Title: Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – The Lord of Nothing
Developer: Owlcat Games
Publisher: META Publishing, Owlcat Games
Release Date: November 21, 2023
Reviewed on: PC via Steam
Price: $12.99

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is a 2021 CRPG from Owlcat Games. After release, they have kept the game supported with a significant array of DLC that adds new companions, dungeons, archetypes, and side campaigns.

The recent DLC The Lord of Nothing completes the side campaign introduced in Through the Ashes, and adds a significant number of new options to character creation.  

Let’s return to the world of Golarion, and battle to stop an ancient evil…

Disclosure: Boss Rush Network received a review code for the PC version of The Lord of Nothing. Neither Owlcat Games nor META Publishing made any stipulations upon this review, nor did they or any representatives read it prior to publication. The author previously purchased the base game.

Gameplay

Gameplay remains unchanged from the base game. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous presents an expansion and refinement on the Infinity Engine RPGs of the 1990s and early 2000s: Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale. In either turn-based or real-time-with-pause modes, players navigate open environments, battle enemies, and collect loot. A core aspect is the amount of dialogue, and the game’s response to the player’s choices.

The Lord of Nothing takes about 15 hours to complete; and a few hours more, if you are particularly thorough completing side quests and discovering loot.

The New Archetypes

The Lord of Nothing introduces 15 new archetypes, which can also be used in the main game. For many players, this will be the main reason to purchase the game. They run the gamut from best-in-game archetypes, to curious options you can splash into other builds, to unique flavorful choices that can define a roleplay heavy role.

The new options are Alchemist: Reanimator, Barbarian: Flesheater, Bloodrager: Hag-Riven, Cavalier: Ghost Rider, Cleric: Separatist, Druid: Winter Child, Hunter: Tandem Executioner, Oracle: Dual-Cursed Oracle, Paladin: Tortured Crusader, Rogue: Dark Lurker, Shaman: Prophet of Pestilence, Shifter: Weretouched, Sorcerer: Geomancer, Witch: Hag of Gyronna, and Wizard: Shadowcaster.

Tortured Crusader is essentially the Paladin of Last Stands, and is a favorite tabletop archetype for lead designer, Andrey Sverkunov. It may be a powerhouse—as charges healing abilities can be converted to strikes of the all-powerful Smite Evil, if at great cost; this time, any foe can be hit with it—but it’s a flavorful powerhouse. Of the many archetypes I’ve played in whole or in part, it’s my favorite in the game. The refusal to give in, down to the very last spark of your ember, suits the core game’s narrative.

Separatist is an interesting Cleric archetype. Flavored as an unorthodox, or perhaps outright heretical, cleric of a faith, they can take abilities from a domain outside of their deity’s purview (if at a cost to strength). This adds ice and undead domains as well. This opens the door to otherwise impossible synergies.

Evil playthroughs will receive significantly more “from the start” support via the Prophet of Pestilence (perfect for the Swarm-That-Walks mythic path), or the outrageously evil Hag of Gyronna who can cast unlimited low-level spells via a summoned hag.

While I enjoyed the theming of Ghost Rider, I felt that it didn’t really have enough unique about it to make it shine. I’m not sure if the Flesheater, who absorbs the abilities of the supernatural creatures they devour, has enough variety in their potential meals to be viable in the main campaign.

The Lord of Nothing Itself

The Lord of Nothing is a conclusion to 2022’s Through the Ashes DLC. The previous installment was a survival DLC with slim supplies and slim chances. This is a much more traditional fantasy adventure, reaching toward higher level play. The characters now embark on travel through portals to wildly different settings (a jungle, a crumbling wizard’s tower, etc.).

There are four main areas to explore, each with their own dungeon. I enjoyed three of them very much, but the final main dungeon was a slog. Unless you have a party with a particular build, it boils down to a race through a maze infested with high level enemies (the item that was supposed to prevent the creeping effect of the maze, for me, had none).

You play with a party of six. One of the six is your character. Two are characters can be recruited or made from scratch. The remaining three are developed characters in their own right, and must be taken, though you can significantly alter their development via leveling. Rekarth and Sendri return from the Through the Ashes.

Rekarth is a Tiefling rogue. Despite a backstory as a criminal, he is a fully committed to battling evil. He’s a grumpy, dedicated man. He grew on me quickly. One of his contacts plays a role in supplying the party, but I wish that more was done to develop that angle.

Sendri is a Gnome sorcerer. I like his approach in theory (the hopeful one, carrying weight greater than he can bear, who tries to lighten others’ loads and sees how what they live through reflects the great stories—half Frodo, and half Samwise). But in practice, he’s played a little too silly. I wasn’t fond of the line comparing evil to ice cream. His background is interesting, and I wish it had been capitalized on.

Penta is the new required companion, an android bard, and she is one of my favorite supporting characters in any Owlcat game, and perhaps any CRPG. The only tragedy is that she’s only a DLC character, and not a central campaign-long supporting character. She brings the party together. She softens the bickering between Rekarth and Sendri, while being a prideful, studious, puckish figure in her own right. Vladlena Zakharchuk’s performance captures and unifies all her sides. Her race and class are unique, and I wish they were playable as well; even if I weren’t required to take her, she’s so useful and interesting in play that I would always take her.

The Lord of Nothing must end in a new dungeon for the main campaign’s characters to explore, and inevitably some element of the plot would remain for them to solve. Unfortunately, the main campaign is left to resolve almost the entire plot, as only character arcs are resolved within the DLC. It feels as though a game asks you, Are you a bad enough dude to save the president? and on the final level, the game decides, You aren’t a bad enough dude, let’s wait for one within the space of a single slide. The character resolutions are satisfying, but it is a little frustrating overall.

Difficulty

Like all of Owlcat’s games, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous has extensive and remarkably granular difficulty selection. It’s some of the best in gaming today, and I hope other developers take this on as a standard.

However, Owlcat Games occasionally has some of the most difficult, unexpected encounters break out of nowhere. A late game encounter with a dragon was a repeated party wipe until I happened to have the right chain of randomly rolled critical strikes to put it in the ground early. The difficulty curve is steadier than in the main campaign, but the handful of truly hard battles will strike without warning or mercy. I only hope that this gentler curve is a sign that Owlcat Games is beginning to get a handle on difficulty curves in general.

Presentation

The Lord of Nothing features gorgeous level design with a great deal with verticality and interesting combat considerations. Each map is unique, instead of feeling like a hallway with encounters strung along it. The art design is fantastic. Not only does every area feel unique, it’s always attractive and engaging. Owlcat Games excels at presentation.

Final Score

The Lord of Nothing presents a roughly 15-hour CRPG campaign through a variety of settings, with engaging characters and memorable stories (even if some are rushed, or are begging for further development). For $12.99, this is already a steal.

The additions to the main game, however, make this essential for new playthroughs of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I can’t imagine playing without certain archetypes for my main characters, or adding levels in other archetypes to the companions.

If you haven’t played Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous or are itching to return, and if are intrigued by the new archetypes, this is more than worth getting alongside the main game.

Featured Image: Owlcat Games

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