Risen will probably be brushed aside as “oh, just another RPG”, but fans of the genre shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it as such.

Simply put, Risen is this year’s The Witcher – a dark, gritty European made RPG tailoring to a more hardcore crowd.  Risen is developed by Piranha Bytes, the German game development studio behind the Gothic game franchise.  To explain Risen in a nutshell, I’d say it is akin to Fable, the Elder Scrolls games, and The Witcher all rolled into one game.  There are tons of quests, tons of items to pick up, and tons of monsters (and people) to fight.  All the while you’ll be gaining experience and leveling a number of different skills – magic, axes, swords.  If you can get past the difficulty curve and the shoddy voice acting, you’ll find a pretty solid RPG underneath, and one that is certainly worth your time.

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