A sweeping story captivates players from the start! An epic story in an authentic world hand-crafted with an eye for detail and populated by "real", plausible characters. A Mysterious Volcanic Island The heavy tremors on the island bode ill for its inhabitants. Ancient temples have risen from the ground recently, bizarre creatures are terrorising the area. Fear and terror is spreading among the population. The End of All Hope? A group of powerful men who call themselves "The Inquisitors" have taken it upon them-selves to put an end to these events. They send an exhibition to this remote island, but a storm takes hold of the ship and destroys it at sea. A Hero Will Come As if by a miracle, the player survives the shipwreck and is stranded on the volcanic island alone. He finds himself amidst a chaos of rebellion, tyranny and mystic rituals. He must now decide to which side the pendulum of fate will swing.

Risen is right along the same lines as all the Gothic games. The graphics are similar, the factions are similar and much of the game play is similar, so if you liked the Gothic games you will love Risen. That being said Risen has enough nice improvements to stand alone. I had no problems with glitches or crashes like I did in the Gothic games, which is very nice. The story is good and will keep you interested, and the interactions with the NPC's and how they respond to you gives it enough character that you will actually care what happens to those NPC's. There are tons of places to explore and the skills are different enough that you can cater your character to your favorate game style (I personally chose to be a mage with maxed out sword skills, was great to blast them with fire storm then run in and hack and slash those pesky few mobs that survived my firey wraith!). Risen has enough in it to keep anyone occupied for many many hours, I think it took me a good 40+ hours in the end to get through everything and that was only my first play through. If your a fantasy game lover then do yourself a favor and pick up Risen.

This is a nice long game with many choices of persona. I have been playing on it since September. I was a thief, mage and warrior. Lots of places to explore. I just discovered new places this last play.
I did have to buy a new video card to play it correctly but it was worth it. Lots of beautiful views. Lots of roaming. Over the shoulder play. Reminded me of Oblivion, and Witcher.

Risen is a brutal RPG. If you're new to the RPG genre or looking for a relaxing game this may not be your cup of tea. The developers that made Risen and the Gothic series have never been afraid of making the player earn their keep. You may find yourself fighting for every inch, and saving often.

I highly recommend this title to any veteran of the RPG genre, or anyone not afraid of a challenge. Great visuals, complex plot choices, fun combat, a decent crafting system, and completely unforgiving. Risen looses a star for the last act not fully standing up to those that come before it.

I tried playing this game and I got motion sickness. The game needs more camera controls so we can, for example, have a top-down view and freeze the camera in place. I've played World of Warcraft for 3 years and have been a raider for 2 years and never had a problem in that game.

I really wanted to like this game, but since I can't play it without feeling sick to my stomach (literally), I'm going to uninstall it.

the only real problem i had with this game was the final boss. the game is rpg throughout and right at the end you get stuck with a arcade style boss battle. the game was perfect up to this point, replayable, fun, etc.