Piranha Bytes has shut down, Bjorn Pankratz founds new studio

[Lord_Potato]

Can't wait for the next totally original Gothic/Risen/ELEX clone

Unironically yes!

 

[Shaja]

Stop crying and start supporting Polish Games!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1437760/Peripeteia/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1701840/ExeKiller/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1939970/Nobody_Wants_to_Die/

 

[Peachcurl]

None of those are released!

ElexFiller looks interesting though.

 

[Zarniwoop]

It looks very similar to Blade Runner 2049.

In fact it looks EXACTLY like the trailers for Blade Runner 2049. So much so it might not even be a real game.

 

[SixDead]

There are aulso russhian Gothic in making

"Gayshaft"

Und rаssian Elex,

"Distortion"

 

[Dedicated_Dark]

There are aulso russhian Gothic in making

"Gayshaft"

Und rаssian Elex,

"Distortion"

Those look pretty promising. Hope the writing is good.

 

[SmoothPimp]

Codexers is what made Gothic great, not german libtard cocksuckers from Piranha.

 

[Litmanen]

Codexers is what made Gothic great, not german libtard cocksuckers from Piranha.

I played Gothic I & II without even knowing you.

And I liked them. And I also liked the III with the community patch (that I don't know where comes from).

 

[TheSecondRanger]

Now the rest of the team should create a new studio. Maybe there is hope left with a new creative lead. People say they always made the same Gothic clone, but this is sadly not the case. I were happy if they did, but since Risen 1 where they seemed to have learned their lesson they made bigger and bigger games and moved away from the strengths of the old Gothics.

Well, and there is always mods if all fails.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.
They constantly attempted to "make the formula more appealing to a larger audience" in the worst possible ways, changing what didn't need to be changed and not addressing what did actually have a need for it.

They kept changing the world structure, the level of interactivity, the progression system, the core mechanics, the difficulty curve, etc. in ways that were rarely (in fact, almost never) an improvement, while aspects like tech improvement, production value, better art, better combat )that WOULD have an effect on their level of appeal with a "general audience") were either neglected or changed for the worse, somehow.
Risen was a half decent attempt at some point, but even then you had some aspects of the game (character models, especially the women, some animations like the jump) that were RIDICULOUSLY outdated by the time of its release and in some ways looked worse than their equivalents in Gothic 2.

I mean, you can tell they KINDA tried for some of these things (the engine in Gothic 3, the switch in art style in Risen 2, etc) but if you need to get in front of an audience to get that you aren't exactly moving in the right direction and you aren't offering an actual improvement, you have a problem.
Meanwhile you have studios that came almost from nowhere (CD Projekt, Larian, now Owlcat, etc) and as soon as they got their first half-decent hit (admittedly it took Larian a while with DOS 1) immediately started to invest in ramping-up for their next games.
Which can be risky, sure, but in the end is the only way to keep yourself relevant on the market.
No matter how much people liked your first two or three games, they'll grow tired of what you have to offer if you keep serving them the same shit with no significant improvements.

 

[Latelistener]

At least there is Outward and upcoming Outward 2, along with imminent Ghost of a Tale 2.

They aren't copies of Gothic and have their own things going on, but the inspiration is obvious.

 

[REhorror]

I just want someone to make a game with the Gothic 2 engine?

WHY DOESN'T ANYONE DO THAT?

 

[Skinwalker]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.

Well, if the first Gothic was lightning in a bottle, then they certainly knew exactly how to recreate and even improve it with Gothic 2, and its expansion. After crapping out the Gothic 3 abomination, they kind of went back to their roots with Risen, and then shat the bed again with everything that came after.

It's less of a lightning in a bottle, and more like people who have all the skills, knowledge and experience they need to continue delivering greatness, but instead choosing to deliver garbage because of very bad attempts at innovation and trend-chasing. Gothic 3 is shit because Pirania Bytes tried to make their own Oblivion, instead of a proper sequel to their highly successful two games.

This is when you have to admire studios like FromSoftware, who understood the value of their own creation (Demon Souls), and kept iterating on that design for 15 years, releasing a series of hits, and culminating in the highly successful Elden Ring, instead of derailing it by trying to rip off Dragon's Dogma, or Final Fantasy, or whatever else happened to be popular at any given time.

 

[REhorror]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.

