I don’t know about you, but I miss role-playing games. Not that they caress the soul of oldfags who recognize the world only in an isometric perspective – everything seems to be in order with them, there is a relatively quick release Baldur’s Gate 3 looms, and last year King Arthur: Knight’s Tale pleased fans of the genre, and even the domestic game dev is not far behind, presenting to the public Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. I’m talking about the games of the seventh generation of consoles, when RPGs were more often told about the adventures of a lone hero (well, or a hero accompanied by a couple of secondary characters), they gave plenty of sight of the world around thanks to the camera from the first or third person and relied on the action component when interacting with the outside world rather than rolling imaginary dice when calculating probabilities. Remaster of the first part Risen – this is not the game that someone asked for, but the one that, it turns out, I personally really needed.
After a problematic release Gothic 3 german studio Piranha Bytes terminates cooperation with the publisher JoWood Entertainment and served under the wing Deep Silver, after which he continues to work in his favorite genre. Well, what can a small studio that has been working on “Gothic” from the first day of its existence, release? That’s right, the new “Gothic”, only with a different name. And speaking of the fact that the developers have made Gothic again, I literally mean that Risen is everyone’s favorite and familiar Gothic in everything from the role-playing system to the structure of the game world.
The protagonist – as always a nameless prisoner or a simple stowaway with no clear backstory – finds himself aboard a ship in the midst of a raging storm. The storm is not at all a natural phenomenon, but a consequence of the awakening of Titan – an ancient creature that threatens, of course, all living things. The ship crashes, and the hero finds himself on the shore of the island of Farang, on which the events of the game will unfold. Three factions settled on the island: the Inquisitors, who arrived to study and fight the Titan and captured the port city (“hello, Gothic” #1), the firebenders (“hello, Gothic” #2) and the bandits who settled in the swamp camp (“hello , Gothic” No. 3). Once in an unfamiliar environment, you are free to explore the island in almost any direction. The only obstacle may be the sudden death of a character at the hands of enemies, most of which are too tough for an unpumped protagonist, so your first task will be to establish relations with the local population with the obligatory entry into one of the three factions. And this is perhaps the most interesting and variable stage of the game.
Each of the parties is attractive in its own way and offers a unique set of quests, the completion of which will allow you to join one or another group: in the swamp camp you will be made into a typical redneck who knocks out money for protection from the workers and holds authority among the fighters; inquisitors stationed in the port city will offer to work for the good of society, helping the owners of city shops and the administrative elite; well, firebenders over time can accept you into their monastery as a novice, where they will teach humility through sweeping floors and fulfilling the instructions of the masters.
