Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth Critic Reviews

The pillars of the Earth is a medieval ode. It is a true artistic and narrative success that captivates your attention and immerses you in a truly enchanting Middle Age era.

The 20-plus hour commitment to The Pillars of the Earth is well worth it to enjoy this interactive towering tale, faithfully adapted to near-perfection by Daedalic. For patient gamers, this is not a narrative adventure that should be missed.

The game is a great adaptation of a very complex book. Dive into medieval ages, follow fascinating characters and make tough choices. Pillars of the Earth has stunning visuals and an amazing soundtrack. Although it's not a very challenging game, you can still have a good time with it.

All in all, The Pillars of the Earth: Book One - From the Ashes is an excellent story-driven point-and-click adventure that mostly knows what its audience wants. This is reflected in the good gameplay and storytelling, and we hope some of the minor flaws and gripes will be addressed in books two and three, which will be released at the end of the year and in the first quarter 2018, respectively.

Ken Follett’s Pillars of the Earth is a fairly unique experience. While some may take issue with the slow pace and dour subject matter, it’s already a journey filled with beautiful moments when the visuals, music, and narration come together to create some truly affecting moments. With no knowledge of the source material it’s too early to tell if the story will end up with worthwhile payoff in the two installments to come, but to me the first is engaging enough to warrant the time and attention of anyone looking for a tonal change of pace.

The first episode of Daedalics The Pillars of the Earth is beautifully designed, has a great presentation but slightly too little gameplay. However it gives you a thrilling and interesting story to enjoy.

Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth is a surprisingly well grounded game. As mundane as the subject matter may seem at first, it's incredibly absorbing as you follow the lives of realistic people. While not perfect, suffering from general adventure game problems of backtracking and long-winded puzzles, the game more than makes up for it with compelling characters, a great script with fantastic voice acting and an aesthetic design that benefits the game greatly.

The story that The Pillars of the Earth tells makes it worth sitting through a few tedious puzzles and the odd bug. This is just the first part of three planned, and I can’t wait to see how the rest of the game plays out.

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is a must try for those who enjoy good stories. The game's deep characters and the atmosphere of medieval England compensate for its boring puzzles.

The Pillars of the Earth weaves a fascinating tale and does so with superb style.

A beautiful medieval adventure that uses real history and interesting characters to tell a compelling story.

Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth is a respectful game, a different way to live and expand the experience of the best seller and also a curious experience due to its easy puzzles and episodic style. Also, a relaxed and slow experience, a little different to other graphic adventures.

This adaptation successfully brings the universe of the novel to its own media. Although sometimes it's quite slow, it's a good start for the adventure.

This low-budget adventure from Daedalic, based on the uber-popular Ken Follett's novel, kicks off very slowly, but it gently gets under your skin. Don't expect too much point'n'click gameplay, but soon enough you'll find yourself engaged in a compelling story (well, congrats) and challenged by a series of choices that will impact the rest of the story.

The game does not stick closely to the book, but I find it to be its strength – it wouldn’t be fun to simply click through events you remember. What bothered me is that while boldly slimming down the traditional point’n’click elements Daedalic created a game that lacks challenge almost completely, which makes the story the only engaging component. But gosh, the visuals are fantastic.

A great adaptation of Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth. Daedalic focused on narrative rather tan puzzles, but the game is very enjoyable due to rich characters and strong story.

Atmospheric adaptation of the story as interactive visual novel. Overall a bit too lengthy and static with little gameplay variety.

I hope there will be an improvement with the interactive features of the game for the next instalment as I am really looking forward to seeing how the story unfolds. However, if not, then I may lose interest in completing the entire game and just read the original book instead.

It starts slow. Too slow. But once this playable novel gains momentum, it gets interesting.

Daedalic's novel adaptation delivers a great story, beautiful visuals and interesting characters. 12th century England makes for a fascinating setting, but unfortunately far too much time is wasted on backtracking and tedious puzzles.