Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire - The Beast of Winter

Whenever you want this DLC or not depends solely on if you want to add just a rather lengthy (by PoE II standards) questline that doesn't really add much to the main story of the game, the themes or to the world history. If it's a pretty cool (no pun intended) adventure you want, you can get it here. But there's pretty much nothing here that hasn't been explored in the first game and the two-part expansion it had otherwise.

There's a strange consensus that out of the three PoE 2 dlcs, BoW is good, SSS is bad, and FS is amazing. I genuinely don't understand the first as I was thoroughly unimpressed with Beast of Winter. With the DLC, you get the opportunity to recruit a new companion, Vatnir. Only, he's not a companion. He's a sidekick, which means almost no interactivity or voice lines, and no companion quest for the priest of Rymrgand in the Rymrgand DLC, where you can fight the avatar of Rymrgand at the end. Speaking of the whole "priest of Rymrgand" thing, that's his unique subclass, which gives him almost none of the healing or party buffs you'd want from a priest, instead focusing on self-buffing and frost damage. If you want to bring Vatnir for the quests in the DLC area he appears in, you'll be bringing a whiny nerd with almost no unique dialogue who does frost damage through a bunch of fights with frost resistant enemies. The setting is interesting at times when it isn't tedious, but I don't feel like I learned anything about the Saint's War or ancient Engwith or Ukaizo just because they were shown to me in a different way. The new fights are more difficult than they are tactically challenging, expect a lot of knockouts, especially in Waidwen's area. Ultimately, the star of the DLC is the dragon boss fight, which isn't the final boss fight based on your choices, where you'll have one character hopping between different platforms to trigger buffs and debuffs. That hardly makes up for the earlier tedious grind against enemies which scale very strangely difficult into the late game. If you need more PoE2, by all means, give it a shot, but this was easily my least favourite of the DLCs.

If you like the overall feel of Deadfire, with emphasis on characters and environment over combat, then you will like this DLC. It's pretty short: you will emplore one small village hub, a "dungeon" of 3-4 areas, then 3-4 other self-contained areas from Eora's past. This last section makes this DLC worth your time. You get to visit a remembered slice of ancient Engwith, Ukaizo at the precipice, and the bridge where Waidwen died (be sure to bring Eder). I brought Ydwin and Vatnir (a sidekick introduced by the DLC), as well as Aloth, Xoti, and Tekehu for certain parts. All of them had meaningful dialogue that made me appreciate them more. These memories of the past also have unique mechanics to them, be it dialogue checks, switch puzzles, or some light time travel. The combat was decent, except the very first fight that I feel was misplaced, but more on this later. I started the DLC after Poko Kohara, with character at levels 12-14. On normal difficulty, the battles felt just the right amount of challenging, a welcome break from the core game that had become too easy. The downside was some fights started to drag with my trying to burn down towering enemies with too much HP. Luckily, there weren't too many fights like POE 1's White March had, so I was not burned out. The biggest issue with this DLC is the first fight. You have to fight the boss of the DLC almost immediately after starting, and it was by far the hardest for my non-Shred Cipher focused team. You can't avoid the fight. After spending hours on her, I almost gave up. I feel for the casual players who do give up because the rest of the DLC, including the big auroch at the end, felt much more manageable. I get that this boss, and this DLC generally, teaches interruption/concentration, but it could have been paced better. Oh, yeah, you also get some unique gear but nothing like Modwyr. I like this short and sweet DLC. I just wish it weren't so hard to chew at the beginning.

Probably my favourite of the major DLCs for Pillars of Eternity 2; I might even like it more than the main story. The overall thematization of Rymrgand and what he represents, as well as some tie ins to big moments of the background lore were absolutely fantastic. Further, I enjoyed the new companion as well as the overall wintery atmosphere.

This game was great, but how is the DLC cheaper on Steam than it is on GOG... I don't understand that.