Piranha Bytes - Creative Director Looks Back at All Games

Gorath

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GameStar.de asked Piranha Bytes' creative director Björn Pankratz what PB thinks about their own games now that both the Gothic and the Risen franchise are behind them for the time being. The clou: he had to answer in one brief statement per game. Although I feel tempted to quote the whole piece I'll limit myself to his quote (transl.) about Risen 2:

We've implemented many important new mechanics in Risen 2, which we still use today. [...] But all in all we were too pirate-y. We've lost the fantasy aspect there.
More information.
 
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The one I really meant to quote, but didn't because it would have become to complicated is:

"Risen 3: Titan Lords (2014)
»Bei Risen 3 haben wir das geändert. Das Spiel hat uns sehr viel Spaß gemacht – es ist sehr groß geworden. Allerdings mussten wir es in Inseln aufteilen, weil bis kurz vor Ende nicht klar war, ob wir das Spiel in Episoden rausbringen.«"

Which means:
"We've changed that in Risen 3. This game was a lot of fun for us - it got very big. We had to split it into islands, however, because it wasn't clear until close to the end if we would release the game in episodes."
 
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Episodes? That was a possibility?
I'd never buy that. Risen 3 is not an adventure nor contentvarietylacking MMO.
 
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Risen 3 was a little too big. That last island should have been cut from the game entirely.

I get the feeling that is the case with all of their games since G2. They need to focus their efforts better...I'll take Khorinis over all the cities in Risen any day in the week.
 
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Idk.. I never had that feeling with Risen 1&2. Those games felt about right to me in terms of length.

Gothic 3 was a little too long though, and it had way too many fetch quests.
 
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I get the feeling that is the case with all of their games since G2. They need to focus their efforts better…I'll take Khorinis over all the cities in Risen any day in the week.

I'll take Khorinis over any in-game city, period.

Gothic 3 was a little too long though, and it had way too many fetch quests.

I agree about the fetch quests, but the huge and beautiful world was part of its charm.
 
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Idk.. I never had that feeling with Risen 1&2. Those games felt about right to me in terms of length.

Gothic 3 was a little too long though, and it had way too many fetch quests.

Gothic 3 had a beautifully designed gameworld, one of the very best open-world settings I've ever played. The problem was really the second half of your sentence - the content populating that world was sorely lacking, even compared to cookie-cutter stuff like Oblivion's quest design. Some of the city areas were mostly strong, while others were much weaker - and there was no overarching narrative quality or energy that everything else could plug into. It's a pity, because some great quest/narrative design could've made it an all-time classic.
 
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