After being heartbroken over the buggy Gothic 3, Piranha Bytes are back to their high standard.

User Rating: 9.5 | Risen PC
Along with Gothic 2, Zelda 64 and Battlezone, This game is one of the 4 most influential and emotionally engaging experiences i have ever had in a game.

Please, if you enjoyed the Gothic series and felt completely let down by Gothic 3, PLEASE give Piranha Bytes a second chance and play this amazing game!

If i may criticize the critics for a moment:

-If you think the combat at the start is shallow and too hard, it is because your character is unskilled. Anyone who has played the game for more than 3 hours will find the combat system innovative and varied, especially when accessing the upper combat tears.

-Yes, its hard. Yes, you need to save alot. But after playing WoW for 3 years, I have missed the feeling of a good challenge.

-Yes, the game world is small compared to Oblivion etc, but the environment is hand made, none of it is randomly generated, every single cave and cranny has had alot of care put into it.

-Unlike oblivion, usually if you enter a really difficult dungeon, the reward will be in proportion to the amount of effort. This is a point that annoyed me greatly about oblivion.

-If you need to constantly save and reload back because you dont want to deal with actual consequences for your decisions, you shouldnt be playing RPG's.

This is a truly fantastic game and I cant wait to play it again as a different class.