Risen Preview

The upcoming Xbox 360 version of Risen is the subject of yet another hands-on preview, and this time it’s courtesy of the guys at 411mania.

How you gain training in swords, stealth, and magic is also different than in other games. Normally, one would level up and choose their skills from a tree, but in Risen players must cultivate relationships with NPCs that would be able to train them in the various martial and magical arts.

So much of this game is driven by your interactions with other characters for instance, if you go into someone’s home they will ask you to leave if you haven’t been invited in and if you take from their home they will attack you. Each individual NPC remembers their interactions with you. Admittedly, there is a “get out of jail free card” that helps to gain favor among towns-folk you may have wronged. By using a “tell joke” spell scroll you can make people forget about your wrong-doings. Players will need this in case they fall out of favor with quest-specific NPCs.