risen posts

Risen was an alright RPG that focused on an in-depth world and careful fighting mechanics. While we don't really know a whole lot about Risen 2, this trailer gives us our first real glimpse at the new world. With pirates, muskets, and voodoo, it's certainly interesting. We especially love how detailed the cinematic is, and it's close to Blizzard-quality in terms of fluid animation and texture work. If the game is as well-done as this little cinematic is, we'll be thoroughly impressed.

Download the Risen 2: Dark Waters Cinematic trailer
Check out all Risen 2: Dark Waters downloads

The first three game in publisher JoWood's Gothic fantasy RPG series were developed by Piranha Bytes. Then the fourth game in the series, Arcania: Gothic 4, was developed by Spellbound while Piranha Bytes went on to make another open world fantasy RPG series Risen.

Now a fan site's interview with Piranha Bytes' co-founder Mike Hoge has opened up the possibility that the developer will be working on the Gothic series again. According to Hoge's statement, "We get the rights to Gothic back when we have finished Risen 2. Why? Because we did only sell them to our ex-publisher for a certain amount of time ;)."

However another Piranha Bytes team member, Michael Rüve, posted up word (in German) on the World of Players message board that Hoge's statements should perhaps not be taken at face value. There's also the fact that JoWood is currently in serious financial troubles and have delayed two of its upcoming games indefinitely.

[Via Blue's News]

Risen 2: Dark Waters was first announced last August but so far there's been little info on what the sequel to Piranha Bytes' fantasy RPG would be like. That changed today with publisher Deep Sliver finally releasing a press release on the game which offers up some concrete info on the title.

The game itself is set several years after the end of the storyline for the first Risen game, which shipped out in 2009. According to the press release, ".... monstrous creatures have risen from the watery depths of the sea and their attacks have brought all seafaring to a grinding halt." Your player character is, naturally, the only one that can stop the creatures and his adventures take him to a set of island where it's rumored that that the local pirates may be the key to stopping the creatures.

The press release clams that Risen 2 will give the game a number of different choices to solve the game's challenges, along with a "highly interactive environment and a full day/night-cycle affecting countless aspects of the game world." Deep Silver is still keeping mum on Risen 2's release date.

Risen 2 was first announced last August during Gamescom but since that time there's been little to no info on what the sequel to Piranha Bytes' fantasy RPG will be like. This week the game's official web site finally came online, revealing that the game now has a sub-title Dark Waters.

The web site also released the first screnshots from the game and it looks like there will definitely be some kind of pirate theme in this second installment. No other info on the game, including a release date, has been revealed but it will be published once again by Deep Silver.

Are you ready for the airing of grievances? Before you have your Festivus celebration with the silver pole and the feats of strength, check out the latest one day sales deals over at the Steam web site.

Operation Flashpoint Dragon Rising - $3
Dead Rising 2 - $19.99 or $15.99 if you own Resident Evil 5
Alpha Protocol - $7.50
Risen - $14.99
Darksiders - $10
Blur - $14.99
Wings of Prey - $6
Silent Hunter - Save 66 percent of all games in the series
Deathspank -$7.49
Blood Bowl Legendary Edition - $19.99
Patrician IV - $7.50
Mass Effect 1/2 - 50 percent off both games

Risen was a huge sales success on Steam this past weekend thanks to a price cut to $14.99, so much so that many buyers of the fantasy RPG title from developer Piranha Bytes couldn't play the game due to the publisher running out of the required activation keys. Now the game's US publisher Southpeak Games has emailed Big Download stating that all of the people who bought Risen this weekend on Steam have received their keys and can now actually play the game.

So how many copies did Risen sell on Steam during the four-day sales period? While Southpeak Games would not give specific numbers it did say, " ... it sold more copies in four days in the Steam sale than it had since its launch in October 2009 ."

Call of Duty Black Ops finds itself on top of Steam's top 10 weekly sales list for a second week in a row. It's not a shocker to see Treyarch's first person shooter at number one again as the game has also been on top of Steam's player stats ever since its release on Tuesday.

In second place this week is Football Manager 2011, the soccer management sim game from Sega. Fallout New Vegas is in third place this week and in the fourth position is Risen, the 2009 RPG that was put on sale this weekend. As we reported, the game was so popular that Steam has temporarily run out of activation keys to the game. The full top 10 sales list is below:

1. Call of Duty Black Ops - Treyarch/Activision
2. Football Manager 2011 - Sega
3. Fallout New Vegas - Obsidian Entertainment/Bethesda Softworks
4. Risen - Piranha Bytes/Deep Silver
5. Divinity 2 The Dragon Knight Saga - Larian Studos/Focus Home Interactive
6. Civilization V - Firaxis Games
7. F1 2010 - Codemasters
8. Left 4 Dead 2 - Valve
9. Day of Defeat Source - Valve
10. Counter-Strike Source - Valve

It's clear that a lot of people wait for weekend PC game download sales before making their move to purchase a game. Such is the case with Risen's weekend sales event on Steam. The 2009 released fantasy RPG from developer Piranha Bytes and publisher Deep Silver can currently be bought for just $14.99 until 1 pm Eastern time on Monday.

However it looks like the sale was too successful as many people who paid for the game on Steam cannot get the required activation key needed to play the single player only game. The reason? There are currently not enough keys to go around. A post on the Deep Silver message board admits that they did not expect the amount of orders from the sale to be so large. The rest of the activation keys are expected to be made available to Risen purchasers sometime on Monday.

[Via Destructoid]

Thursday brings us some quick and dirty PC game sales that will last for the rest of the weekend. We will post even more sales on Friday but for now check out what's on our docket:

• Steam has put two games on sale this weekend. One is the 2009 fantasy RPG Risen which gets a 50 percent price cut to just $14.99. The other is for F1 2010, the more recent racing simulation. You can get the game for $26.79, a 33 percent savings. Both sales end Monday.
• On the last weekend before it switches from a client to a web-based store, Games For Windows has the indie game Osmos for just $2.49, a 75 percent price cut, until Monday.

The new game announcements from Gamescom keep coming this week. Today it was revealed that a sequel to 2000's fantasy RPG Risen is in development. Risen 2 will once again be developed by Piranha Bytes and will be published by Deep Silver.

The news on Risen 2 comes from the World of Risen fan site who said the announcement of the sequel came at Gamescom during a Deep Silver press conference. No other info on the sequel, including a release date, was mentioned in the news post. The original game, set on a island filled with mythological style creatures, got mostly positive reviews for the PC version but the Xbox 360 port had some technical issues that kept its reviews scores on the low side.

[Via Blue's News]