Well, if the first Gothic was lightning in a bottle, then they certainly knew exactly how to recreate and even improve it with Gothic 2, and its expansion. After crapping out the Gothic 3 abomination, they kind of went back to their roots with Risen, and then shat the bed again with everything that came after.

It's less of a lightning in a bottle, and more like people who have all the skills, knowledge and experience they need to continue delivering greatness, but instead choosing to deliver garbage because of very bad attempts at innovation and trend-chasing. Gothic 3 is shit because Pirania Bytes tried to make their own Oblivion, instead of a proper sequel to their highly successful two games.

This is when you have to admire studios like FromSoftware, who understood the value of their own creation (Demon Souls), and kept iterating on that design for 15 years, releasing a series of hits, and culminating in the highly successful Elden Ring, instead of derailing it by trying to rip off Dragon's Dogma, or Final Fantasy, or whatever else happened to be popular at any given time.

Imagine if Pyranha Bytes have the balls as From Software, oh well, for some reasons I think the Souls feels like Gothic, somehow, at least the Gothic 1 due to the grimdark depressing setting.

 

[Old Hans]

I just want someone to make a game with the Gothic 2 engine?

WHY DOESN'T ANYONE DO THAT?

probably because no one has access to the engine tools

 

[REhorror]

I just want someone to make a game with the Gothic 2 engine?

WHY DOESN'T ANYONE DO THAT?

probably because no one has access to the engine tools

I vividly remember OpenGothic, or was that OpenMorrowind?

 

[Old Hans]

I just want someone to make a game with the Gothic 2 engine?

WHY DOESN'T ANYONE DO THAT?

probably because no one has access to the engine tools

I vividly remember OpenGothic, or was that OpenMorrowind?

I know OpenMorrowind is a thing, but not sure about Gothic

 

[Chuck Norris]

After watching the stream/presentation by Michael Hoge, I realized why Piranha Bytes fell apart.

He seems like a cold, grouchy, cynical No BS perfectionist, while Björn Pankratz and his wife are basically whimsical, airheaded liberal hippies. These personalities can never work together, not at least when vision is concerned. We are living in the worse timeline, in which Pankratz vision won, not the Hoge one.

 

[REhorror]

After watching the stream/presentation by Michael Hoge, I realized why Piranha Bytes fell apart.

He seems like a cold, grouchy, cynical No BS perfectionist, while Björn Pankratz and his wife are basically whimsical, airheaded liberal hippies. These personalities can never work together, not at least when vision is concerned. We are living in the worse timeline, in which Pankratz vision won, not the Hoge one.

It's so joever...

 

[Zoo]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.

Well, if the first Gothic was lightning in a bottle, then they certainly knew exactly how to recreate and even improve it with Gothic 2, and its expansion. After crapping out the Gothic 3 abomination, they kind of went back to their roots with Risen, and then shat the bed again with everything that came after.

It's less of a lightning in a bottle, and more like people who have all the skills, knowledge and experience they need to continue delivering greatness, but instead choosing to deliver garbage because of very bad attempts at innovation and trend-chasing. Gothic 3 is shit because Pirania Bytes tried to make their own Oblivion, instead of a proper sequel to their highly successful two games.

This is when you have to admire studios like FromSoftware, who understood the value of their own creation (Demon Souls), and kept iterating on that design for 15 years, releasing a series of hits, and culminating in the highly successful Elden Ring, instead of derailing it by trying to rip off Dragon's Dogma, or Final Fantasy, or whatever else happened to be popular at any given time.

Before Demon's Souls there were King's Fields and Shadow Tower. But they made games that not KF- or Sozls-likes, e. g. Ninja Blade, Enchanted Arms, older Armored Core games. FS is a much bigger company than PB was, they developed many games.

 

[MjKorz]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.

This is when you have to admire studios like FromSoftware, who understood the value of their own creation (Demon Souls)...

Soulslop is a Severance - Blade of Darkness ripoff, except Fromslopware couldn't even rip it off properly and replaced the precision sidestep dodging mechanics with dogshit i-frame rollslop.

 

[REhorror]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.

This is when you have to admire studios like FromSoftware, who understood the value of their own creation (Demon Souls)...

Soulslop is a Severance - Blade of Darkness ripoff, except Fromslopware couldn't even rip it off properly and replaced the precision sidestep dodging mechanics with dogshit i-frame rollslop.

