Steam: One of the best role-playing games is finally complete and bigger than Baldur's Gate 3, it cost me my entire vacation

Role-playing games are a major vice for MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus. One of his favorites is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. It received its last DLC a few weeks ago and is now “complete”. A good reason to play it again – after the first playthrough already took forever.

I love role-playing games. Whether Dragon Age, Baldur’s Gate, or Pathfinder: If I can dive into a story for dozens or hundreds of hours and develop my character, I’m happy.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (“WotR”) was released in 2021 and is among the best role-playing games on Steam. I started it only a year later and took a proud 6 months to complete it for the first time.

At that time, the game was just in a “playable” state, many bugs fixed and the first patches available. I finished just before the first DLC “The Last Sarkosians” and used almost 250 hours back then.

Now the last DLC “A Dance of Masks” is here, WotR is complete and I have a reason to revisit the game. Conveniently, I had vacation the week after release.

The game has already captivated me for 60 hours again and has occupied me almost my entire vacation. Even though I already know the story, I want to keep playing – because there are so many reasons to play Pathfinder multiple times.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous celebrates its final DLC in June

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The DLCs provide new content that fits perfectly into the story

If you, like me, haven’t played since shortly after the release, you now get tons of new content:

The Last Sarkosians brings a new companion with its own quests, story, and romance options
Through the Ashes is a small, standalone campaign where you play a group of townsfolk instead of the great hero
Lord of Nothing continues this mini-campaign and when you complete the content, there’s a new dungeon in the main campaign of the game
Inevitable Excess picks up after the actual campaign and adds a few more hours of gameplay

Now, with A Dance of Masks, the celebration continues right after the story. It goes back to the town where it all began, new villains appear, and there’s content for all companions who were along on the journeys – as well as new romance scenes. The best part: Everything is fully voiced!

Additionally, there are new classes, items, and some content like dungeons and endless modes through all the DLCs. Much integrates into the story, some I can experience separately. But the DLCs aren’t the only reason why it’s worth playing Pathfinder again.

After over 300 hours, still not boring

A very special mechanic in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous are the Legend Paths. I don’t play just any hero, but a chosen one with divine powers – so a really badass character, even more intense than usual in role-playing games.

As such, I can channel my powers and walk various paths with new abilities. The special thing here is that the paths all have unique interactions in the game, sometimes completely new mechanics or even entirely their own endings:

Tricksters do not take the whole world too seriously and even break the fourth wall with their strange jokes
Aeons can change the past and thus have a direct influence on what happens in the story – or does not happen
the “Swarm-that-Walks” completely gives up its body to become a swarm of locusts that only knows hunger and destroys everything

In my first playthrough, I played an evil lich who gave up his soul and love to become immortal – and achieved the “secret ending” that I won’t spoil here.

The current path for me is to get my special ending as an Aeon. Even though I already know the story itself and what the big plot twist at the end is, I want to see what I can achieve as someone who literally changes reality.

“Greater” than Baldur’s Gate 3 – But …

As an CRPG, Pathfinder naturally has to be compared to the wonder-child Baldur’s Gate 3, which was released in 2023. And indeed, Wrath of the Righteous is significantly larger on paper:

A complete playthrough, i.e., with all possible content in one go, takes according to HowLongToBeat 211 hours in Pathfinder
Baldur’s Gate 3 comes in the same category at “only” 159 hours (via HowLongToBeat)
We also know, that Baldur’s Gate 3 will not get a DLC – Pathfinder has a total of six

Just the class selection is enormous. Baldur’s Gate 3 comes with 12 character classes and numerous subclasses that differ little from the main classes. Pathfinder, on the other hand, has 26 classes, each with unique archetypes, plus 13 prestige classes that are only acquired in the game – and the mythical paths as well.

If you really want to see EVERYTHING, you’ll be busy with Pathfinder for a significantly longer time. In my experience, Baldur’s Gate 3 still has more scope because there’s a ton of hidden content that does not belong to the actual story content.

Certain interactions are only visible in Baldur’s Gate 3 under the right conditions. The focus here is more on the “around”, meaning on the companions and the world – the voice acting helps tremendously here. Pathfinder places more emphasis on you as a character and the story of the world.