I really doubt any devs or publishers will read this.

[DeadlyKitten]

But its been years since Sacred 2.
I don't know what happened to the third game and why they thought it was such a good idea to completely change the game an jump from an amazing idea to a horrible one.
It its been quite a long time already , and i really hope you guys are working or planning to work on an actual sequel. I had so much fun when the first game released, had quite the freedom in it.
Second game was the same but with more 3D to it aside from the characters like in the first game. I'm more that positive and sure that there are a lot of people waiting like me for a new game.

I really hope to see the next open world action rpg in the Sacred universe.
It has quite the unique style compared to others in the same genre.
Not many action hack and slash rpg's let you kill close to all town folk NPC's, or ride mounts.
Play as a cyborg or a cute a ferocious puppy from Egypt.

[your mad wife]

Originally posted by Oakshield:

Originally posted by Staufen:

.....snip......

Just to clear a few things:

Deep Silver is (at least partially) responsible for the bad sales of Sacred 2.

Ascaron was in financial problems when Sacred 2 was under development, they tried to get a bank loan but failed and Deep Silver pushed Ascaron to release the game before it was ready. What certainly didn't work to their advantage, was that MicroSoft was starting with Windows 7; an OS which was very quickly addopt by gamers over Vista; but also an OS that made playing Sacred a lot harder.

As a result, player reviews were terrible, which, given the amount of encountered bugs, made sense.
While those bugs were solved, Ascaron also worked at the Ice and Blood expansion, which introduced new bugs, but also smoothened up the game. By then they had sold the Sacred Franchise to Deep Silver to make sure the game would be saved.
However, Deep Silver let a skelleton crew solve the I&B bugs and closed down everything after that. Any plans the Ascaron staff had for other expansions - it's rumoured the Dwarves would return, using the large gate in the human lands - never got released.
As a result, Sacred 2 remained Semi bugged and gamers turned their backs on it, because there was no studio able to solve those bugs. Had a skelleton crew of Ascaron workers being able to do that, the game would've been a lot better.
The fact that one of the dev's actually helped with the CM patch; which is actually solving several major bugs, says enough.

After some time, Deep Silver announced Sacred 3 and all fans of the first two games were exited, because it showed a very strong series would continue. Until the moment the game was released and fans found out it was a side-scrolling brawler; followed by the other "Sacred" game being an arena game. In short, the entire ARPG set-up of the previous two games were gone. THÀT's when the fans turned their back to the game. Not because of what happened to Sacred 2, but of what happened with the "sequels".

As for your statement about "fans not buying the sequel"; many European players did. The only problem was, that once Deep Silver owned the entire franchise, the NA-publisher Ascaron had hired wasn't able to get the Ice & Blood Expansion, meaning they (NA players) weren't able to play the full game as it was intended. Unless those players managed to get their hands at a Europan copy and bought the expansion with it.
It's only through Steam and other download platforms, NA-players were able to get Sacred Gold; which includes the expansion.
To make things worse, servers were setup into European, Asian and North-American servers, meaning players who were able to play together with Sacred: UW, weren't able to do that with Sacred 2.
That kinda split the community and it certainly helped to get players turning their backs on the game.
It was, once again, the decission of Ascaron to use two publishers instead of one that helped with it; but especially after Deep Silver blocked the I&B release for NA-players, things went downhill.

All in all it were decissions made by Deep Silver and not really Ascaron that killed the game.
The Sacred Franchise was strong enough to survive the bankrupty of Ascaron and Deep Silver taking over.
It couldn't survive Deep Silver's money grabbing policy with only a partially release of I&B and the complete ♥♥♥♥ up with the other games that only were part of the franchise by name. It's because of those ♥♥♥♥ ups,that fans turned their back on the last part of the Franchise; not because of the first two games.

The fact that I notice that the first two games are still being discussed at a Fan-based website, while the rest is pretty much ignored, says enough to me.

Thorin :)

[Zeiss_Zwerg]

Well, technically, now Sacred is not sorely a property of the Deep Silver. DS is now a part of THQ, so it's a THQ Nordic business, what and when to start to develop something.

At least, I know, THQ were acknowledged of the Sacred franchise at least briefly before buying the Deep Silver and Koch Media. However, they did not create any news and other stuff about that to the day, other than the news of those game being on sale: https://steamcommunity.com/games/225640/announcements/detail/1800783765184320286

https://steamcommunity.com/games/207930/announcements/detail/1813168664078626655

https://steamcommunity.com/games/247950/announcements/detail/1803035565206984418

Not even their site barely mentions Sacred games. They released some stuff to the Titan Quest, including 2 DLCs though.

Technically, it might mean the chance of getting "true Sacred game" is bigger, at least, than it was before... but there are no facts other than that.

