Piranha Bytes Interview, Part One

Russian fansite Risen2.ru had the chance to talk with Piranha Bytes artist Sascha Henrichs, and luckily for us, offers an English-translated version of this chat, too. The interview’s first half deals mostly with generic non-gaming-related questions, with the second part dealing with Piranha Bytes’ work. Here’s an excerpt:

risen2.ru: Ok, that’s enough for this subject. Now turn to the games. First of all, let’s return to the past and speak about your games in general. In your previous games everyone could notice special attitude towards the sea. You are sure to have some favourite novels and movies devoted to sea adventures? Which are they?
Sascha Henrichs As an effects nerd and a fan of mainstream movies I wonder how any old pirate film can compete with Pirates of the Carribean. So I doubt anybody at PB has a secret collection of old pirate films at home where he chose some favourites from.

risen2.ru: The legends about Atlantis and fiction like 20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne offer many interesting ideas for the game industry. Would you like to borrow something for your own games? The setting is quite favourable after all.
Sascha Henrichs Yes why not. Everything you will ever invent storywise will only be a mashup of thousands of impressions you ever had. So might be that there will be some King Kong/WW1/Independence Day/Sesame Street Plot one day… wait a minute I have to write this down…

risen2.ru: It’s no secret that you had to make Gothic 3 different from what you had intended to do at first. Would you personally want JoWood haven’t hurried you with the release so that you might have realized everything what was planned? Or it’s what you’re making right now with your new universe of Risen?
Sascha Henrichs For me G3 is one of my favourites. It was a huge advancement for our game graphics. But I won’t shed a tear over it, these are old stories. Now we have a new Title and that’s completely ok.