Risen 2 - Bestiary Trailer

With the X360 release of Risen 2 coming up at the end of the month, a new 4-minute bestiary trailer has been released.

A compendium named "Bestiary of Arborea" now allows a deeper knowledge of the hideous monstrosities that infest the world of Risen 2: Dark Waters.

Since the Titan Lord Mara unleashed her dark powers, fearsome beasts have invaded the world of Arborea. These fiends endanger sea travel and trade routes, cutting off the supply of vital goods for the population of each island. From gigantic Leviathans, nasty sand devils to drowned undead seamen, these monsters lurk everywhere and will make a pirate's life one deadly adventure!

Risen 2: Dark Waters is already available on PC and will be released on the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PlayStation®3 on July 31, 2012 in the USA and Canada and on August 03, 2012 in European countries.

More information.

I wonder if staggering release dates for different platform versions has a negative impact on sales.

For example, Witcher 2 had a relatively strong initial release on PC with 750k units sold, but by the time the Xbox version came out, perhaps potential buyers saw it as an older title, resulting in around 400k units sold for Xbox. In contrast, most multiplatform titles tend to sell much more units on console.

In the case of Prototype 2, it launched on Xbox and PS3, and the sales were so bad that Activision decided to shut down Radical Entertainment. If it had launched on PC at the same time, perhaps those incremental sales might have had some sort of impact. Now it's going to launch for those of us on PC in a few weeks and it already seems like an old title.

I think the negative reviews that are out there so far will cause more problems. Never know, they may have corrected it for the xbox version.

Probably the biggest mistake was releasing the PC version before this one.

Re:- Probably the biggest mistake was releasing the PC version before this one.

That ain't necessarily so..

Risen 1 got some really trash review scores mainly from the console casuals but better reviews from PC types, therefore the strategy to read the more favourable PC review firstly would understandably have the better impact - in which case a stagger strategy makes some sense.

(similar to Count Choc's thoughts)

Originally Posted by Wulf
Re:- Probably the biggest mistake was releasing the PC version before this one.

That ain't necessarily so..

Risen 1 got some really trash review scores mainly from the console casuals but better reviews from PC types, therefore the strategy to read the more favourable PC review firstly would understandably have the better impact - in which case a stagger strategy makes some sense.

(similar to Count Choc's thoughts)

I used to think staggering releases provided more opportunities to re-promote your title. With shorter news cycles and fickle buyers, I'm not so sure. Not only is the game older in the eyes of consumers, but retailers have an excuse to order less units. For example, perhaps Wal-Mart orders less copies of the Xbox version if the PC version has already been sitting on their shelves for a few months.

Originally Posted by Wulf
That ain't necessarily so..

I meant it more in the vein of giving the PC version more polish and not releasing it in unfinished state (dodge).
Graphical quirks and especially the lack of dodging likely influenced reviews/metacritic score quite considerably (not that I care about metacritic, but some people do).

I just think it's a bad look in general to delay on one platform like this, particularly when they were initially intended to be released at the same time.

The content is already done, we know that. The fact that they haven't gotten the engine running correctly on the xbox would make me concerned (if I owned an xbox) that they don't have the skills to do it… ever.

Delayed ports almost never sell well regardless of whether it's a PC or console port. Any hype the initial release will have had will be long gone and most publishers won't even bother marketing the delayed ports. Anyone who really wanted to play the game will have likely already done so on the original platform(s).

Risen 2 will sell like crap on consoles, just like Risen 1, Divinity 2, Witcher 2, Half-Life 2, F.E.A.R., NOLF, etc. I don't know why publishers even bother. Releasing a game on consoles does not guarantee success, especially if the game doesn't have high production values or a huge marketing budget.

I had the impression that The Witcher 2 sold fairly well on consoles.

I agree with DeepO though, they should have delayed the PC version by a few weeks instead of adding those tweaks with the patch.

Originally Posted by JDR13
I had the impression that The Witcher 2 sold fairly well on consoles.

It sold around 400k units on Xbox worldwide. As it sold 750k packaged retail PC copies (not to mention PC digital downloads) and taking into account the fact that for most multiplatform releases the console version sells much better, I suspect if it had launched Xbox and PC at the same time it might have been more successful.

It's funny that they dumbed down Risen 2 for console retards and it made most money from PC sales.

Originally Posted by kasp
It's funny that they dumbed down Risen 2 for console retards and it made most money from PC sales.

Risen 2 isnt out yet for consoles, they're discussing Witcher 2.

Originally Posted by vurt
Risen 2 isnt out yet for consoles, they're discussing Witcher 2.

Risen 2 was dumbed down for consoles, PB even admitted it, because of what happened with the first Risen.

And last time I checked the thread was about Risen 2.

Last time i checked they were discussing Witcher 2, last time i checked game isnt out, last time i checked OT in threads happens all the time

Originally Posted by kasp
Risen 2 was dumbed down for consoles, PB even admitted it, because of what happened with the first Risen.

And last time I checked the thread was about Risen 2.

News to me. Would you happen to have a link to where PB admitted anything like that?
The only reason I know of why the first Risen sucked ass on the 360 had absolutely nothing to do with the game not being "dumbed" down enough (I'm sure it was dumb enough even for a Wii already ) but it had everything to do with the game being a piss poor port of the PC version. That was the main issue of every console review. The game had major bugs and technical/performance issues on the console.
What PB admitted in that context is that the studio that did the port (Wizarbox) did not get enough support from them and that they wanted to do a better job of providing support and assistance with regard to the Risen 2 port.
It seems like they kept that promise since the console delay is an indication that they wanted to give Wizarbox more time to do a proper port this time and after having finished the PC version, there are free capacities at PB right now to give Wizarbox a helping hand whenever needed.