Piranha Bytes - 15 Year Anniversary Retrospective

It was the 15 Year Anniversary of Piranha Bytes yesterday and Thomas from Gamers.de writes in with their retrospective interview (German only - Google translation here). There are no revelations but fans will enjoy the trip down memory lane.
PCGamesHardware.de also has a (German) retrospective article.
More information.

Trying to be too much of a tease for my taste. They answered "who knows" to both questions about crowdfunding and a new Gothic.

After Risen 2 my enthusiasm for any new games from them is gone. I better get my flame shield ready.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
After Risen 2 my enthusiasm for any new games from them is gone. I better get my flame shield ready.

I somewhat agree with you.While my enthusiasm for their next game isn't gone I am more sceptical about it.Risen 2 was ok game but lot bellow their standards.

Originally Posted by Nameless one
I somewhat agree with you.While my enthusiasm for their next game isn't gone I am more sceptical about it.Risen 2 was ok game but lot bellow their standards.

I agree. It wasn't a bad game just like you said it didn't live up its predecessors. It felt rushed and unfinished.

My enthusiasm isn't gone as if you check Deep Silver forums you'll notice that the game was short and with two silly and practically useless DLC because - Deep Silver wanted such game!
Also, don't you remember the quick patch, just a few days after the game got released, that improved and fixed almost every single "annoyance"? My enthusiasm is gone for Skyrim, not for Risen.

I'll agree completely that Risen2 is not as good as Gothic series and Risen1, but then again, you can't say it utterly sucks.

Risen 1 , and Gothic were good. But Risen 2 was piece of garbage. What does that says about the company is heading

Originally Posted by Twotricks
Risen 1 , and Gothic were good. But Risen 2 was piece of garbage. What does that says about the company is heading

It's hard to take you seriously with comments like that. Did you even play Risen 2? It was sub-par by PB's standards, but it was far from being garbage.

If PB finally did a KS Gothic (since they now own the Trademark, I am unaware if they however own the IP) it would be a huge TakeMyMoney.jpg moment for me.

I thought Risen 2 was quite good, actually. I think the biggest problem was the lack of variation in the environments - but I think it was at least on par with Risen overall.

Hmmm, it will be interesting to see where they go. Risen 2 wasn't great and hat is their latest offering, but they have done great games in the past.

Their one attempt at matching the mainstream with gothic 3 didn't work out so well either, still fan patches comming out for that.

Originally Posted by rune_74
Hmmm, it will be interesting to see where they go. Risen 2 wasn't great and hat is their latest offering, but they have done great games in the past.

Their one attempt at matching the mainstream with gothic 3 didn't work out so well either, still fan patches comming out for that.

I'd much rather they did something similar to Gothic 3 given how we've already had a very conservative and somewhat unambitious attempt at recreating G1/G2 with Risen.

Of course they are never going to get the time and funding that a game of G3's scope and epicness requires not to mention that as long as they are tied to a publisher they will be forced to consider the various limitations of consoles when designing their games.

I agree largely with Kostaz' sentiment in his first post regarding PB's "caginess" on the subject of another Gothic. C'mon, put us out of our misery already by dropping at least some kind of hint!

That said, I got majorly distracted with Risen 2; not sure why, but I just didn't get off the second island. I just didn't find it as immersive as Risen and the melee combat felt disappointing and certainly a step backwards.
I'm hoping to get back into it though once the Summer holidays come around. Maybe then the Gothic feeling of old will return when I have more time to dedicate to it.

Perhaps there's something in the original German that wasn't conveyed in the English translation of the interview though?

Originally Posted by Pessimeister
Perhaps there's something in the original German that wasn't conveyed in the English translation of the interview though?

That wouldn't surprise me considering how poor Google's translation seems in general.

Regarding Gothic though, I'd be happy with a simple HD remake of Gothic 1&2.

Originally Posted by JDR13
That wouldn't surprise me considering how poor Google's translation seems in general.

Regarding Gothic though, I'd be happy with a simple HD remake of Gothic 1&2.

Yeah with new voice-over work maybe if that could be done on a realistic budget.

Any company that can make games like Gothic is one to pay attention to. A new game in the series would be highly anticipated and exciting news to be sure.

I bet they would actually get a publisher for an RPG in the spirit of G3. Of course multi-platform and without the bugs. G3 was by far their biggest commercial success.

Originally Posted by Gorath
G3 was by far their biggest commercial success.

I am surprised by that considering how bugy G3 was on release.G3 is best PB game imo but it became playable years after it released.

Originally Posted by Gorath
I bet they would actually get a publisher for an RPG in the spirit of G3. Of course multi-platform and without the bugs. G3 was by far their biggest commercial success.

IMHO the sheer scale and potential of G3 was what made it memorable rather than it's spirit. A certain degree of "gothicness" (even if only via characters and names like G3) has to be maintained in order to avoid being yet another vain TES knock-off.

I'm sure you're more informed on the specifics of G3's success than me but judging on the production values of the games that followed it I'm not too sure about them being able to attract that kind of investment. Of course they could be just playing (extremely) safe with Deep Silver.