Risen 3 Beta Videos

Hi friends,

Yesterday when I was searching youtube about new E3 RPG videos in general, I stumbled upon this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_Xjgru_pY

It's not a cam-video or something, actual preview of the Risen 3 Beta. Video is in two parts and 50 minutes in total. Sorry if someone posted this before, but I can't remember it in the news section.

Unfortunately it's completely in german, so I couldn't understand a thing. The game plays and feels exactly the same as Risen 2. Graphics, character animations, assets were completely transfered to R3 it seems, which is not a bad thing if we think about the improvements Gothic 2 made on Gothic 1. Also it's a good thing that therefore devs can involve themselves much with dialogues, story and content rather than struggle with the engine. Also I remember from Alrik Fassbauer's interview in Roleplaying Convention with the devs that system requirements will be same as Risen 2, which is make sense since it uses the same engine.

Combat seems a bit overhauled though, but it is still not Risen 1's superior combat. Anyway I'm always in for a new Piranha Bytes game.

There were some vids with german narrator or something and I didn't want to watch them so can't say if it was already posted somewhere on the forum. Also won't watch this one. Unless someone puts subtitles on it.

But I can say this - I loved Risen 2 for what it is. I hated they sacrificed open world for islandic world, I hated putting 3 DLC with a game. Loved everything else.
If Risen 3 will be like Risen 2, I'll still love it. The only question is will I buy it. Depends on Deep Silver.

I only watched a few minutes but it looks great. After playing Risen 2 I am super psyched for Risen 3. Risen 2 was a wonderful game and 60 hours of game time never flew by so quickly. Long live Piranha Bytes.

joxer said:

I hated they sacrificed open world for islandic world, I hated putting 3 DLC with a game.

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I agree with you on that. I prefer one bigger game map with tougher monsters as obstacles rather than islands that used as chapters.

Gokyabgu said:

I agree with you on that. I prefer one bigger game map with tougher monsters as obstacles rather than islands that used as chapters.

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I think both methods are equally enjoyable.

I enjoyed travelling to the islands in Risen 2 in the order I chose. The islands themselves were very interesting to explore and had a great hand-crafted feeling. Yeah, there was a bit of tunnel design, but the game never felt cramped to me.

The Gothic design on the other hand is excellent as well. I really enjoyed traveling in dangerous areas and being mauled by some exotic monster I wasn't ready to fight yet. Exploration was pretty fun and definitely rewarding in that style.

All in all, I think both ways are fine. One thing I'll say about Risen 2's design is that it compartmentalized the exploration. I am a very thorough explorer and it was nice to have segmented regions to explore. I didn't feel overwhelmed at all exploring the various islands.

Very cool intro\menu screen. It makes me wonder if some of those devs are GoT fans.

Like I said in some other thread: It looks very, very similar to Risen 2. Gameplay, setting, the whole lot. In fact, I'm having a hard time seeing the supposed medieval setting that was mentioned. There might not be as much "yarr matey" in it, but it's most certainly the same era (with guns etc).

Anyway, I always enjoy PB games, so I'm sure I'll enjoy this one too. I doubt it'll become a classic rivalling Gothic 2 though.

I actually liked Risen 2 much more than Risen 1, except for how 'mages' (i.e. voodoo) was so weak. I always play magic characters so I probably wouldn't have finished Risen 2 if it wasn't for having a companion (and then 2 companions), so my suckage was lessened.

I also preferred the island approach. I don't like 'open world' games, it makes me feel uneasy when I don't have a clear indication of where to go. I'm not one to go west just to see what's there, so in that respect I liked Risen 2 better. And of course, the fact that the final 'boss' didn't erase everything my character had learned and turned him into a hammer+shield floor-jumping guy.

You can have a large open world without that feeling, though - if you provide enough incentive for players to explore area by area. That's really my ideal setup - though I do enjoy the concept of sailing and swimming.

I'm not a big fan of "many small islands" - because it takes away from the scope and breadth of the thing.

