This is not a single scene or single problematic characterisation: it runs through the entire game, and comes up again and again. I'm bringing this up not to nitpick, but because Risen's depiction of women is far more unhealthy and damaging than is a game which neglects to include female avatars or sticks ridiculous iron boob tubes on those that it does have. Greedy evil whores, every last one of them, eh? LOL zomg IKR. At one point, the player character even exclaims ' women' in sneering agreement with an NPC's sweeping generalisations. Many a conversation involved open and crude discussion of how a woman was there purely for the sexual benefit of the men, or to make grand declarations about how all women were using sex to trick men or obtain money. One of these is a housewife who never leaves the kitchen, and the other is the lead character's sister, who looks like she's just stumbled out of a Pirates of the Caribbean spoof porno.įurthermore, the male characters demonstrate a consistent contempt for the women around them, and sadly this includes the player character too. The few female characters in Risen 3 either openly use sex for personal and/or financial gain or are helpless victims, with no personality beyond that, with very few exceptions. Worse than all of this is a particularly concentrated vein of deep-seated chauvinism that runs through the game's entirety. I appreciate there may be some authorial intent at play, a deliberate attempt keep things low down and gritty, but when a player can't even empathise with his own character because he's got no idea which of the proffered conversations is going to result in his randomly insulting the other party, I would argue that intent has gone too far. Worst of all was my own character, who would reliably bark out unprovoked and disjointed unpleasantries in his exaggerated Estuary accent, serving only to leave me feeling dissonance between he and I. Precious few of Risen 3's hundreds of NPCs have a definable personality beyond this routine obnoxiousness, and I found myself skipping through a great many conversations not from boredom, but from a sort of miserable irritation. This is a game whose dialogue uses swearing and passive aggression as a crutch, as an unconvincing and unappealing short cut to imbuing characters with personality. Unfortunately, the moments of delectable strangeness, or low-key ambitiousness such as transforming into a simian thief or a short-range parrot, are offset by a tone that's frequently simply unpleasant. It knows it can't even begin to compete with a Witcher or a Dragon Age or an Elder Scrolls in terms of production values and scale, and, on and off, it aims to be offbeat enough to make up for that. Sometimes, Risen 3 seems to understand that its best route out of a low-budget ghetto is to be consciously ridiculous. Then there's the singular Bones, a companion character whose bizarre cadence and scenery-chewing is too sustained and too amusing to possibly be an accident. (Though for all I know, that was entirely deliberate). Sometimes it means to - for instance, when I stumble across two goons who are utterly convinced that they're being manipulated by sinister ducks - and sometimes it's simply wretched, such as in the hateful characterisation of major NPC Patty or poorly thought-out purse placement. Thanks to a combination of freedom, playfulness and wildly varying production values, it's a game that can't help but generate oddball vignettes. There's also a strong tendency towards amorality, both fixed - in that almost everyone is a complete prick to almost everyone else - and optional, in that you are free to rob or even murder many NPCs so long as you don't mind certain quests potentially being locked off as a result.ĭid I like Risen 3? Yes and no. There is magic - including voodoo - but for the most part it's about hitting and/or shooting things. There are monsters to fight, there are quests to complete, and there is a semi-open world structure which permits hitting the main objectives in an order of your choice, as well as signing up with a faction of your choice. Just to recap, in case you can't be bothered with the diaries, Risen 3 stars a nameless hero with a piratical background, who winds up getting his soul stolen and embarking on a series of not particularly piratical fantasy adventures to get it back and rid an island continent of assorted great evils. It's just that sometimes I was laughing with the game, and sometimes I was laughing at it. Both were probably correct, but my riposte to either is that I did it because I was enjoying myself. What did I think of Risen 3 - Titan Lords, Piranha Bytes' low fantasy, pirate-themed roleplaying game? I wrote nine diaries about it, primarily focusing on the absurd, and I was variously accused of sneering unreasonably and giving too much attention to something that didn't warrant it.

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