The studio-killing fallout of Embracer's acquisition frenzy continues to fall like ash on the industry. The publishing giant has reportedly closed Piranha Bytes, the studio known for cult RPGs like Gothic, Risen, and Elex, according to a worker who spoke to Polish games site CD-Action. The studio's existence had been under threat since early this year, after being targeted in Embracer's purgatorial studio massacre. At that time the German studio were hopeful to avoid being closed down, insisting "don't write us off yet!" Unfortunately, it looks like those who worked at the studio have since been laid off.
]]>"Eclectic, Lavish, Exhilarating, Xenial", was how Risen and Gothic developers Piranha Bytes described their forthcoming post-apocalyptic open world RPG ELEX [official site] when they announced it last year. I reckon they were being purposefully tongue-in-cheek, but either way we didn't have all too much to go on back then beyond the initial idea.
Fast forward the better part of a year, and a website overhaul, a load of new info and a fresh "mood" trailer now offer us a better understanding of what it's all about. Observe:
]]>O Risen - The ol' girl gets accused of being what's called "low fantasy" (fiction elitist-speak which I think essentially means it has pirates in it). But even in the face of years of apathetic reviews (we called Risen 2 "deflating" and devoted nine diary posts to the threequel to saying the game was really weird and vaguely sexist though charmingly ambitious) Deep Silver have devoted quite some time to the series since 2009.
That extends to earlier this week when the publisher revealed a big graphical update to Risen 3: Titan Lords [official site] as part of a free update. Read about it after the jump.
]]>Editor's wibble - I'd hoped to have a full Wot I Think of Risen 3: Titan Lords, Piranha Bytes' latest openish world RPG by now, but sadly code has been incompatible with my PC. I have been able to play it in short bursts on a laptop with lousy integrated graphics, but there was only so much low-detail 20FPS play I could stand before needing a lie down. However, I am ready to tell of my earliest adventures in its world of pirates, monsters and magic, as The Risen Report returns.
I'm a pirate. I'm on a boat. There's a fight. I'm on the shore. A beach. An island. A quest for lost treasure. A sister.
]]>Risen 1 was 50% dark, strange brilliance and 50% a frustrating descent into grindy nothingness. Diarising that first, fascinating, cruel, strange half was one of my favourite experiences on RPS. Conversely, playing Risen 2 was one of the most deflating, despite it being about pirates and featuring a pet monkey. If you've got pirates and monkeys in your game and you still mess it up, you really have gone wrong.
Now Risen 3 looms, and returning devs Piranha Bytes (they of the original Gothic games) are trying ever so hard to convince us that fans of brutal, gritty, wide-ranging fantasy RPGs are getting what they want this time around. Their 11 minute sermon about how Risen 3: Titan Lords will Do It Right even kicks off with an F. Scott Fitzgerald bon mot: "don't forget who you are and where you came from". I.e. "look, honestly, we're basically making a Gothic game again."
]]>Risen 2, Piranha Bytes' sequel to semi-great RPG Risen (spiritual sequel to the Gothic games) arrived a couple of weeks back, and I've been sinking hours of my time into it on and off since then. It puts you in the shiny-buckled boots of a neophyte pirate as he attempts to save the world from evil sea gods. Yeah, it's Pirates of the Caribbean: the roleplaying game. But does it offer the freeform, amoral delights of its predecessor, or the flabby tedium of three of the four PotC films? Tickle my pegleg to find out.
]]>In 2009, the bulk of RPG commentary on PC was all Dragon Age this, Dragon Age that. Me, I ended up sinking more time into something rougher, readier, odder, 50% glorious and 50% drudgery. Piranha Byte's spiritual Gothic sequel Risen was a hell of a place to visit for a time. Here's my fall and rise and fall again on its peril-packed, amoral island of adventure.
]]>Not everyone inhabiting Risen 2's archipelago will be a pirate, although all players will start that way. But what is a pirate without an authoritarian regime to cock a snook at? The Inquisition, now in a world without magic, are "organised very strictly", which is why they have short haircuts and "walk around in goosestep". Crikey. They're just asking for a carefree buccaneer to rob their precious things. Then there are "the natives", with their shaman, warriors and hunters. Many of them have been enslaved and forced to work on plantations. As for the pirates? They're "drunk most of the time".
]]>I've been travelling for 25 hours, and now I'm in Utah. There's snow, and buildings made from wood. Why do I tell you this? Because I'm knackered and want to have a little moan. Pity me. Weep for me. Tell me you love me.
Cheery news, however: 1) there's a big pot of coffee right next to me. 2) Gothic creators Piranha Bytes might be getting their original franchise/universe back, having had to hand over the rights to erstwhile publisher JoWood some time ago.
]]>'Bittersweet' covers this news, I suppose. Arcania: Gothic 4 was a picturesque but depressingly stupid RPG, and one I couldn't bear to finish despite a lingering hope that at some point it would suddenly open up and improve. None of this was the fault of series creators Piranha Bytes, who lost the rights in a spat with publisher JoWood, but fortunately went off to make the far more interesting Risen instead.
