Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth FAQ

Yes, the game automatically saves the progress at certain points during gameplay. This is indicated by the book icon at the top right of the screen. Additionally, you can also save manually via the pause menu.

Yes, you can also play the game with gamepads. We support Xbox 360 and Xbox One controllers on all platforms. The Steam version supports PS4 and Steam controllers additionally. Just connect one of these gamepads to your computer before starting up the game. The Pillars of the Earth will automatically detect which one you are using and displays the icons accordingly. Via the Big Picture mode in Steam you can also adjust the mapping of the gamepads' buttons as you like.

You can use these clues like normal items on people or objects to get a reaction about the topic. You can imagine these clues to be conceptual rather than physical items.

Item-item combinations are not possible or necessary in the game. However, you can still use items on objects and people like in other adventure games.

On some screens, the game might be stretched when playing in fullscreen mode. Please switch to windowed mode in the settings if that happens.

On some systems, setting the game to OpenGL (OGL) or DirectX11 (DX11) as render device in the config.ini might cause this issue. Try setting the game to DX9 (DirectX 9) in the config.ini itself or via the Visionaire Configuration Tool (see below).

The Visionaire Configuration Tool can be found in the installation directory of the game or in the window that pops up when starting it via the Steam library. The tool is a visual interface with tooltips that allows for simpler changes of the settings in the config.ini.

If you only see a black screen after the introductory Daedalic video, you probably deactivated your audio devices in your task bar. Right-click on the speaker symbol in the lower right corner of your screen, select audio devices and activate the chosen device.

If you do not want to adjust your audio settings, click ESC for two times while the black screen is displayed and you will get to the main menu.

This is a known issues. The following solutions helped other players so far: Loading the latest savegame from book 1 and playing it once more until the end.

Uninstalling the game, deleting all local game files from your computer (can be found here: C:\Users\User\AppData\Local\daedalic entertainment gmbh\The Pillars of the Earth) and reinstalling the game afterwards. You can then download one of the savegames from our savegame database on this website.
If none of this solves the issue, deactivate your Steam Cloud by right-clicking on the game in your library, choosing "Properties", switching to tab "UPDATES" in the new window and unchecking the checkbox on the bottom under "Steam Cloud Synchronization". Afterwards, delete the profile.dat file in the following directory of your computer: C:\Users\*YOUR USERNAME*\AppData\Local\Daedalic Entertainment GmbH\The Pillars of the Earth\Savegames

If you're still encountering this problem, please contact the Support Team via Support form.

Please restart the app and load an older savegame to avoid this bug. We recommend frequent saving on different saveslots.
We are looking into these problems and apologize for the inconveniences.