now until the project ships. They’ll come a bit less predictably, but you can still expect updates as we have big announcements or special news for you. This will really help us focus as much of our efforts into putting out the best game we possibly can for everyone."

"In our next big update, we will discuss the upcoming Backer Beta in more detail as well as what it will entail and how to redeem your copy. We will be releasing our Backer Beta on August 18th."

That's only a little more than a month out, which is pretty exciting news. As ever I'm wary of playing sprawling single-player epics like these before they're fully complete, but I'm not sure I'll be able to resist sticking my finger in the pie at least once.

I've mailed Obsidian to find out a little more - for instance how much of the game will be included in the beta, whether there will be a formal Steam Early Access release as well, etc. For now, though, you can read the rest of the update to find out about all the barfing, spider-faced monstrosities you'll be facing off against in the game. Truly, is it even possible to conceive of a more pleasant way to pass the time?