Risen 2: Dark Waters Previews

A press demo of Risen 2: Dark Waters was shown at the GDC, and a couple of sites share their impressions. GameSpot writes on changes and improvements.

And as it turns out, the Hero is the grumpiest of all. In a first for a Piranha Bytes game, the Hero does not suffer from amnesia and does remember his hard-fought battles and narrow escapes perfectly well, thank you very much. However, his cool reception by an unappreciative populace has made him bitter and frustrated, though he still seeks to save the world by finding some means to rescue the other islands from their impending doom.

While we took our first look at the game during a hands-off demonstration session, Piranha Bytes representatives took a great deal of time to address the specific complaints from Risen’s fan community, including bland-looking character models, flat-looking environment textures, a lack of variety in enemies to fight, and technical problems in the console versions. The studio is addressing every single one of these concerns by creating highly detailed character models with varied animations and modular apparel that can be more easily mixed and matched, enhanced environment texturing that makes the environments seem much more realistic, simultaneous PC and console development to ensure all versions of the game are created in lockstep, and lots of new enemies to populate the islands.

IGN writes on playing a pirate.

The process of doing this involves winning favor with groups of pirates. Unlike Risen, Dark Waters will feature multiple islands, at least three according to Piranha Bytes. These adventure areas will be smaller in size than Faranga from the first game, but in total will comprise a larger area of land filled with something on the order of 60 to 80 hours of content to play through. Piranha Bytes says that the multiple island setup allows for more exciting exploration, since you can’t run around early on and explore all the terrain. Instead, you’ll need to board a ship in order to travel to a new space, which allows for greater variety in environment design and presentation.

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As most Piranha Bytes fans know and many others don’t, armor sets are always a big deal in the studio’s games. Generally there aren’t a lot of armor pieces to swap in and out every five minutes for minimal statistical upgrades. Instead, armor pieces are spread out. They serve not only as a means up upgrading defensive parameters, but as a status symbol and mark of achievement. Because of that, acquiring a new armor set is a much more rewarding experience than, say, tossing aside a +3 stamina chest piece for a +5 version. Piranha Bytes does not want to abandon the prestige associated with armor acquisition in Dark Waters, though it sounds as though the studio is going to add in more lower level gear to allow you to customize the protagonist’s appearance a little earlier on.

Generally these types of games are not very friendly to new players. They don’t hold your hand through objectives, but require you explore, learn about the NPCs and the game world, and practice combat skills to excel. Past Piranha Bytes games have not been pick up and play experiences, and from the sounds of things Dark Waters won’t be either, which I’m totally fine with. The studio is really good at what it does, as long as the game it winds up shipping isn’t totally broken like Gothic 3.