I prefer 1-3 large landscape areas and an explorable ocean surrounding them - and islands are cool too.

Risen 2 was a good game, but it suffered from not having enough variety in terms of landscape and ultimately the islands started to blend together. That was my experience, anyway.

I'm hoping Risen 3 does more to make each area distinct - and, mostly, does a better job of balancing the various approaches to combat and character building.

As a franchise, Risen suffers from lack of ambition. Dividing the game world is not a bad thing per se, but it's not something I expect from PB. I expect them to create a world as vast and varied as Myrtana, a world which also becomes fully available after one loading section. What PB achieved with Gothic 3 is still unmatched and will remain unmatched until they try to make a game using the same formula. I wonder why they haven't done it already. Surely G3 didn't fail that bad.

Risen 2 was a good game, but it suffered from not having enough variety in terms of landscape and ultimately the islands started to blend together. That was my experience, anyway.

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Yeah, this was a big BIG problem in Risen 2. You couldn't tell the difference between any of the jungles, caves or temples. All the same green, grey and brown sections one after another. Cities and settlements were better designed, but still, they left something to be desired.

Frozen Fireball said:

Yeah, this was a big BIG problem in Risen 2. You couldn't tell the difference between any of the jungles, caves or temples. All the same green, grey and brown sections one after another. Cities and settlements were better designed, but still, they left something to be desired.

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Hmm, I didn't have a problem with this at all. The islands had enough unique locations to make them interesting, IMO. I really didn't notice any lack of variety but I guess that was because I was really enjoying the overall experience. For a 60 hour game I could have kept going and that says a lot about the game to me. It was a really well-crafted world.

Frozen Fireball said:

As a franchise, Risen suffers from lack of ambition. Dividing the game world is not a bad thing per se, but it's not something I expect from PB. I expect them to create a world as vast and varied as Myrtana, a world which also becomes fully available after one loading section. What PB achieved with Gothic 3 is still unmatched and will remain unmatched until they try to make a game using the same formula. I wonder why they haven't done it already. Surely G3 didn't fail that bad.

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Or equally why there are not many developer (with the excpetion of Bethesda and CDProjket) attempting this formula? Its the cost and risk of developing something like G3 are the limiting factors.

Instead of giving up, PB did the right thing of making semi-open worlds that are more dense and focused. Well, that is until they have decent funding to make them competitive to the likes of the Elder Sausage Rolls.

SpoonFULL said:

Or equally why there are not many developer (with the excpetion of Bethesda and CDProjket) attempting this formula? Its the cost and risk of developing something like G3 are the limiting factors.

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I have asked this same question. I often wonder why there is really no competition with Bethesda for open-world RPGs. Maybe the Witcher series is turning into that, we'll see. But as of now they hold the monopoly on these games and it's a shame really that more companies don't try to make games in this style.

Frozen Fireball said:

As a franchise, Risen suffers from lack of ambition. Dividing the game world is not a bad thing per se, but it's not something I expect from PB. I expect them to create a world as vast and varied as Myrtana, a world which also becomes fully available after one loading section. What PB achieved with Gothic 3 is still unmatched and will remain unmatched until they try to make a game using the same formula. I wonder why they haven't done it already. Surely G3 didn't fail that bad.

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As for me Gothic 3 suffered much from a vast gameworld. The world in Gothic 3 was enormous, but also there were too much filler content. Where carefully designed quest structures, meaningful NPC reactions to PCs actions, carefully placed loot in Gothic 1 and 2 was changed to generic quests for each town, generic loot which kills the urge of exploration and NPCs that oblivious to what transpired around them in Gothic 3.

Skyrim suffered from that also. There're some concerns that Witcher 3 will also suffer from that. So I always prefer smaller, but content-rich game world (like in Gothic 1,2, Risen 1,2) to vast landscapes with generic content (like in Gothic 3). I hope Risen 3 will enter the first category.