Divinity: Original Sin 2 - Definitive Edition

Divinity: Original Sin 2 was one of the most ambitious attempts to bring the depth of a classic PC RPG to consoles, and the Definitive Edition for PlayStation 4 proved it could work better than expected. The player creates a character gifted with the dangerous power of source magic, which makes the whole world hunt them down, and sets out on a journey that ultimately asks who will become the new divinity. Alongside a fully custom hero, players can choose from pre-made origin characters with their own past and motivations, so the party isn't just a collection of combat roles but a group of people with conflicting interests.

The core of the game lies in turn-based, grid-based combat that works with clever environmental physics. Puddles can be frozen or electrified, oil set alight, poison turned into an explosion, and within a few turns the battlefield becomes a completely different place than it was at the start. Outside combat, the player enjoys unusual freedom: quests can be solved through negotiation, theft, persuasion, or brute force, characters can be talked to through the ability to understand animals, and many situations have more solutions than one would expect. Multiplayer co-op even lets fellow players openly turn on each other.

The Definitive Edition brought reworked controls adapted for the gamepad, an adjusted interface, and a range of balance changes that make the PlayStation 4 version fully viable, though the extensive menus and inventory remain demanding to navigate. The visuals rely on a detailed isometric view and a darkly fairy-tale atmosphere underscored by music with striking vocal themes. Critics received the game exceptionally well, ranking it among the highlights of the genre for that decade. Its influence is still visible today in how significantly it raised expectations for reactivity and freedom in RPGs. Today it remains one of the most expansive games playable on a console, easily lasting a hundred hours, and a second playthrough with a different character reveals entire chunks of story a player would never glimpse the first time around.