Risen 3: Titan Lords

Its hero may be dead, but Risen 3: Titan Lords brings the series back to life.

Piranha Bytes knows you probably didn’t like Risen 2, and so the studio symbolically kills it off a mere 30 minutes into the sequel. There’s our hero from 2012’s pirate-themed adventure, still nameless after all these years and looking as though he just wandered off the set of Assassin’s Creed IV. But piracy apparently isn’t what you want, and so he dies in front of a glowing portal in a ruin without so much as a final “arrr.”

Fortunately, he is risen. His corpse spends three weeks fermenting in the tropical sun before he’s brought back to life by a loopy shaman. Piranha revives the series with him, and fittingly sends him off in search of his soul. It’s a generally fun romp that takes him into deep caves hiding menacing shadow lords, and into bleached dreams where he waxes philosophical with villains from Risens past, but happily it’s not the kind of game that demands encyclopedic knowledge of its forebears. Titan Lord’s tale of securing the help of powerful mages stands quite well on its own.

You can thank the three new factions you can align with for a lot of that. The voodoo of Risen 2 makes a return in the camps of the ‘natives’, but they never steal the show quite like their neighbors. The Guardians serve the Mages on their rocky isle, but their combat skills (and gear) add a welcome edge to the spellslinging faction by providing them with a degree of melee prowess. Scowling on stage left we have my fellow Demon Hunters, who bring a bit of Conan-style grit to the proceedings.

Yet more importantly, the three factions bring magic. Magic enhances the experience of Risen 3 so thoroughly that it’s appalling to think that its predecessor shipped without it. A chief complaint of Risen 2 was that the tendency of enemies to gang up on you kept you from attacking, but here I send them flying back with a spell like the Demon Hunter’s Shockwave. While they stagger back in shock I whip out a crossbow and— thoonk thoonk thoonk— they collapse like dominoes. It’s stupid fun.

But let’s be candid: it takes a while to reach this state of combat nirvana. Risen 3 wisely isn’t as stingy with gold and gear as its predecessor— nor does it leave the locations of quest objectives open to guesswork—but its core combat does rely on the same dubious dance of parrying, heavy attacks and slashes, despite fancy new animations. Risen 3 is strikingly bugfree considering the series’ reputation, but sometimes obvious hits seem to miss and relentless enemy attacks can still break seemingly well-timed blocks.

But then this is a world where Glory is earned by killing chickens, to say nothing of chopping down liches from other dimensions. Glory is everywhere, and it’s used to boost stats that affect our hero’s prowess in skills such as Melee or Influence. It’s a versatile system, and one that enabled me to turn my Demon Hunter into a battle mage of sorts who wreaked havoc with his battleaxe while summoning demon dogs. Not powerful enough? Buy some lessons from folks around towns. Toss in consumable spells of the crystal and runic varieties and companions from various factions, and you’ll find few situations where hope is in short supply.

And situations abound. There’s a pleasing balance of combat and story, seasoned with minigames for lockpicking or arm wrestling for extra gold. And bless my beard, the ship battles! Somebody’s clearly been playing Assassin’s Creed IV, and it’s paid off. Once our hero nabs a ship, sea monsters and clashes with enemy ships begin—precisely when the rest of the game starts to slip into an all-too-predictable rhythm. The versatile mix of broadside cannon bursts and races to keep powderkegs from exploding ensure the concept never outstays its welcome.

Any concerns? Well, few of those island vistas inspire screenshots. Frankly, Risen looks old. But I still didn’t want to stop playing.