An event commonly known as "The Dark Wave" swept over the lands,
unleashing magical storms and other dangers that lay whole cities to waste.
With most of the worlds cities in ruins, people are forced to live in Enclaves,
the last safe retreats on the planet.
The king then founded an organization called the "Inquisition" and sent
a fleet to investigate the cause of those problems.
They arrive at a distant island and take over the command there,
forcing people to stay in the city and calling the island "forbidden" to them
(thus the forbidden island).
People are recruited by force to assist the Inquisition.
The hero gets washed ashore after his ship got destroyed by a storm.
There is a faction which opposes the Inquisition and which lives in a hideout in the wilderness.
One of those outlaws is the first person the hero meets.
He tells him if the Inquisition catches him running around,
they will throw him into the temple where he will face brainwashing and "recruitment by force".
He also offers him to escape that fate by joining the outlaws.
From here on its up to the player if he follows him to the outlaw hideout
or if he stumbles into the Inquisition.
The fighting system has a mouse and keyboard input,
you can strike in different directions using the cursor keys.
Q&A:
Q: Is the ship from the trailer the ship that the hero was on ?
A: Yes.
Q: I read the line "Release 2009" on the screen - can you tell us anything more about that ?
A: We will release the game when we feel it is ready, not before it is completely done.
Q: Will the monsters level with the player like in Oblivion ?
A: It has been like that in G3, but we dont do that anymore - everything will be handmade,
from monster levels to the content of chests...we will insert it by ourself.
Q: How will the hardware requirements be ?
A: The engine isnt completely done yet, so we cannot specify that just yet.
Q: If I join the Outlaws and if I will be captured by the Inquistors later in the game, how will that play out ?
A: We arent telling you yet.
Q: How are the dungeons done ?
A: We put way more work into the dungeons - traps, riddles etc. will be included.
Most dungeons take not that much time to clear, but there are some bigger ones which can keep
you occupied for an hour.
Q: How will the experience system work ? Do you keep the old system or... ?
A: We kept the character system, we wont use a lot of stats but focus more on combat skills.
Q: Will the hero have a name ?
A: It is not decided yet.
Q: How will the difficulty be ?
A: We will implement different difficulty settings to offer all players a good challenge without frustration.
On the "normal" setting it will already be a challenge, because the combat system rewards skill and you will need to play it out right to beat the game.
(note on my side: it was confirmed that with improved combat skill your animations in
combat look more skilled and swift, also that certain weapon types have bonuses against
certain monsters. Kinda like the hammer against the golem from G2.)
Q: How far are you with the games production ?
A: We still have a lot of work ahead of us.
But we improved our organization on the project and do parallel works now at a much faster pace than on our previous projects.
Q: Will characters or monsters from the old Gothics appear in Risen ?
A: No. We did a lot of new monster designs to give everything a new distinct look.
Q: What do you think about the Gothic 3 addon that is being produced by a low-budget developer in India ?
A: No comment.
Q: How is the mage guild coming along ?
A: Good. (note on my side: that was a trick question and the PB fell for it, the crowd cheering)