Today is the release day of Tyranny, Obsidian's new choice & consequence-focused isometric RPG set in a fantasy world where evil won. Ever since it was announced back in March, Tyranny has received a great deal of scrutiny on our forums - for its premise (which some doubted today's Obsidian was capable of handling with sufficient depth), for the writing in some of its development updates, for its artistic style, and for its openly streamlined combat system. Even I think there was something tone-deaf about the way Obsidian and Paradox handled the game's marketing.

In recent weeks, however, opinions of Tyranny seem to have softened somewhat, as videos and livestreams featuring actual gameplay became available, revealing it to be pretty much a Pillars of Eternity total conversion with some interesting features, and not some completely horrible abomination. Now it's out, so we can find out for sure whether Obsidian's Pillars-meets-Dragon Age-meets Elder Scrolls-meets-Age of Decadence experiment has succeeded. Here's its launch trailer:


There are a bunch of release day reviews:

As you can see, they're generally positive, but a few dip down into "mixed" territory, citing issues with the game's story and combat. Are these issues for real, or are they just a case of game journalists allowing themselves to be dumb/lazy/edgy with a somewhat obscure title? Our review, which will hopefully be out in the not-too-distant future, will surely answer those questions. Or you can answer them yourself. Tyranny is available now on Steam and GOG for the price of $45. It'll be interesting to see how well it does.