Divinity: Original Sin 2

Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a 2017 party-based, turn-based role-playing video game developed and published by Larian Studios for Windows, and later for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, macOS and iPad.¹⁵¹⁷²¹ The sequel to Divinity: Original Sin (2014) and an entry in the long-running Divinity series set in the world of Rivellon, it casts the player as a “Sourcerer” hunted for wielding a powerful magic called Source, washed up at the prison colony of Fort Joy and embarked on a quest to ascend to godhood in a world whose Divine is dead.¹⁵¹⁹²⁰ It was released for Windows on 14 September 2017.¹⁵¹⁷

The game grew out of Larian’s first Original Sin, which had been a Kickstarter success and a critical breakout for the studio.⁶¹¹ Larian returned to Kickstarter to fund the sequel in August 2015, setting a goal of $500,000 that fans approached within hours of launch.⁶¹⁰ The sequel was conceived to expand on the existing systems of the first game while building on the framework of Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition, porting over its skill trees, split-screen multiplayer and controller support.⁶ An initial release was projected for 16 December 2016 before slipping to the eventual 2017 date.⁶

Setting and story

The story takes place centuries after the events of the first Original Sin, when the settings and characters of that game have slipped into legend, so newcomers need not have played it.⁵ The narrative centres on so-called “Sourcerers,” users of Source magic whom the rest of the world fears and clamps with magic-suppressing collars.⁵ After the events of the first game, the Sourcerers are hunted by Bishop Alexandar and the Divine Order, who have declared themselves the only ones worthy of wielding Source and purge all others.⁶ Reviewers noted that the game has things to say about marginalization, racism and class warfare, with the world’s prejudices playing directly into the situations the player encounters.⁵⁸

A central theme is how a character’s origins shape their place in the world.¹³ At creation the player chooses a race — Human, Lizard, Elf, Dwarf or Undead — and an origin, and these tags determine how non-player characters respond.⁸¹⁹ Dwarves, for example, are often economic refugees who meet hostility in some quarters while finding support among their struggling fellows.⁸ The player may select one of six predefined origin characters, each with a unique backstory, dialogue options and questline — among them the haughty lizard Red Prince, the assassin elf Sebille, and the undead scholar Fane — or create a custom hero, in which case the unchosen origin characters can be recruited as companions.¹¹¹⁴²⁰

Gameplay

Combat is turn-based and driven by action points, with movement and abilities each carrying a points cost.¹¹¹⁴ Its design is a close evolution of the first game’s, but Larian overhauled the armour system in response to a perceived imbalance: rather than absorbing a proportion of damage or blocking status effects by chance, armour is split into physical and magic types that fully negate incoming damage until whittled away, after which the character becomes vulnerable to harm and to status effects.⁷¹⁴ Systems designer Nick Pechenin described the goal as establishing predictability so players could plan ahead, while retaining a small variability in damage to keep attacks feeling “spicy”.⁷ To prevent powerful finds from trivialising the game, Larian steepened the curve by which enemy hit points scale, so that a super weapon becomes obsolete within hours unless replaced.⁷

The game is built around dense systemic interaction, particularly the way terrain and elemental surfaces combine: rain creates puddles, lightning electrifies water, fire ignites poison clouds, and a “bless” or “curse” effect can turn a blaze holy and healing or render it impossible to douse.⁹¹¹ A skill-crafting system lets players mix attributes of skills to produce new ones, such as combining “rain” with “blood” to heal characters with a vampirism ability.⁶⁸ Source abilities are the strongest powers in the game and are costly to use, replenished by consuming corpses, channelling from other characters, or charging bloodstones with the souls of the dead.⁶⁸ Reviewers repeatedly stressed the freedom afforded to players, who can talk their way past obstacles, teleport across impassable terrain, or kill any non-player character without ending the game.⁵¹¹¹⁴

The campaign runs to more than 80 hours and can be played solo or cooperatively with up to four players.¹³²⁰ Larian described it during development as a “competitive cooperative game”: for the first time in a co-operative RPG, party members are given different and sometimes contradictory goals, so players can quest against one another, plant contraband or explosives in an ally’s inventory, or murder a non-player character a friend was relying on.⁸¹³¹⁸ The game also shipped with a competitive Arena multiplayer mode, in which teams of two to four heroes fight on pre-configured maps stocked with treasure chests, Source points and exploding barrels.⁹¹² A “Game Master” mode lets a player guide custom scenarios for friends in real time, much like a tabletop Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Master.⁵

Lineage and reception

Original Sin 2 sits within the lineage of isometric, party-based computer role-playing games that sought to recapture the spirit of the 1990s, alongside the contemporaneous Kickstarter-funded Pillars of Eternity and Torment.¹⁸ Reviewers identified its deepest roots in the late-1990s Infinity Engine games, with Game Informer calling it “the true modern successor to the heralded Baldur’s Gate II“ and IGN noting it was designed in the spirit of decades-old RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate 2, that legacy serving only as a foundation.⁵¹¹ Its character classes, builds, skill points, turn-based combat and party mechanics led many players to liken it to a video-game adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons.¹⁵²³ The tabletop influence runs through the design: its turn-based combat is “very clearly inspired by D&D,” and the Game Master mode explicitly evokes the Dungeon Master role.⁵²³

The game was met with strong critical acclaim, with IGN scoring it 9.6 out of 10 and calling it “one of the best RPGs of the decade,” and CGMagazine awarding 9.5.⁵¹⁹ Its story won a BAFTA, and on Steam the Definitive Edition holds an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating across more than 82,000 reviews.¹⁷¹⁹ Critics praised the systemic freedom and the reactive world while noting the slow opening hours spent in the Fort Joy tutorial area, which could take upwards of ten hours to clear.¹⁴

A free Definitive Edition followed, bringing balance changes, reworked combat situations, new difficulty modes, expanded dialogue and a revamped Arena mode; it shipped on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2018.¹⁶²⁰ The game’s success laid the groundwork for Larian’s subsequent Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023), after which the studio returned to the franchise’s roots with a new title, Divinity, announced at The Game Awards on 12 December 2025 and described as the studio’s biggest game yet.¹²¹³