Risen 2 - Interview @ Hooked Gamers
 

Piranha Bytes' Björn Pankratz has been interviewed at Hooked Gamers, offering some general background on Risen 2:
More information.

I've thoroughly loved every one of their games so far (yes, even Gothic 3), and that includes the "awkward combat system". The game will probably the GOTY for me, but I hope they haven't changed to much…

It will be interesting to see if they can do something more out of your relationship with Patty, as that was something I found a bit dissapointing in the first game (one thing I truly liked with Dragon Age Origins was your relationship with your companions). I would like to care more for a the characters and/or the surroundings than I did in Risen…

I don't recall finding the combat in Risen to awkward at all. I can understand that criticism when talking about the earlier Gothic titles, but I thought the melee combat in Risen was excellent.

Maybe they were talking about the 360 version; the PC combat was responsive and intuitive, says I.

PC combat was great.

Certainly prefer the risen combat to vanilla TES, including Skyim which imho has the best so far

The combat in the Gothics/Risen (Well Gothic2 and its refinement/streamlining in Risen) is probably the only ARPG combat I actually like and one of the few cases that doesn't devolve in a clickity click mess. It is also the only one that comes in mind, where investing skill points actually changes the way the controls/attack speed/animations handles giving you a more immediate feeling of progression and changing dramatically the way you play and which enemies you can defeat (and with some good planning equipment and player skill you can defeat the tough ones way ahead of time if you are so inclined)…

Let's hope it doesn't turn into something too ARPG generic…

Gothic/Risen have some of the best combat systems I'm aware of. Awkward?

Maybe they mean "challenging"? :)

Depends whether you get used to it or not. People with … "mouse swing problems" definitively have a disadvantage.

Combat system in Risen is by far the best I've seen in any first or 3rd person RPG.

I'm always confused by the press complaining about combat in Gothic/Risen and yet all the fans of the games quite enjoy it, myself included. It always felt pretty comfortable to me.

I do think most press people are simply copying from eacht other. Like "I've read about the ackward controls in the Gothic series and didn't give much time to try out Risen" so I just simply put that in my post about the new game. In my experience many games have ackward controls until you just get used to the control scheme. I remember playing Super Monaco Grand Prix on my sega 16bit console (aka mega drive) and I simply couldn't finish unless it was last place again. I had to put time in getting to know the controls and getting to know the circuit. Even today that comes in quite handy to much more modern games like a Gran Tourismo.

That's also the reason why "WE" aren't complaining about the controls. We got used to them and learned to play with them unlike one of the press.

This.

Risen is the best game for compulsive explorer. So much to do and discover.

As for combat I didnt have problems with it. Hope they wont ruin it with changes.