崛起

Risen

从某些角度看《哥特王朝》系列的前两部可谓是开放世界 ARPG 游戏的楷模，且至今仍未被超越。尽管《哥特王朝 3》的表现让部分粉丝失望，但该系列仍吸引了一帮可观的忠实粉丝。《哥特王朝 3》确实加入很多新元素，有做的好的地方，但由于糟糕的游戏设计和发行商的不良干预导致游戏弊端突出明显。

《哥特王朝 3》发行后的余波致使游戏开放商 Piranha Bytes 与其长期合作的发行商 JoWood 分道扬镳，紧接着自己制作了《崛起（Risen）》系列。但是《崛起》终归只是披着《哥特王朝》的《崛起》，游戏有着显著的《哥特》内核，甚至连背景故事都与《哥特王朝 3》的结尾藕断丝连。

《崛起》始于一个孤岛，其上有三个派系分庭抗礼；玩家在岛上要时刻准备陷入一场殊死肉搏；游戏文本是典型的德式蓝领工人式作品。如上种种元素都能让玩过《哥特》系列的玩家舒适入坑。奖励丰厚的探索机制与标志性的训练（trainer）机制都在游戏里有强烈的体现，美中不足的是一些老问题如地牢地图过于单调仍然未解决。

Gothic 1 and 2 established an open-world Action RPG standard that, from certain perspectives, still hasn't been surpassed. They inspired a devout fanbase, which was less than pleased with how Gothic 3 turned out. While the game tried many new things and had some merits, they got overshadowed by the numerous faults – some due to design, others due to publisher interference.

The fallout from the third instalment resulted in the developers, Piranha Bytes, parting ways with their long-time publisher JoWood and starting a new franchise – Risen. But Risen is a Gothic game in all but name; even the setting's backstory is essentially a follow-up to one of the endings of Gothic 3.

Set on a remote island occupied by three factions, packing a challenging melee combat and the typical blue-collar German writing, Risen made Gothic fans feel right at home. Rewarding exploration and the iconic trainer system were strongly present alongside, sadly, some old flaws such as overly tedious dungeon areas. While the world may not be as coherent and atmospheric as Gothic 1 and 2, Risen's improved graphics and friendly interface make it a good entry point for Piranha Bytes games.

在《哥特 3》发行后，Piranha Bytes 失去了《哥特王朝》的版权。这进而导致了研发团队对《崛起》系列的制作，但该合同于 2011 年失效，许可证于是又重新回到了 Piranha Bytes 手中。

Due to a deal with publisher JoWood, Piranha Bytes lost the rights to the Gothic license after Gothic 3. This led to the Risen series, but the contract expired in 2011 and the licence has since returned to them.

总体而言，粉丝对《崛起》还算满意。但主流声音对游戏却反响平平，尤其是主机用户。《崛起 2：黑暗水域（Risen 2: Dark Waters，2011）》的诞生便是为了解决先前的问题的不错尝试，Piranha Bytes 为此作开发出了一整套精简的现代化的游戏制作思路。

《崛起 2》的战斗难度被重度简化成了对敌人的一顿无脑砍杀。游戏武器加入了枪械，但由于其动画效果糟糕和操作过于无脑，可以说其唯一的优点就是提升了战斗速度。同时游戏也加入了伙伴跟随。丰富玩法的同时挑战性也与之俱增：因为某些原因，开发者决定让敌人的生命值翻倍，随即战斗也变得冗长乏味。由于一代的近战体系是一大亮点，《崛起 2》与首部相比实在逊色。

技能方面 2 代游戏复杂的一塌糊涂：为什么荣誉点数(经验值)只能用来升基础属性而不是直接解锁特殊能力，要解锁特殊能力还得满地图去找训练师（trainer）。

之前的游戏（一代）流程是玩家在升级时获得点数（Learning Points），然后付钱给训练师从而获得技能。从第二代让人眼花缭乱的技能系统明显可以看出设计师在创作过程中毫无头脑。

Overall, fans were pleased. But the mainstream audience had lukewarm feelings towards it, especially on consoles. Risen 2: Dark Waters (2011) was a clear attempt to rectify that, embracing a whole slew of modern design trends for streamlining purposes.

Combat was heavily simplified, devolving into mindlessly whacking at enemies. Guns were added, but given their simplicity and lacklustre animations, their only merit is speeding up fighting considerably. Ditto for adding companions. This is relevant because, for some reason, the developers decided to bloat the enemies' health to about double what it should be, making battles a long exercise in tedium. Given that melee fighting was one of the highlights of previous games, it was disappointing how Risen 2 had fallen.

The skill system also got changed into a bizarrely overcomplicated mess: you gain glory (EXP) to spend on statistics that derived into sub-statistics and then you go to trainers to unlock special abilities. Why?

In the previous games the player simply gained Learning Points when levelling up, which were then spent with trainers by paying gold. The fact that this system was overcomplicated for no reason shows the designers were aimless in their creative process.