At Deep Silver's recent press event, the second big game shown was Risen, a great looking third-person Action/RPG by Piranha Bytes, creators of the Gothic series. Kai Rosenkranz, the game's composer (and Jack of All Trades) was on hand with playable PC and Xbox 360 builds of the game, presented in side by side format for comparison's sake. While the PC version was running on a higher resolution monitor, both versions looked exactly the same in terms of details small and large. This was an impressive beginning to the presentation and it only got better.
The gorgeous medieval "Mediterranean" island setting makes for a nice change of pace from more familiar fantasy locales found in other open world RPGs, but Risen also mixes in intriguing elements such as an active volcano, strange temples rising from the earth, a menagerie of menacing monsters and a good deal more. Although the game's four chapters take place on a "small" island, there's a whole lot more to do than you'd think (and the island isn't as small as you'd think once you get exploring). Over 100 separate quests await, as well as the ability to join up with different factions, allowing for the use of certain class-based skills and magic as well plenty of character customization options. So, what's the game experience like? Well, read on for a few details of the first 45 minutes or so of gameplay.
Our avatar woke up on a beach where there's been a shipwreck and he seems to be the only survivor. From the opening moments of looking out into the dense jungle foliage or turning to face the raging sea you washed in on, there's a great sense of place as well as a nice sense of dread, thanks to the dynamic storm raging behind you. Searching around for items (shown as floating onscreen text lest they be lost among the amazingly detailed environment) we eventually find another survivor, a woman named Sarah. After a bit of exposition, she sent up off to look for some sort of weapon. Finding a nearby stick from the ship's wreckage, Sarah then asks us to find some sort of shelter.
Heading through the jungle, we met up with our first enemy, a tall white & black "vulture" that looked like an angry ostrich with a Mohawk. Since speaking softly probably won't do much good, that big stick we found came in handy in terms of beating Big Bird to death. Once that was done, we examined the corpse for a chunk of raw meat, which more than likely meant we'd need to find some way to prepare it for consumption. Moving onward, we soon crossed paths with a big porcupine-like creature that did a diner dash straight at our guy as soon as we spotted it. One direct hit knocked our HP down considerably, but after getting some quick swings in, the beast keeled over. Not too far away was a big, bad wolf to kill or avoid (we went for killing it) and soon enough, the game's first structure appeared in a clearing.
In this rather dilapidated cottage, a bunch of scattered goodies lay about for some easy pickings. There was a frying pan (where you can cook any meat you've taken from the dead animals on a handy fire outside) , a few gold coins, a bed to restore HP, a barrel of rainwater outside and a lot of other items. At this early stage in the game, it's impossible to know if any of the more unusual items are even useful, but the dev team smartly took into consideration the pack rat players out there. Your inventory is unlimited, so grabbing brooms, big rocks and anything else that's not nailed down is up to you. This allows players who want to lug stuff around have that kind of crazy freedom and not worry about finding stashes or how they'll going to carry that big ol' bastard sword they've been eyeballing in the Harbor Town shop. You can play as you wish, so if you like a small inventory that's easier to manage, it's up to you.
With the house located, Sarah can be retrieved and as she's not the fighting type, she decided to stay at the house while we explored some more. Behind the house, there's a pathway that leads uphill where a few more vultures await. While engaging the birds is an obvious way to deal with them, enemy AI tends to be quite fierce once alerted. Running past an alerted creature has it angrily following you as long as possible until you or someone/something else kills it. Not wanting to run into more birdies or baddies, we took them down on an uphill slope and moved on. At the top of one hill, a ruined crypt-like structure at a nice tilted angle looked mighty inviting, yet more than a little creepy. Could this be the game's first dungeon? Well, dear reader.... let's get inside and find out.
Down the dark stone stairs into the blackness we went and and yep, it's a dungeon. A rather small dungeon, at that. Taking a step or two in and we quickly find out that careless spelunking can lead to a great fall. That pit trap we carelessly stepped on drops our guy into a darker hole with a barred door and a big, mean flying moth-thing at the bottom. with almost no room to maneuver, the moth needed to be killed as quickly as possible, as it can whack off about a chunk of HP with a single strike. After beating down the bug, we noticed three chests in the room that were unlocked and looted in quick succession. Heading through the doorway and up a staircase, we came into what we thought was a new room. However, a step or two into the room, yes, sent our man back down the same trap (ouch) into the previously cleared treasure room.
