Risen was released with little fanfare onto the Xbox Series X games store recently. When requesting a code the PR was almost apologetic:
“Please note, this is a direct port of the original game released in 2009, and as such, it has not been enhanced, remastered, or remade in any way.”
On top of that, as if to make things worse, the publisher released the original Xbox 360 version of Risen on sale for a fifth of the price.
So, I am going to do a bit of work for them. Yes, the new version of Xbox Series X is direct port of the PC 2009 edition, but it is an upgrade from the X360 version. The lighting is better, the textures surpass the X360 version, and the night/day cycle is far more effective.
Look I did the work for them to show you two screenshots to compare.
Now, that that is out of the way, I need to talk about the flawed brilliance of Risen.
As a person recently washed ashore of a mysterious island, it is up to the player to figure out what is going on. There is a perfunctory tutorial that explains the 3rd person combat, looting, and the levelling system. A friendly NPC will then guide the protagonist to the main town, providing some information on what to do, or not to do. Then Risen just lets the player loose with a ‘Go for it, what’s the worst you can do?’
The short answer is ‘hold my beer’, but the long answer is ‘umm, where to start?’
Risen starts off feeling more open world than pretty much anything I’ve played. Following the natural path will take the protagonist to the Harbour Town where the player will be explicitly warned about going towards the convent. The first thing you can do is immediately ignore the suggestion and go to the convent and be forced into slavery under the Inquisition (also known as fascist wizards). This is a terrible idea by the way, but the game lets you do it.
After getting into Harbour Town, I was faced with a bunch of missions that are divided roughly between two factions: the aforementioned fascist wizards, and a bunch of corrupt thieves and murderers. Risen will punish the player for trying to play both sides, with vital skills being locked off and quest givers refusing to talk to the protagonist, but once a side is chosen how these missions are completed are all within a delightful grey area.
For example, one task requires collecting armour pieces from 3 different men. They each want money for the pieces, or else a fight is required to acquire them. Money is tight, and the fights are tough (more on that later). So, alternatives are available, namely petty larceny. I learned pickpocketing and proceeded to rob each of them blind. The game presents this in a comical fashion where I ask someone a question and while they give you a long winded answer you pick one item to take from their inventory. Watching a fascist wizard talk at length about the power of the Inquisitor while the magical staff he is holding vanishes from his grip and into my backpack will never not entertain me.
There is structured freedom in the missions but also some times that freedom runs looser than that. I eventually ended up in the fascist wizard enclave and needed to get into the local cemetery but the guard wouldn’t let me past without doing some tasks for him. While doing the tedious tasks I noticed that one pathway was adjacent to the cemetery wall, so I took a running jump, cleared the wall, and just snuck around the cemetery instead.
Risen’s willingness to just let the player do this and then roll with it just brings a wonderful sense of charm to the proceedings. The missions are equally varied: helping a pirate find gold, a murder mystery, and a murder-based exorcism. The way I found myself jumping between tasks with a delight.
The island is beautifully designed, in most games it is clear which route to take and when you see a little side path it should be a little diversion. In Risen these diversions can expand out into hour long explorations of underground tunnels, or a drag out fight with an army of Gnomes.
And it will be a drag out fight because the combat absolutely sucks and there is a lot of it to do.
A bunch of skills are dedicated to mastering ranged and melee weapons and Risen promised me there were counters, dodges, parries in the systems. It wasn’t wrong but it seemed to be something that enemies exclusively did to me. After trying to wrap my head around how to parry for the first couple of hours I took to the internet and the general consensus seemed to be ‘trap enemies in a corner and then hit them as much as possible’.
Later in the game there are some magic powers that balance out the tedious combat by making it easier, but it is never enjoyable to do.
With that said, I am so glad that I came back to Risen and gave it a proper tour. There are so many good ideas here and such a wide breadth of inventive missions and level design that I am now compelled to checkout the sequels and the developer’s other titles like Elex and see where it led them.
Conclusion
Brimming with ideas and invention Risen embarrasses most modern RPGs, although it shows its age in its infuriating combat. Nevertheless, it is worth playing for those that can look past that.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
