Piranha Byte’s science fantasy is due out later this year. There’s an English presentation here:
The backstory sounds interesting to me. Everything else is fairly familiar. Their technology looks ok - it does look like animation is becoming the third A in triple A these days though… I hope there’s enough to the writing to keep it in the RPG camp rather than the action open-worlder, where it would struggle a bit given some of the recent entries in that genre.
Day one!
The first part rendering was lovelly, nice to see it can render long distances too. The combat and movement a bit awkward, like this is still the first or second gothic, haha. The change of settings seems maybe a “lets do the next game in a different world”, more out of boredoom than anything. I hope they have a good story to tell.
So killing a dude give you 150XP, a main story quest will be 15000XP and a side quest 1000XP, probably. Looking at that made me smiley, is a Gothic game.
I’ve had my eye on ELEX for a while now. I love Gothic, so I’m curious.
Something about the openness doesn’t appeal to me. There are shots where I can see a fair distance… and there’s nothing interesting to see there. Maybe it’s to do with the more up to date setting. In a pre-industrial world, everything works on a human scale and the fact the next dip in the ground might hide a turnip can be quite important. With more advanced options, the things you consider to achieve your goals are more sophisticated… In a world with working chainsaws, it doesn’t really matter what’s in the next field. You have options which give you mastery over the world on larger scale than that. Kind of.
Maybe they use tricks like hide a whole cave system behind a bush and that type of stuff you have in the older titles.
PB are skilled in world design, and there was a time in the early 00s when they were doing it better than anyone else. Definitely interested in this as I’ve been hoping they’d do an SF game, but the graphics look a bit ropey for 2017. It really doesn’t look good in comparison to the Witcher or Horizon.
Yeah, Gothic 2 has, to me, the most interesting world design I ever played.
What does ‘science fantasy’ mean? I realize my question could be answered by watching the video but I’m on my phone and at work so I can’t watch just at the moment. Are we taking post apocalyptic, or alien planet exploration, something else? I’d be way more interested if it’s not another bog standard D&D affair.
It’s post apoc, but with a new element on Earth which grants “magical” powers.
Don’t think that’s Earth…
I do like the way they moved away from their low fantasy Gothics to experiment with Pirates in the Risen series and are now trying something different again. It does look a little like a Fallout wannabe.
Interesting the Bioware games and the Elder Scrolls games also have stiff animation. I wonder if first person games might have an easier time in that regard, just by not focusing attention on the main character’s movements. But people do love dress-up…
Lengthy previews in German…
Are the original designers of Gothic 2 still at PB? I loved that game.
For some reason I thought I heard otherwise.
I like the premise, the engine looks OK, and I LOVED Gothic 1 and 2. I will almost certainly get sucked into this one on release.
This looks a lot like a Gamma World CRPG, which is long overdue :)
15 years are an eternity. I would say roughly half the key guys for world design, game design and story are still there. Others are at PB for a decade now. The feeling I get from the German forums is that there’s little fluctuation … but even 2 fresh people per year adds up in a team of ca. 30 people now and even less then.
The difference to the original Gothic is even bigger because their mother company imploded between Gothic and G2.
If the game ships with a guy describing in German everything I’m doing as I’m doing it, Bastion-style, then I’m sold.
And a release date of Oct 17th 2017.
Small preorder discount on Steam makes it $45.
It’s around $8 cheaper on GoG and Gamersgate.
Not sure whether to wait for reviews or not. Enjoyed the Risens, but I hope the formula has been mixed up a bit.
Price is $45 on all three for me… I think it’ll be the usual systems in a new-ish setting. I’ll give it a go. I’ve decided I have to support the slightly smaller RPG devs. I’m working through Technomancer, and am looking forward to the Two Worlds II dlc :)
Oh cool, THQ Nordic is involved.
No-one likes a smart-arse.