So I’ve been playing a lot of Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire lately. A lot. Like I’ve been forgoing food and sleep in order to get an extra hour of sailing around a digital archipelago hunting pirates and a dead god that’s stolen part of my soul while also flirting relentlessly with a yellow sharpshooter and her bird (apparently they’re a package deal and I’m cool with that) before work. And, seven – sorry, eight – dozen hours of gameplay later I am still loving it.

And that’s a bit of a surprise, because I didn’t enjoy the first Pillars of Eternity this much. Now don’t get me wrong, it was a great game, they did an amazing job with it. It never quite managed to hold me all the way to the end, though. As great as the lore and world-building was, so many of the quests seemed a bit standard, and often felt oddly lacking in nuance and consequence (who cares which faction you side with in Defiance Bay, if everything goes down the same anyway?) The characters and their arcs were great, but controlling them was a frustrating affair at best and more than once a rage quit at worst. I wanted to know what happened next, but the combat encounters stopped being fun a few hours in and never really started again. So I stopped.

But Deadfire is different, without losing what I liked so much about the first game. The lore, if anything, is even richer. The various factions are big and established, with their own longterm goals beyond your own quest to deal with a newly arisen god, and internal disagreements on how to reach those goals. The non-player characters are a delight, and form their own relationships as your quests go on (everyone wants to be Xoti’s mate). Best of all the combat has been cleaned up. It’s no longer about resource management, as you hoard magic spells for the next possible battle and a lot more about placement and tactics. A little less micromanagement and a lot more fun. Yet, it’s still basically the same combat system.

There’s this wine I love from Jasper Hill Vineyard, a gorgeous fiano, that’s produced under the label ‘Lo Stesso.’ The name comes from an Italian phrase that translates, more or less, to “Same, same, but different.” The idea is that it takes a fairly traditional Italian grape, and adds an Australian twist to it. Keeps those old world flavours, but finishes with new world textures. And it’s fucking delightful. Like Deadfire. Same, same, but different.