Risen 2 - First Information Soon?

World of Risen has suddenly sprung to life with new posts suggesting Risen 2 information is just around the corner. My German is worse than rusty but the game has appeared on Amazon's listings and apparently the 19th will see subscribers receiving PC Games.de, where the game will be unveiled (if I understand correctly). The new composer is also named - Bastian Seelbach - with Kai Rosenkranz having left (which I'd missed previously, sadly).
More information.

Finally more information on the game.Its been a year and there was no new information released I was getting worried. If you go by the forum post they supposedly changed the formula to make it a better dame. Hopefully they don't mean its been simplified.

Could you see, what KaiRo is doing now?

Originally Posted by bkrueger
Could you see, what KaiRo is doing now?

KaiRo is now running his own company called Nevigo Entertainment. From their profile page:

Nevigo GmbH, a technology enterprise headquartered in Bochum, Germany, deals with the development of visualization software for real-time applications. The company was founded in 2009 by Stefan Nyul, Kai Rosenkranz, Peter Sabath, and Carsten Schröder.

The company's development of new technologies focuses on the vision of creating synergy between the production processes of movies and video games and thus opening up new possibilities for the cross-medial implementation of contents. Nevigo meets the need for new entertainment formats in the convergent media world with innovative concepts and specialized technological approaches. With its experienced team of games and movie experts, Nevigo supports developers of cross-medial products, providing them with powerful tools for achieving maximum productivity and quality.

It's hard to imagine a PB game without Kai's music. On the other hand I'm surprised with them choosing Seelbach who afaik worked on ArcaniA.

I still listen to G3 music on youtube from time to time when I need to relax, sad he's gone

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXjJi…eature=related

PB talks less, but works hard it seems. Risen is a good game, but so many people wrote negative reviews of the game, they said it sticks too much to the Gothic formula. I'm sure after they saw Arcania, they understood their mistakes.

Anyway Risen has the best melee combat that I have seen so far in a third perrson action RPG. I hope they will keep it and won't dump down it in Risen 2.

Risen`s soundtrack is about the best I`ve heard in a western RPG. Same about ambient sounds.

So more news early next week, perhaps. Sure hope so. I enjoyed Risen quite a bit, even the cruddy 360 version.

Originally Posted by Kostaz
It's hard to imagine a PB game without Kai's music. On the other hand I'm surprised with them choosing Seelbach who afaik worked on ArcaniA.

Why? Where Arcania's sound & music below par? They found somebody with two big productions (acc. to German standards) under his belt. Sounds like a logical choice.

Seelbach worked with Dynamedion on both projects. Maybe they'll write the music.

Have to empathise about the loss of Kai Rosenkranz; that's a sore blow to PB continuity for Risen 2. All the best to him in his future endeavours.

It's difficult to state precisely - for me it's not a question of being technically sound, rather how well the new composer can adapt and slide into what PB does and expects.
Arcania's music was merely perfunctory and not in the least memorable for me. However, perhaps that has just as much to do with the game itself.

But in my opinion Kai has been a truly central binding element to the atmosphere of Gothic and I'm sure I'm not the only one who listens to his work outside of playing the games. Risen's soundtrack was fantastic - beautiful evocative stuff. It's the sole reason I'm still after the collectors edition.

So in conclusion, mixed news - but overall it's good to hear a little glimmer about Risen 2.

Doesn't anyone notice that his name , the composer's , is a great anagram

I'm not happy to hear that Rosenkranz isn't doing the soundtrack for Risen 2, but it's still going to be one of my most anticipated games.

Originally Posted by Gorath
Why? Where Arcania's sound & music below par? They found somebody with two big productions (acc. to German standards) under his belt. Sounds like a logical choice.

Arcania's music was its strongest point imo, but I thought the BGM in Risen was closer to the earlier Gothics than Arcania was.

Well… I guess it only makes sense that Risen would sound more like the earlier Gothics than Arcania did.

ArcaniA had good music indeed, but still.. damn, no KaiRo, that's quite a blow.

Hopefully we get some good news soon then to make up for this bad news.

Hmm, not really a big deal to me.

I'm much more excited by what they're doing with the game design. I'm really hoping for something more than "just" another Risen.

Even if it IS just another Risen, it'd still be better than most other CRPGs - so it's almost certainly a win-win.

I seem to remember some hints pointing towards underwater areas in that "work at Risen" video.

Would be very interesting to see how PB would deal with such an environment. I've yet to see a CRPG really deal with underwater stuff with much success.

To an extent, Ultima 9 did it quite well - and WoW within the limits of what's possible in an MMO.

Other than that, I think we have to go all the way back to Black Crypt to see great underwater levels.

Oh, and that one section in KotOR was pretty cool as well.

I would be happy if they just built on the Risen tech and developed a similar game, but with:

- One or two more towns. Enough to fill an entire game with classic Gothic/Risen gameplay without resolving to mindless combat chapters late in the game.

- More *optional* secret areas. Every time I play G2:NoTR I discover new things and new hidden caches/locations - but with Risen I got the feeling I had seen most of the stuff with a single play-through. Underwater gameplay could help here.

Well.. that's a very short list, but that's all it would take to make me happy with a sequel. Oh, and keep the combat as it is please!

Curious if they will stick to their "formula" or decide to stick their neck out a little further again trying something more ambitous or novel (after it was almost chopped off after G3).

Yes, I'm very curious about that as well - I hope Gothic 3 didn't kill their ambitions/ability to innovate.

I'm confident that Risen 2 will at least feature a larger landmass to explore.

My biggest hope is that PB will reintroduce swimming and diving as gameplay features. Hopefully the hints about possible underwater areas point to that being the case.

I picked up the original Risen during a holiday sale last year and am currently playing it and thoroughly enjoying it. News of a sequel in the works is just what I want to hear. I have to agree with the others that the combat is the best I have seen in a long time and I hope that remains unchanged.

Lock picking was another thing that was well done. The first 20 times the Oblivion lock picking mini game was fun, but it quickly became a hassle having to do that another hundred times over the course of the game. In Risen you learn the pattern - you are going to break a pick or three but eventually you are going to get it. That was also it's downfall too - nothing to stop you from saving and reloading to open the chest or door without breaking a lockpick.