Risen 2: Dark Waters Previews

Despite the fact that it’s been more than 2 weeks already since E3, previews and articles based on the event keep coming out, just like these new previews we’ve rounded up for Piranha Bytes’ open-world pirate-themed action-RPG Risen 2: Dark Waters.

RPGSite:

The weaponry and skills have also seen a much-welcomed exponential change. The developers wanted to go for a much more authentic pirate-y feel for the game’s design, so they have thrown away the shield and in its place have given the player the ability to hold pistols, shotguns, shotguns, muskeys with bayonets,bombs, powder kegs, and even sand to throw in the eyes of the enemy. Each weapon has a melee function if you need to CQC your ass out of those tight situations. The combat itself is full of swordplay, with parries and counters coming into heavy use. You can even use your trusty parrot to distract an enemy before ramming your sword into their necks.

It goes without saying that the developers of Risen 2 heard all the complaints that their first game received and quickly set to work completely overhauling each and every single issue that they could find that fans had problems with. Even the guy demoing the game for us admitted that even they thought that the “characters looked like shit” along with the animations and graphics. Instead of suffering from bland and muddy environments, the living, breathable world is bursting with vibrant colors, big bright skies, deep oceans, and and extremely lush vegetation thanks to the inclusion of tone mapping that makes everything pop. The game even includes dynamic lighting, weather, and creeping shadows.

Everything in the world is also hand-crafted and hand-placed – no random generation, no cookie-cutter dungeons. The world’s citizens even follow their own day/night cycle of getting up in the morning, go to work, come home at night, and hit the sack. Don’t feel left out, however – any job you see people doing, you can pretty much do yourself.

Spong:

Whereas the last game allowed you to get medieval on an enemy’s ass, here you’re living the life of the seven seas. So no shield for you, and an extravagant pirate sword for your chopping pleasure. This gives you a free hand in Risen 2, which Piranha is taking advantage of by allowing players to customise exactly what goes in it. A second sword, a pistol, even a parrot that can be deployed to distract enemies… plenty of possibilities there.

You can take command of your own ship as well, which is rather fitting of a buccaneer such as yourself. As you sail between locations, you can speak to the crew on your ship and find out their morale and abilities. When disembarking to accomplish various missions, you can choose a couple of crewmen to assist you on your adventures.

All of these improvements must sound like heaven for those who played the first Risen game. They don’t come at a compromise to the game’s depth – 40-60 hours have been promised in the final version, along with legendary items to collect and a tweaked difficulty curve that isn’t as harsh as the one in the first game.

Gamertag Radio has a really short piece:

Now for those that are new to Risen, Risen 2 is an open world action RPG that aims to bring an unique single player experience. The main character is a nameless hero that makes a return from the first game. The unnamed hero is now a broken down man that has turned to alcohol and taken to the sea as a pirate. Piranha Bytes says the game will feature between 300-400 quests, supplying at least 40 hours of game play. The hands-off demo was focused on showing the world they had crafted that will ensure the player doesn’t see familiar or repeated dungeons and environments. From what I saw, Risen 2 will be graphically competent with a lush living world. Risen 2 is not due out on PC and consoles until sometime in 2012, which makes this glance fairly early in the development process, but it may still be a good idea to keep an eye on Risen 2 since it seems to have some potential as being one of the better open world RPG’s available on consoles.

Finally, GameFront inserts Risen 2 in a piece on sequels that could redeem their franchise, though obviously your mileage may vary on whether the franchise needs to be redeemed in the first place:

2009’²s Risen was a fairly interesting action RPG, notable for its unique setting (a mediterranean island with varying climates and environments). It didn’t suck but it was a fairly unremarkable, by the numbers fantasy plot, and the game also came with some pretty big flaws, including 1) a very gigantic discrepancy between PC and console graphics due in part to the console version having been outsourced, and 2) a hell of a lot of level recycling.

At E3, I spent half an hour with reps from Deep Silver for a look at Risen 2: Dark Water, and while I wasn’t able to actually play the game it is still very early in development, so the presentation consisted of screen shots and a brief demo played by one of the attending reps what I saw has a lot of promise. After acknowledging the significant differences between Risen’s PC and Xbox graphics, they showed off the vast improvements for Risen 2. Improvements made possible in part because they’re developing both versions simultaneously, rather than outsourcing the console version long after the PC version is done. While Risen 2 still won’t look as good on Xbox as it will on PC, it looks leaps and bounds better than Risen did.