Piranha Bytes is closing

[Sverr]

Are you sad by this fact?
To me it's a disappointment mostly because the company never really took off. Never got the recognition despite releasing the games that became cult classic.

It lost the battle against Morrowind although it's Gothic that is getting a remake, not TES.
It failed with the initial release of Gothic 3 and lost the rights to the IP. The company never recovered from the blow, never got back on its feet, never pulled off another miracle like G1 and G2 and is now ending its existence. Just the company, of course, not the people, but still.

Or maybe it hit the creatice bankrupcy 20 years ago since years later several Polish people managed to build a mod that is far superios than anything PB created since NoTR.

What do you think?

[fracs]

Origineel geplaatst door Sverr:

Are you sad by this fact?
What do you think?

No and no one should be .
it was inevitable. Naturally, Elex 2 was the last straw and I hope that THQ Nordic, which owns the rights to Elex, will not spend money on a 3rd part.

[r3v4n]

Two of the main characters have already opend a new studio

[X4vv]

They made bascially the same game for 8 times in a row and we still only like first two of them. "We" I mean community, personally I only like G2notr.

I am not sad, they had it coming. Gothic fans kept their ship from sinking for way too long.

[Wadowicki Goblin]

Dotations from EU ended xD

[r3v4n]

Origineel geplaatst door X4vv:

They made bascially the same game for 8 times in a row and we still only like first two of them. "We" I mean community, personally I only like G2notr.

I am not sad, they had it coming. Gothic fans kept their ship from sinking for way too long.

I would also love Elex.

But establishing a new Franchise based on totally outdated elements (bad graphics, bad game design, etc) was just bs

[Prohanya]

Don't care. It was wrong Piranha. None of the current developers create any good games, only mediocre ones.

[JimboYCS]

Origineel geplaatst door X4vv:

They made bascially the same game for 8 times in a row and we still only like first two of them. "We" I mean community, personally I only like G2notr.

I am not sad, they had it coming. Gothic fans kept their ship from sinking for way too long.

That is 100% true.

G2:Notr was last thing I enjoyed from PB and I think I played it when I was 7-8 years old? So it was in 2005-2006... For me almost two decades, there is nothing to be sad about, actually maybe better for Gothic series, maybe Remasters will be succesful and maybe THQ will do playable Gothic 3 with storyline and good ending for the series.

A lot of maybies, but I have hope in THQ Nordic since they turned Titan Quest in better and enjoyable game.

[Ninjamestari]

Origineel geplaatst door X4vv:

They made bascially the same game for 8 times in a row and we still only like first two of them. "We" I mean community, personally I only like G2notr.

I am not sad, they had it coming. Gothic fans kept their ship from sinking for way too long.

This. Elex 1 showed some promise but was plagued with simply bizarre design choices, both mechanical and otherwise. Risen 1 was good, Risen 2 and 3 had their moments but were essentially extremely bad games. I kind of wish PB had died a long time ago so we would've been spared the embarrassment they became to their own legacy.

[Bilgot the Heartless]

They made great Gothic 1,

Then great Gothic 2,
they made Night of the Raven expansion which in my opinion made Gothic 2 a masterpiece,

They had big vision with Gothic 3 but because of lack of time and preasure from publisher Gothic 3 was a fail. I am always saying if Piranha Bytes had 1-2 more years Gothic 3 could be different and much better. It really had potential.

Then after that fiasco they decided to back to the roots and Risen 1 is a solid game with gameplay similar to Gothic 1 and 2.

And then Michael Hoge left and Piranha Bytes started to sink.

[.:Jj:.]

Elex for me was a huge disappointment. While I was eager to glance over, as usual, many of the typical production/presentation/technical issues, the deal-breaking aspect of the game was worldbuilding and writing. I'm not a super huge fan of clashing sci-fi with primitive aesthetics, but here it was executed in a rather mediocre, generic and uninteresting way. Without great story, world, fantastic dialogues and memorable characters to carry the game through, grating, janky and boring elements were left to shine.
Elex2 was in some aspects even worse and a huge nail to the coffin, as they've wasted years working on it, without much of a commercial success that would allow the company to grow and move forward in a way, which would enable them to make competitive titles, even in the 'premium indie'/ 'AA' format. Rumors about Elex3 sounded like a sick joke.
Looks like most of the fault falls onto management, making strategic decision about what games to work on.

It's a shame, but at the end of the day, PB was increasingly out of step with the modern market and was slowly drowning, and watching that isn't pleasant from the fan's perspective.
I hope somehow rights to these IP will be used in a good way. I would be happy to play a new Risen game or G3 remake.

Archolos is pretty much an untouchable champion of this subgenre, outside of it, I like all of their games more or less. As revolutionary as G1 and good G2 were, looking back I spent most hours replaying Gothic 3 and Risen 3. And this open-world mid-complexity RPG format is still relatively rare.
With a reasonable budget and good marketing, I'm sure it can sell well. Sadly, at this point there's probably not a lot of reason to make Risen 4 or Gothic 5, considering all the baggage and potential rights issues (creative constraints)- some indie company would be better off creating their own world.

[PaYaB]

A bit sad, I liked most of their games, the only ones I didn't like that much were Risen 3 and Elex 2. But they were going nowhere. And it got even more sad when I read that most of them wanted to do a new dark fantasy IP, but the head of the studio denied and wanted to make Elex 3 instead.

[Sk3ptk]

It is another reminder that I am really starting to not be young, so yeah it is pretty sad. But in terms of Piranha Bytes, the tragedy happened a long time ago, with Gothic 3 already. I stopped paying attention to them afterwards and unfortunately I was right.

Nothing lasts forever and a team can be proud if they make just one memorable game, so all in all well done, Piranha Bytes! Risen and Elex should and will be forgotten, but we will always remember Gothic, and now also Archolos, what an amazing game!

Memento mori!