Hey you can block and parry in both games!

 

[REhorror]

The problem with all the PB attempts to recreate the "Gothic lightning-in-a-bottle moment" with all their subsequent games is that apparently they never really got a grasp of what made the first two good.

Well, if the first Gothic was lightning in a bottle, then they certainly knew exactly how to recreate and even improve it with Gothic 2, and its expansion. After crapping out the Gothic 3 abomination, they kind of went back to their roots with Risen, and then shat the bed again with everything that came after.

It's less of a lightning in a bottle, and more like people who have all the skills, knowledge and experience they need to continue delivering greatness, but instead choosing to deliver garbage because of very bad attempts at innovation and trend-chasing. Gothic 3 is shit because Pirania Bytes tried to make their own Oblivion, instead of a proper sequel to their highly successful two games.

This is when you have to admire studios like FromSoftware, who understood the value of their own creation (Demon Souls), and kept iterating on that design for 15 years, releasing a series of hits, and culminating in the highly successful Elden Ring, instead of derailing it by trying to rip off Dragon's Dogma, or Final Fantasy, or whatever else happened to be popular at any given time.

Before Demon's Souls there were King's Fields and Shadow Tower. But they made games that not KF- or Sozls-likes, e. g. Ninja Blade, Enchanted Arms, older Armored Core games. FS is a much bigger company than PB was, they developed many games.

King's Field, Armored Core and Another Century's Episode used to be From's bread and butters until Souls hits.
It's very arguable that Pyranha Bytes used to be bigger than From Software tho, I mean Gothic 1-2 were big hits and I would say more mainstream than From Software franchises pre-Souls.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Soulslop is a Severance - Blade of Darkness ripoff

King's Field, Armored Core and Another Century's Episode used to be From's bread and butters until Souls hits.

One could argue that King's Field itself was basically a console derivative from the Ultima Underworld series etc.
But I'm not exactly seeing the point of this type of side argument in the context of this topic. Originality and "being 100% unique" were not the issues at hand. Basically every game out there can be traced back to something inspiring it before.
The quality of the execution should be everyone's worry here.

PB whitered over the years rather than thriving precisely because failed in the latter.
While never being high budget stuff, Gothic 1 and 2 were reasonably impressive from a technical standpoint and decently good-looking in the context of their year of release.
On top of it they were very well-designed games. Not flawless, since almost nothing is, but strong enough in their core experience to hold up well to this day.

Somehow their subsequent projects managed to botch any attempt at techinical innovation

P.S. On a side note, the last Armored Core was far from being FromSoft's biggest success in terms of sales, but fucking great gameplay-wise and quite possibly their best combat system so far since Sekiro.
Imagine trying to give yourself a tone of connoisseur by shitting on this type of output in the same thread about the developers who gave us motherfucking ELEX.

 

[MjKorz]

Soulslop is a Severance - Blade of Darkness ripoff

King's Field, Armored Core and Another Century's Episode used to be From's bread and butters until Souls hits.

One could argue that King's Field itself was basically a console derivative from the Ultima Underworld series etc.
But I'm not exactly seeing the point of this type of side argument in the context of this topic. Originality and "being 100% unique" were not the issues at hand. Basically every game out there can be traced back to something inspiring it before.
The quality of the execution should be everyone's worry here.

PB whitered over the years rather than thriving precisely because failed in the latter.
While never being high budget stuff, Gothic 1 and 2 were reasonably impressive from a technical standpoint and decently good-looking in the context of their year of release.
On top of it they were very well-designed games. Not flawless, since almost nothing is, but strong enough in their core experience to hold up well to this day.

Somehow their subsequent projects managed to botch any attempt at techinical innovation

P.S. On a side note, the last Armored Core was far from being FromSoft's biggest success in terms of sales, but fucking great gameplay-wise and quite possibly their best combat system so far since Sekiro.
Imagine trying to give yourself a tone of connoisseur by shitting on this type of output in the same thread about the developers who gave us motherfucking ELEX.

PB delivered Risen 1 after the disappointing Gothic 3, so it was not a straight decline, more like a rollercoaster. And Armored Slop is a primitive arcade kiddieshooter with robot skins and an aimbot and can't compete with actual mech games like Mechwarrior.