This is a deep and rewarding adventure game about priests, politics, poverty and plenty more besides. It’s about exploration, making choices large and small, unearthing clues and using found items to solve puzzles.
Based on Ken Follett’s bestselling book, this is a richly detailed world and, well, one that’s not exactly cheerful. It turns out England was pretty bleak back in the 1130s – as we discover in the opening moments, it’s as if “Christ and all his saints had gone to sleep” and “the pillars of the earth had begun to crumble”.
As befits a game based on such a huge novel, from the hand-drawn artwork to the voice acting and epic scale of the gameworld, Pillars of the Earth is a really meaty game.
The exploration, plentiful dialogue and extensive detective work required means you really need to throw yourself into this game for several hours at a time.
Commit, and you’ll be rewarded with a sumptuous adventure game, one that complements the best-selling novel and popular TV series of the same name beautifully.
If you’re already a fan of Follett’s work or you’re just seeking an epic adventure to lose yourself in, Pillars of the Earth offers a huge amount to see and do.