At this month's Game Developers Conference, role playing fans (well, journalistic ones) got a glimpse of the sequel to 2009's action RPG Risen, namely, Risen 2: Dark Waters. With this pirate-themed title, developer Deep Silver hopes to redeem itself after disappointing console gamers everywhere with its mediocre, bug-filled port of the first game. From what we saw at the show, they're well on the way to doing that.

Risen 2 to takes place after the first game and features the same hero. He's a profoundly changed man, however, both physically and mentally. Having suffered the consequences of the first game's ending, he's lost an eye, and worse, his confidence. He'll be starting all over again and so will we, this time in a distinctly piratey setting, complete with tumbledown driftwood pirate villages and dual-wielded firearms. During the demo we saw the sunlit village of Antigua, built beachside on stilts and backed by a lush green jungle. We were told then that the game will have a full day/night cycle that will affect your ability to go full-on pirate and steal people's stuff. Obviously, daytime isn't a great time for such things but at night you'll be able to sneak into people's homes and fill your pockets.

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Aside from the change in setting, weaponry in Risen 2 will also see a significant change. Rather than staffs and swords it'll be "all guns, all the time." This makes perfect sense since, well, why would a pirate use a bow and arrows? Players will be able to choose from muskets, shotguns, rifles, and of course, cannons. This thematic realism will be accompanied by a marked improvement in the overall realism of the game world due to a revamped character system. We were shown some of the new-and-improved characters and told that throughout the world, the revamp would result in more detailed and varied NPCs, thus preventing you from repeatedly encountering the same bland, clone-like mission givers. In addition to the character changes, the environments have also had a considerable amount of love. We were shown screens of the previous game's environments for comparison with the new ones and without doubt, Risen 2 raises the bar in terms of beauty and photorealism.

Deep Silver's main goal aside from amping up the realism is to reduce load times, and they're doing that by moving away from the "one big island" model and toward a "many smaller islands" one. There'll be one load time per island, and after that, you'll be free to explore the completely open location in any way you like. This kind of non-linear expansiveness continues from the first game, and while there will of course be missions, curious players who enjoy exploring will be rewarded with hidden points-of-interest.

From what the Deep Silver guys told us, the core RPG mechanic in Risen 2 appears to remain much the same as the first game (or is at least familiar), with leveling and spendable skill points (although they didn't speak much to the way this will work with the new gun-centric weapon system or what it means for melee). The interesting thing is that since you are not starting with a specific class, you'll be able to create any kind of class or specialization hybrid you like. This freeform RPG strategy sounded pretty cool but being a pirate game, we did hope there'd be ships and ship-to-ship battle. Deep Silver told us, however, that they felt it best to focus on doing one thing well rather than doing a bunch of things poorly, which for our money is a smart approach.

And speaking of smart, after learning a hard lesson with Risen (trying to port the PC version over to console with not enough time or resources and ending up with, well, a mess), Deep Silver's taking its time with Risen 2, to make a version specifically for the console. Even better, they're adopting the console controls to the PC version since public feedback told them that console gamers are often confused by PC controls while PC gamers don't mind using the console ones.

While we were unable to get our hands on Risen 2 (we saw real gameplay but weren't allowed to drive), from what was revealed at GDC, the game's shaping up to be leaps and bounds better than its predecessor. The setting alone is a good start since these days pirates seem to be at the forefront of the public's consciousness (witness the highly lucrative Pirates of the Caribbean franchise). Although at this writing many of the details of the game are still unknown, the game is looking great and if it's stable, relatively bug-free, and builds on Risen's interesting RPG mechanics, Deep Silver should have a winner. There is no release date yet for the game, but when we do see it, we'll be sure to let you know.

By Neilie Johnson
CCC Freelance Writer