Let's talk again about Risen 2: changes in the game from the perspective and feelings of goths.
Foreword.
In the upcoming Risen 2, Piranha Bytes promises us a lot. They promise an improved dialogue system, now involving NPCs which will make the chatter livelier and more interesting. They promise enhanced facial expressions that should make the computer characters more lifelike. They promise a truly large and immersive world, an interesting plot, they promise, they promise, they promise… In short, they are promising diligently and zealously, as developers should. Most of these promises, however, do not seem groundbreaking; they are rather standard.
Out of this heap of promises, however, several stand out as quite intriguing, though certainly not revolutionary for the RPG genre as a whole, but definitely for this particular subgenre of “Gothic-like” games. At least this change is extremely uncharacteristic for the genre. It's about these changes that I wanted to discuss with you, sharing my humble opinion, while also hearing the opinions of the Goths on the site.
And today, these people responded to my questions:
PriTVora – an orthodox Goth, sacrifices piglets to Beliar on Sundays, drowns kittens in the name of Innos on Mondays. In the red corner of his den, he has built an altar dedicated to the true Nameless One. He knows the names of all secondary, tertiary, and even quaternary characters in Gothic. Shot Kennedy.
ArDec – a fanatical Goth, worshipper of Adanos, wrote a treatise “All About the Behavior and Physiology of the Grim Reapers,” claiming to have co-authored it with Xardas.
Ksandr\_Warfire – a moderate Goth defector, sharpens a silver sword during the day in Vyzima, disappears into the hookah lounge of Khorinis at night.
Soth – an introverted Goth.
FruktoZa – a militant Goth, fears meat beetles, has repeatedly claimed in court that Beliar made him personally kill all those people.
SteelAss – an eccentric Goth, it's said that once a guy teased a hungry troll with his bare a**; after this sadly ended incident, he got his current nickname.
There were also two young gentlemen - geniym and Xiao, whom I personally don’t know much about, but they are probably just as cool as the other respondents.
Chapter One, in which we will talk about the change of setting,
the pros and cons of a pirate atmosphere.
I know you knew, yes. You couldn't not know. To be unaware of the first and foremost fact about the game could only be the case for someone who doesn't care about the game. If you're still reading this nonsense, then you’re not one of those. You know. You know that the second part of Risen changed its setting entirely along with its setting.
This is Captain Jack Sparrow, he is angry that after all these years of Caribbean pirate mania, no one has made a decent pirate game.
Piranha has spat on everything beloved and dear to every Goth – on crooked staves and taut crossbows, on gigantic swords and carved shields, on idiot paladins in forged armor and grey-haired mages in volume multicolored robes. In general, they have disregarded the “holy spirit” of a littered medieval setting. What have they proposed instead? The atmosphere of pirate fantasy! I don’t know about you, but I was surprised. Agree, these changes are radical.
The question - “Why PIRATES suddenly?!” - is appropriate. The answer - “Why not PIRATES?” - also has the right to exist. Pirates – at least it’s fresh and not overdone. Personally, I can't recall a truly role-playing game made in a similar setting, which is quite strange.
Moreover, Piranha's love for pirates has been known since the predecessor Risen. The second and a half chapter of Gothic gifted us the cunning Greg – a charismatic guy in a fashionable tricorn, along with a whole pirate settlement.
This is Captain Greg, he is upset that he won't appear in
a full-fledged pirate game from Piranhas.
The existence of pirates in the world of Risen also cannot be shocking, as pirates felt quite at home in the first part of the game. A gang of pirates in the port city fit quite organically into the medieval world, causing no rejection. Moreover, the mere existence of the port city subtly hinted that the human civilization, ruined by the cursed titans, was familiar with seafaring. And if treasure-laden ships are navigating the seas, there are bound to be antisocial elements trying to illegally seize these riches.
So it seems there’s nothing to be surprised about, and yet, it’s all still surprising. Or rather, unusual? Does the pirate environment of the new Risen really differ from the classic world of Gothic? Remembering the first part of Gothic, which took place in a huge prison filled to the brim with criminal elements. Say the wrong thing – get punched in the face, engage in a scuffle with the “right guys” – enjoy a free laparotomy with a rusty sword in aseptic conditions. Setups, jabs, treatment of you as a piece of brown substance stuck to the sole of a wool boot – we’ve seen enough of this in Gothic. Subsequent parts of the game, however, were no less “friendly” to the main character. So what then is so different between the world of medieval thugs and punks and the world of merciless pirates? Wide-brimmed hats with ostrich feathers? That's not scary, even amusing. A raucous bar fight doesn’t catch us off guard, even if your opponent has a parrot on his shoulder and a pine stick for a left leg.
This is Captain Bald Steelbeard. Judging by his demeanor – a scoundrel and a rogue. A pirate, what did you expect?
From all of this, one question arises - “How will the Goths react to the change of atmosphere?” There may be two reactions to this fact. The first – a bout of neurasthenia - “Where's my fantasy medieval?! Where are the mages and paladins?! Where's all this?!”. The second could be entirely the opposite - “Anchor me in… well… let’s say, in my throat! A change of atmosphere is exactly what the series needs! It’s a breath of fresh sherry!”.
So, my first question asked of these people was precisely:
How do you feel about the change of atmosphere in the upcoming Risen 2? How will this change affect the atmosphere of the game?
Absolutely positively. I remember