Arcania

[mindcycle]

Official Site: http://www.arcania-game.com
Developer: Spellbound
Publisher: JoWood
Genre: Fantasy-Action-RPG
Release Date: Winter 2009/2010

ArcaniA - A Gothic Tale is set in a rich world that invites the player to explore all of its innumerable attractions and details. Different climate zones, abundant flora and fauna, subterranean vaults, and cities and castles with unique architecture await the adventurous player. Clouds darken the skies, weather effects such as wind and heavy rain influence the game world, keeping it endlessly fascinating with its amazing graphics, day and night cycles, and a stunning display of light and shadow. Wonderfully atmospheric music and top-of-the-line sound effects create a truly immersive playing environment. A multitude of entertaining and challenging quests, challenging combat, mysterious NPC characters and a sophisticated plot guarantee many hours of highly entertaining gameplay. The Southern Islands await!

Background Stroy
War covers over the Southern Islands like a blood-drenched shroud... and finally, War reaches the idyllic isle of Feshyr in the Southern Seas. The protagonist of ArcaniA - A Gothic Tale returns from an adventure to find his home town pillaged and looted. The aggressors? ships - with an Eagle displayed on their billowing sails - escape over the horizon.

Seeking revenge, the hero leaves the destroyed city behind and soon realizes that this cowardly attack did not just happen on a reckless mercenary`s whim. An evil power lies waiting at the threshold of this world, and our hero will need to face this nameless evil. Yet the hero is not alone - his fate is linked to that of a beautiful, mysterious lady as well as a powerful artifact from the long-forgotten distant past, which plays a major role in the grandiose new RPG adventure

I'll post more info as it becomes available. Check the official site for lots of screenshots and other details about the game. For those who are unaware, Arcadia is the continuation of the Gothic series and is being developed by Spellbound (the developer who worked with the community patch team on Gothic 1.7).

 

[ivan2]

lol you are in love with Arcadia.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: ivan2
lol you are in love with Arcadia.

I don't know about that. lol

The Gothic games are amongst my favorites on the PC though, so i'm hoping Spellbound will stay true to the other titles.

..if not there's always Risen.

 

[Bateluer]

I'm intrigued by Arcadia, and will be following it. BUT after Gothic 3, I will not be buying it on launch day. I waited nearly a year after Gothic 3 launched and it was still a mess. Still is a mess.

 

[Via]

I should wait but I probably won't be able to resist buying it on launch day.

Same with Risen, just because it's PB.

 

[lozina]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
I'm intrigued by Arcadia, and will be following it. BUT after Gothic 3, I will not be buying it on launch day. I waited nearly a year after Gothic 3 launched and it was still a mess. Still is a mess.

Didn't they say the new developers (Spellbound) first made a patch to fix Gothic 3?

If so, did you try their patch and did it indeed fix Gothic 3? Their performance with this patch may be a good indicator of how well they would make their own gothic game...

I still have fondness for the series though despite how poor Gothic 3 was. I guess it's because other than my gavorite game series - The Elder Scrolls - there aren't any other games like these.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: lozina

Originally posted by: Bateluer
I'm intrigued by Arcadia, and will be following it. BUT after Gothic 3, I will not be buying it on launch day. I waited nearly a year after Gothic 3 launched and it was still a mess. Still is a mess.

Didn't they say the new developers (Spellbound) first made a patch to fix Gothic 3?

If so, did you try their patch and did it indeed fix Gothic 3? Their performance with this patch may be a good indicator of how well they would make their own gothic game...

I still have fondness for the series though despite how poor Gothic 3 was. I guess it's because other than my gavorite game series - The Elder Scrolls - there aren't any other games like these.

Yes, Spellbound worked with the community to produce the 1.6 and 1.7 patches, and I think the 1.5 patch as well. Their assistance probably fixed a lot of Gothic 3's bugs and issues. But I'm still not going to buy G4 on launch day. The Gothic franchised has been tarnished and they have to earn respect again.

 

[mindcycle]

ArcaniA developed based on Trinigy?s latest Vision Engine 7? technology ? release for PC and current generation console systems

Eningen, Germany / Liezen, Austria, May 18th, 2009: JoWooD Productions and Spellbound Entertainment today announced the successful cooperation with Trinigy, a leading provider of 3D game engine technology. In the scope of a multi-platform license agreement, Spellbound is developing ?ArcaniA: A Gothic Tale? utilizing Trinigy?s latest Vision Game Engine 7?.

As the publisher announced, the highly anticipated role-playing blockbuster ?ArcaniA: A Gothic Tale? will be released for both PC and current-generation console systems. ArcaniA will feature an enthralling storyline in a dense atmosphere providing a unique and easily accessible game play experience. Thanks to Trinigy?s Vision Engine 7? ArcaniA will also set new visual standards in the genre of action role-playing games.

http://www.rpgwatch.com/#12042

 

[mindcycle]

The Austrian blog be24.at released an interview with the Chief Executive Officer from JoWooD, Albert Seidl. Besides a lot of things about him and his work, there is a little bit about Arcania in the interview.

Translation by WoG:

We have a strategic plan. The next two big projects are two games. One is the Project Gothic 4 Arcania. This game will be released on all consoles and by the looks of things, it has the chance to become an AAA game. It is based on a completely new technology and there will be a marketing concept, that the industry has never seen before. [..]

What the new marketing concept is, remains to be seen. An interesting point is the wording on all consoles. Will we eventually see a PS3 version of Arcania after all?

http://www.worldofgothic.com/

I just hope they don't "consolize" the PC version..

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: mindcycle

The Austrian blog be24.at released an interview with the Chief Executive Officer from JoWooD, Albert Seidl. Besides a lot of things about him and his work, there is a little bit about Arcania in the interview.

Translation by WoG:

We have a strategic plan. The next two big projects are two games. One is the Project Gothic 4 Arcania. This game will be released on all consoles and by the looks of things, it has the chance to become an AAA game. It is based on a completely new technology and there will be a marketing concept, that the industry has never seen before. [..]

What the new marketing concept is, remains to be seen. An interesting point is the wording on all consoles. Will we eventually see a PS3 version of Arcania after all?

http://www.worldofgothic.com/

I just hope they don't "consolize" the PC version..

If its being released on the 360, we can expect a heavily consolized PC version, just like 90% of other titles in similar situations.

 

[mindcycle]

Originally posted by: Bateluer
If its being released on the 360, we can expect a heavily consolized PC version, just like 90% of other titles in similar situations.

You're probably right, unfortunately. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed though..

 

[mindcycle]

Ya know, I really have to wonder about the mental state of people who are big fans of the Gothic series? Not that it?s a bad series, not by any stretch, but the mental fortitude that?s required to play through one of these games to completion is staggering. Only having clocked around seven hours of gameplay between the second and third game the sheer beating you receive from even the first enemies can be a life altering experience. These are truly games for the hardcore gamer and if you don?t have the stones for it then too bad for you.

Luckily for the rest of us humans the developers are going for a slightly different approach with Arcania. Rather than focusing exclusively on the hardcore crowd they?ve expanded their approach to make the game more accessible to the rest of humanity. A good example of the starting point of this is the fact that you can now turn on a quest tracker. This will give you a quick way of traveling to the waypoints that will help you actually find your goal.

via gamingexcellence.com

Great.. So it sounds like Arcania is going to be a dumbed down version of Gothic geared at consoles players. I guess that's kind of to be expected though since Piranha Bytes is no longer in the picture. At least we have Risen to look forward to..

In other news, there are some gameplay walkthrough trailers here:
http://www.gametrailers.com/game/arcania/11485

I just don't know how excited I am about this game anymore..