Everyone wants to do a full 3d sandbox RPG, but none of these fuckers take the time to build up their team and tech through 2-3 smaller projects leading up to a large open-world game. One of the reasons Blizzard became the behemoth it is today is because their management knew (maybe on an instinctive, animal level) that incline is a fucking pyramid with a bunch of stairs leading to the top, not a horizontal line from point A to B.
Piranha Bytes is doing 3d "sandbox" RPGs over a decade now. In fact, their first game was actually their most technically advanced game by the time of release. Gothic 3 was still ahead of its time with engine and gfx. In G3 they kind of pioneered "fluent" combat animations with motion capturing before it became industry standard in rpgs and others genres (like Arkham Asylum). After G3 they were lacking budget to keep up with the "big boys" only being able to slowly advance their engine. But the fact that they still have their original handmade engine from G1 as a basis speaks volumes for their competence. Really I think it's mostly lacking a proper budget.
They had one big chance to advance on bethesda/bioware levels of fame in rpgs with G3. But lacking enough budget as well as experience handling a bigger budget/team they failed in the end with G3 being a weaker game than it should have been (a TES killer). They lost the battle out of attrition. Now they are struggling to keep it going.
The new setting sounds cool for providing a fantasy-like game and rejuvenate the sense of wonder and discovery. The jetpack wouldn't have been my choice, but I guess is again for budget reasons (climbing is probably harder to accomplish on a tech level). I hope they can pull it off with good combat, exploration and loot as well as interesting quests which allow thinking outside of the box (like G2 allowed by entering the city, grabbing some loot etc.).