Nonetheless, Arcania was deemed successful enough to warrant a standalone expansion, Fall of Setarrif, which promised 10 more hours of monster-bothering and a bit more variety. It sounded quite literally "okay." We shall never know for sure - Setariff has indeed fallen. And in a really weird way.
]]>Also on the comeback trail this week is Piranha Byte's RPG Risen. Piranha were the chaps behind the Gothic series, but having lost the license in a disagreement with former publishers JoWood went off to make a spiritual sequel instead. While JoWood's Gothic 4 was about as much fun as eating mildly poisonous cardboard shoes, Risen was 50% a genuinely brilliant game (and 50% a slightly tedious one) - here's my series of diaries on it, in which you can see my early surliness quickly become excitement. Risen 2 sounds like they're determined to fully go for it, rather than lurk in an awkward middleground between past successes and future ambition. Pirates! Guns!
]]>After 12 hours of adventuring, I've finally got a hat. Man, I love hats.
]]>This guy?
I hate this guy.
]]>Everything went wrong went I made it out of the first city.
]]>Everything changed when I made it to the first city.
]]>In lieu of a review, I'm keeping a diary of my (mis)adventures in and thoughts on divisive new RPG Risen. The first part's here.
The situation: I’m being followed by a physically impossible woman who’s moaning about being hungry, and I have a pocket full of vulture and rat meat. There’s probably a way to connect these two things. First, however, fighting.
]]>Reviewing Risen here wouldn't be right. For one thing, it's too big and time right now is too short to mainline it in such a way. For a second thing, to mainline it in such a way would probably be the wrong move. This vast German RPG is really not a game designed to be rushed through. For a third thing, it's the successor to the Gothic games - a series which, in the US and UK at least, hasn't reviewed anywhere near as rapturously as the reception they've won from their fans (with the exception of the much-maligned third). To a fair few people, Risen is the most important game of the year. What's the reason for this disparity of opinion and enthusiasm? Well, that's probably another post.
For this post, the first of several, I want to do something else - I simply want to play the game at a leisurely/sporadic pace. As I do so, I'm going to document my experiences, as a mix of narrative and opinion. Narrapinion I'd call it, if I was a massive arsehole.
]]>Edit-edit - original download links now contain the fixed version too Edit - fixed, faster downloads are here, here and here. (Thanks, Batolemaeus).
1.09 Gigabytes of vast, highly-anticipated-by-some, German-made roleplaying game await you just here or here. In either case, it's the earliest stages of what's a huge, free-roaming and non-didactic game, casting you as a recent shipwreckee, washed ashore on a rather nasty island. Adventures!
]]>Pirhanha Bytes - the venerated and cheerily mad studio behind the Gothic RPGs - are backbackback with next month's Risen. I've spent a little time with some preview code, and they've just released a making-of video. See how I kill two birds with one stone. I am Bird-Killer, killer of birds.
]]>Hmm, I've seen this sequence of game events somewhere before: shipwrecked up on a beach, where you find some similar washed up loot, then fight something with a stick, and meet a sexy lady. Egad! It seems that the opening sequence of Risen, the new fantasy RPG from former Gothic developers Pirhana Bytes (the new Gothic is being developed by Spellbound, and more on that another time) has happened before. Isn't it... well isn't it the start of Age Of Conan? And possibly another RPG I only faintly recall? Perhaps these games took their cue from the same issue of Fantasy Happenings Journal (For Fantasy Professionals), where ideas for fantasy adventures are free. Free to use. And reuse. And... there's a three part developer walkthrough, and despite my de-Risen of the subject matter (oh, I'm that good) it's worth taking a look. Whee!
]]>The guys behind the Gothic games, Piranha Bytes, are having a crack at an entirely new - yet nevertheless rather familiar-looking - fantasy RPG. It's called Risen, and it's a medieval fantasy RPG. Nevertheless the developers claim that they are using the opportunity to do something fresh: "The newly won freedom is being utilized; a new mythology leaves room for new and original ideas." The game will apparently have a "dirty and used" Mediterranean feel to it, and is set on a Volcanic island. So far the visuals do look pretty impressive - I've posted a bunch of environment trailers below. Whether the game will end up being a satisfying RPG, however, is far from clear: let's see some in-game footage!
]]>The Gothic series often gets mentioned in comments here (usually while you lot are slagging off other RPGs), at which point the RPS hivemind has to don a wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses and sneak away while no-one's looking. We are none of us, you see, terribly familiar with the much-adored German RPG series - which just about makes us Antichrists in the eyes of the cRPG devout. I have a dim and distant memory of suffering almost immediate brutal murder when dabbling with Gothic II years ago, but that's about it. One day, when I have 100 hours to spare, I'll catch up. One day.
Until then, all I can do is point hopefully at the announcement of Risen, a brand new RPG and setting from Gothic devs Piranha Bytes.
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