Risen 2: Dark Waters Preview and Gameplay Footage

Piranha Bytes’ sequel to Risen is one of the titles that are currently being showcased at GamesCom and, luckily for us, this means that we’re getting new coverage of it, so let’s start immediately with this preview fansite World of Risen has conjured for us:

The first thing that one notices negatively when playing Risen 2 is the new control with the free camera. While it might fit well to a game-pad with its two analogue sticks, it basically just makes everything more complicated. Especially on the PC which in most cases has only one analogue input device the mouse. The activation focus in Risen 2 only locks on to things in viewing direction of the character, not to things in viewing direction of the camera. But the camera is the only thing you can aim directly, at least on the PC. As a consequence, whenever you want to pick up an item or talk with someone or open a chest or plunder a body or ram you épée in somebody’s stomach, you first have to turn the camera towards it. Then you have to press the assigned “Forward” key to get character to turn in that direction, too. This second and completely unnecessary step proves annoying during normal exploration and often fatal during time-critical combat. A simple key with which you could unlock a normally fixed camera (in games with such a function usually called “Free Look”) would be great deal more useful.

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Experience and learning points do not exist anymore. Piranha Bytes changed the skill system and you earn “fame points”. Which are basically just relabelled experience points. These fame points can then directly be invested in skills and perks. So you do not need to for your next levelup anymore and can spend any experience you gain right away. It kind of reminds me of the upgrade xp in The Dark Eye games like Drakensang. But you still need trainers, of course. No clicking in the character sheet here, sir.

Quests often offer multiple solutions and you can save or earn one or the other bag of gold if you talk to people and open your eyes and ears when walking through the world.

Then we move on to some juicy – albeit shaky cam – gameplay footage of the game, offered respectively by Nexplay and TVgry.