Risen 2: Dark Waters Preview

Destructoid offers a fairly brief but informative preview piece on Piranha Bytes’ pirate-themed sequel to Risen, which describes the starting hub, the story’s premise and some of the game’s mechanics. Here’s a sampling:

The pirate theme goes all the way to the RPG elements in Risen 2. Some offensive and defensive skills can only be unlocked by fulfilling quests for certain characters, who will then let you train with them. For instance, you can learn the “Silver Tongue” perk (a Persuasion skill) from a whore and pickpocketing from a scallywag. Animals are useful, too — you can transform into a monkey, or even throw your parrot companion at enemies.

While the first game was set on one big island, the sequel now features multiple islands and shoreline areas to quest on. You can use instant transport methods to get around an island, but when travelling between islands, you’ll have to take your pirate ship.

Your ship isn’t just a mode of transport, though; it also acts as a hub for a melting pot of creatures and companions. One of the criticisms of Risen was that characters popped in and out of the story without making the player feel like there was a lot of cohesion and progression in his path. Piranha Bytes wanted to remedy that by making such characters become a part of your life on the ship.

You’ll still insta-travel between islands, however, so there is no naval combat between pirate ships as Piranha Bytes feels that plenty of other games do that already and the focus for Risen 2 isn’t on the elements of those kinds of games.