One of the best RPGs of 2009, spiritual successor to Gothic II is getting a seqeuel!

During the press conference at the gamescom 2010 in Cologne, Germany, Deep Silver confirmed officially that Piranha Bytes and Deep Silver are currently working on "Risen 2". Daniel Oberlerchner, brand manager of Deep Silver, also reported this in our forum.

While this is no big surprise for most people, it should discard any speculations and rumours about other projects (i.e. Gothic 5) currently developed by Piranha Bytes. The next game will definitely be a successor to Risen.

The original came out in a real blaze of silence.
I didn't even hear about it until a week before it's release and never heard about it again.
 
You played it?
Which version and how was it?
What's it like? (I've never played the Gothic games)

It wasn't so known among people who didn't play and love Gothic, Piranha Bytes aren't very known. But, they did say that Risen was quite a success, even in the US (Most fans are from Europe).
 
PC version is the one to buy, no surprise there. I heard that 360 version had some technical issues, mostly around textures (which was later fixed with a patch). I have seen people hate and love the 360 version and I can't really say since I never played it on the 360.
 
It's a lot like Gothic, but since you didn't play those (I highly recommend for any RPG fan) it's quite different from games like Oblivion, Fable and such. The world is really immersive and the atmosphere is great. Be warned, though. The game doesn't hold your hand. Which means even a starting enemies like wolves will make short work of you. It's really what gives it that great feeling when you're afraid to venture deeper but it doesn't make you grind insanely at the same time.
 
There's a finely crafted guild system which ads a lot of replay value since you can't join everyone in one playthrough. Depending who you join also has impact on the game world (How others treat you, even some bigger stuff but I don't want to spoil anything). There are 2 main factions, the Don's men and the Inquisition. You play a Nameless Hero (Gothic's Nameless Hero is better, though), washed on the beach of Faranga Island.
 
You can choose to use Magic, or different types of cold weapons (Axes, swords, staves, bows etc.). You can even combine both. Depending on who you join, you will can learn different skills from trainers only in that faction. For example, you can't learn from Don's men if you're with the Inquisition. Each faction specializes in different combat.
 
There is also crafting. You can become a blacksmith, an alchemist, a rune maker, a jeweler etc.
 
Now, the only thing that lacked in Risen compared to Gothic is the lack of memorable characters. Sure, there are some that stand out, but I feel that Gothic was deeper when it came to that stuff.

Sounds interesting, maybe I should look into it.
 
Unfortunately I can't seem to enjoy PC gaming much these days as I just spend too much time in front of my PC all day at work (makes it hard to relax gaming in the same spot that I work all day) so I'd probably prefer to give the 360 version a shot.
 
...the only other problem is that my backlog is long enough without throwing another long-ass RPG into the mix :P

Meh, can't say I'm really excited. 
RISEN felt a bit too behind the times when I played through it. And I don't mean from just a technical stand point. It just seemed lacking that little bit of extra something in almost everything it did. The world was just a bit too small, the character system a bit too restrictive, gear a bit meager,  combat action a bit too stiff, story a bit too generic, music ok but nothing special, same with visuals, dialogue was fine and workable (better then Beths. even tho that's not hard :P) but nothing stood out. It was an ok RPG it just didn't shine at anything particularly and just being average it's other faults became more noticeable.

i remember playing Risen's demo and feeling meh 
 
i'll pass

" i remember playing Risen's demo and feeling meh  i'll pass "

Awesome!