Choose your own adventure meets RPG
Lets get this out of the way first, this is not an open world RPG. It's more like a choose your own adventure RPG. Second, this game is shorter than an open world RPG like Pillars, but it's not as short as some reviews claim. My first game clocked in at 150 hours (according to the save file). I spent a lot of time reading the lore entries on my first time around, but even without that, I don't see how people are getting through this game in 20 hours. If you're finishing the game in under 50 hours you're missing out on a lot of content since not every quest shows up in the journal.
Right after creating your character, you play the conquest. The Conquest is a short choose your own adventure mini-game which you decide how your character participated in the conquest of the Tiers and set up your initial faction influences. You will be presented with two locations, with each location having you chose between two battles and each battle having two outcomes. The last part of the conquest has you choosing between three locations where you will cast one of the three edicts in effect at the start of the game. You can skip this and chose between one of three presets (I don't recommend this).
The rest of the game plays out in a choose your own adventure style as well, but on a larger scale. The main quests will generally present you with two or more initial paths. Sometimes you will be able to complete all of them, but the others may change depending on the order you decided to take them in. Other times, picking one option will close off the other, or it will present a third option after completing the first and you can only pick one of those two. Unlike an open world game, it is impossible to see and do everything in one play through.
I enjoyed Tyranny a lot. It's a new take on the old-school isometric RPG formula, and I hope to see a sequel and/or more games like it from Obsidian.
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