Today we saw the new edition of Risen 3: Titan Lords, the enhanced edition. Risen 3 is the 7th game of Piranha Bytes which teams up with Deep Silver. The game has already been launched for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC in august last year.
The enhanced edition of Risen 3 isn’t anything new when you look at the core gameplay mechanics. The developers made it clear that the game is just an improved version of the first edition. There were a lot of hiccups in the game during the launch last year, so they listened carefully to the players and supported the feedback. The enhanced edition has the standard game with all of the DLC, some bonus equipment and a new difficulty. Alongside these content elements, they’ve improved the stability of the game as well as the graphics.
We’ve seen the PS4 version of the game and the first thing I noticed was the slightly improved graphical quality as well as the updated interface. They updated the graphics with a volumetric cloud system and some other graphical tweaks. The interface is more “modern”, there’s no longer one bar on the bottom of the screen but it really looks simple and fresh as it should be. Now you can enjoy your surroundings even more!
For all the players who aren’t familiarized with the game, here’s the basic concept. You’re playing as a new character, you’re the son of the previous main character of the last game. You start off as a pirate making his life enjoyable and then all of the sudden you meet this demon from the underworld who rips out your soul. Thanks to a helpful voodoo pirate, you got a second chance! The only thing is, you’re just a living body with no soul and it’s your job to find it again.
After you regain your body, you’ll be able to choose between factions: mage, voodoo pirate and demon hunter. They all have their special abilities: the voodoo pirate can control people, the mage can use his special sight to find items and enemies rather quickly and the demon hunter can conjure living bodies from the dead that helps him out in difficult situations. Each faction has its own clothing style and you can always switch between factions . So if you’ve made the wrong choice, its easily changed.
As ways of transportation, you start off with a basic ship but from the moment you choose a faction, you’ll get a better ship. There are also skills that transforms your character into a parrot or a monkey. The monkey is small and adorable, perfect for stealing from people. The parrot flies high in the sky to scout ahead. However these transformations can only be used out of combat, it’s just for exploring , travelling and stealing.
Combat mechanics are still the same and it really depends on which weapon you’ll want to use. You have magical attacks, sword swings, crossbow, pistols and gauntlets. There’s something here for every casual player. Attributes grow over time and if the single player action and exploring isn’t enough, you still have the power to start crafting your own weapons and armor.
I really didn’t have the chance to play the game yet but what I’ve seen from the presentation… the game is more polished than before and I really hope they get the chance to have a better launch than last year. This edition doesn’t have any new content to over but it will probably be more enjoyable than the last one. They have a good shot to make this right.
They also gave me some information about their next upcoming game “ELEX”. Elex will be a post apocalyptic fast action paced game and it will have a far more futuristic and darker setting than Risen. For more information about Risen and Elex, stay tuned!
The enhanced edition will be launched the 21st of August but only on the PS4.