The next time up the stairs, jumping over the trap definitely helped out in leaving the crypt. After heading back outside we decided to explore the area around the structure. Rosenkranz noted that the game world is seamless with no loading screens while traveling, even when entering and exiting buildings. Stronger enemies lurk off the beaten path to keep low-level characters from wandering too far, but again. players can do as they wish. We did find a locked chest tucked away on a ledge that required a quick mini-game to unlock. Pressing the arrow keys or directional buttons simulate turning a combination wheel. Success in this gessing game nets you your goodies while failure has you try again 'til you open the box.
We noticed that In the builds no falling damage was in place, but can't yet comment on how far players can drop without taking damage. We jumped of a small cliff (about 10-15 feet) and suffered not a scratch, but happened to land near a few of those big vultures, which did our poor hero in rather quickly. After reloading and fending off a few more creatures, we decided to go back to the cottage and past it to explore more of the game world. Picking up a few plants on the trek travels (mint, mushrooms, healing herbs and such), we discovered another beat-up house to explore.No sooner had we set foot inside, a cut scene took over introducing a new character and what looked like was going to be a showdown of sorts.
Nope - it's just a guy who asks a few questions about who your anre and such, before noting that this is a really dangerous area (for a few key plot reasons) and to look around and find another weapon in the house. Once that's done (there's a sword upstairs), we found him sitting outside and after some more dialog, he'll escort you to a farm area nearby . Here you can either take on quite a few quests for the different farmers (shades of the first hour of Gothic II) from picking herbs to exterminating a pack of pig-eating wolves to a couple of fetch-quests and the like. Everyone has something interesting to say if you ask, or you can ignore them all and try to make it on your own to Harbor Town. In the farm area, enemies tend to travel in packs (save for a stray boar or wolf near the farmlands), and that sword you just got really won't cut it for long, as we discovered while being killed a few times by giant moths and those annoying vultures.
On the PC version, we got to see a few of the later areas, a lot of magic spells (you learn them as the game progresses should you choose to), a monster menagerie area (which probably won't be in the final build - it was just a map where Rosenkranz showed off some monsters and spells) and even some cool transformations (a big, powerful ape-like brute, and an over-sized floating nautilus, for example). There were other gameplay elements hinted at from blacksmithing to disguising your guy as a town guard or other important person, but we were a bit busy fending off a pack of wolves to take notes. We did hear that yes, there will be a number of Gothic-related references in the game (you'll need to hunt them down, naturally) and a lot more cool stuff, but we decided not to press for more details. Sometimes it's great to be surprised, no?
Speaking of surprising, the graphics in the game are phenomnenal all around. The human and creature character models are stylized (in the manner of the Gothic games) while the island is beautifully and realistically laid out with many varieties of hand-placed plants and other natural objects that bring it to stunning life. There's a day/night cycle, lovely lighting everywhere, plenty of weather effects and you can almost feel the wind in your face when you're in an open field or atop a hill. Villagers and townspeople go about their business whether or not you're in the vicinity and beware if you get some guard-types mad enough to start chasing you. Creature design is an inspired range of familiar animals beefed up to larger sizes and some truly unique fantasy beasties you'll encounter as the game goes on.
As we only got a short amount of playtime, the overall story was only starting to unfold, but that's also part of the game's draw. While there is an overall story path, you'll have the freedom to explore and adventure at will. The game tracks everything and you'll be able to check your journal in case you're lost in terms of what to do next. On the control front, Here's a peek at the Xbox 360 version's controller mapping:
Left stick: Move character (press in to jump)
Right stick: Turn character/turn camera
LB: Draw/sheathe weapons
A: Attack/pick up object/select or use inventory item/interact
B: Block/speed up dialog portions/cancel
X:Dodge
Y: Parry
D-Pad
Up: Inventory
Down: Map
Left: Journal
Right: Character Screen
Start: pause menu/options
Back: Quest menu/stats/other info (with L + R triggers)
With this pick up and play setup, Both PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game should appeal to hardcore or novice players. While PC gamers get the luxury of hotkeys (and more keys in general), the 360 version controls just as well. Naturally, as both builds weren't complete, there were a few minor graphics hiccups in some tight spots when turning as well as some minor clipping we were assured would be cleaned up for the retail version. The English lip synching also needed to be completed, but the voices in the game we heard were excellent all around. We did see a bit of the German version's synch from that more completed build and it's nicely done, so we're not worried about anything on that front.
In fact, we're not worried about much regarding Risen other than whether or not the final version of this epic will live up to the brief time we were able to spend in this small but busy game world. Open world games are ambitious undertakings to say the least and it's quite clear here that Piranha Bytes has certainly learned lessons from the good and bad points in the Gothic series. If they've managed to craft a truly memorable experience with their fourth title, the best game they've made will be the one RPG fans flock to once word gets out. Risen is scheduled for an October 2, 2009 release - we'll have more updates on the game as they come in... stay tuned.
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