[HiFive]

Koopsy, I would also like to see a genuine sequel to Sacred 1 and Sacred 2, keeping in the tradition of those two games. I was shocked that a game was created that was totally different, but was given the title of Sacred 3, which it clearly is not.

A sequel should always continue with the traditions of the previous games, and remain in the same genre. That is what people buying a sequel are looking for. Here's hoping that someday we will get the real thing for this game series.

[Toki]

I think what you'd like is a good diablo-like.
Maybe Torchlight 3.
Or something else.

[DeadlyKitten]

I really am waiting for the new Torchlight Frontiers. A bit sad that they dont sell early access cause i would have bought it immediately.

But no , i would actually really love a new Sacred open world hack and slash rpg game like the first two.

[HiFive]

Originally posted by Koopsy:

I really am waiting for the new Torchlight Frontiers. A bit sad that they dont sell early access cause i would have bought it immediately.

But no , i would actually really love a new Sacred open world hack and slash rpg game like the first two.

Torchlight Frontiers is in Alpha testing. You can apply to get into the Alpha 3 testing if you want. You don't have to buy it. You just need an invite.

[HiFive]

I would also like a proper new sequel to Sacred Gold, though.

[Toki]

I hope some nice indie diablo-like comes out. Could even be like dark souls-like combat with spells and diablo-like loot. With pixel graphics.
And randomly generated dungeons and rpg talent progressions.

[HiFive]

Originally posted by Thos:

I hope some nice indie diablo-like comes out. Could even be like dark souls-like combat with spells and diablo-like loot. With pixel graphics.
And randomly generated dungeons and rpg talent progressions.

I just don't like pixel graphics that much.

[Toki]

Originally posted by HiFive:

Originally posted by Thos:

I hope some nice indie diablo-like comes out. Could even be like dark souls-like combat with spells and diablo-like loot. With pixel graphics.
And randomly generated dungeons and rpg talent progressions.

I just don't like pixel graphics that much.

In my view: They may be easier to do in a satisfactory way. As ugly art's distracting.
And I'd maybe enjoy the game for the gameplay and progression, with graphics being secondary to a degree. Kinda how I could still play Diablo 2 without finding it tedious. (Though, I think it's not up to date.)

[HenshinAria]

So here's a question to piggyback off the topic: With what's on the market now, what would you consider a "spiritual sequel" to Sacred 2?

[HiFive]

Originally posted by Atiqa:

So here's a question to piggyback off the topic: With what's on the market now, what would you consider a "spiritual sequel" to Sacred 2?

I would want another open-world ARPG that doesn't lead me by the hand like so many newer versions of other ARPG's are doing. They claim to still be open-world, but they insist on leading me down a path that I have to follow and doing things in a certain order. One of the great things about Sacred Gold is that you have very little of that. You get to explore what you want, when you want, and move on up the story line when you want. I don't think they should try to fit the mold of other newer games. They could just update the graphics (if they want), add more new, creative, story, add new skills, come up with some creative maps (hopefully no more maze maps - I hate those). I'd have better suggestions but it's been some months since I've played Sacred 2.

I basically want more of Sacred 1 and 2, that takes advantage of some new things available to creators these days. It's like the Harry Potter books. They are sequels, continuing the story line, maintaining the character and style of the previous books, but still containing lots of surprises. No one complained that the author was still writing paper books and not switching to some YouTube version or some online Webpage version (not that that's ever been a thing, to my knowledge), but I'm kinda making an analogy to the complete, utter, has nothing to do with Sacred Gold, version 3 that was published.

So I'm curious that you preface your question with the words, "With what's on the market now". What, exactly, do you mean by that?

Those of us who like Sacred 1 and 2, Van Helsing 1, 2, 3, and final cut, Torchlight 1 and 2, (and maybe Victor Vran fits also?) are looking for more of those types of games. There aren't as many of those as we would like. Everything else has gone MMO, and that's not what I'm looking for, because the MMO format changes a game's foundation and has to work differently to make any money.

[ELK]

Sacred got bought out during development of sacred 2. The game got to a playable state and was released for sale. They were working on ICE & BLOOD expansion and had planned to continually increase the world size with dlc. They got bought out before finishing I&B expansion and were given a short time period to finish the dlc. They were unable to finish the expansion to the standards they were hopping to which is evident while playing in the two zones. The developers for sacred 2 quit after finishing up the expansion meaning sacred 3 wasn't made by the same developers. The devs were working on a new game but sadly one of them passed away due to cancer.

[HiFive]

Originally posted by ELK:

Sacred got bought out during development of sacred 2. The game got to a playable state and was released for sale. They were working on ICE & BLOOD expansion and had planned to continually increase the world size with dlc. They got bought out before finishing I&B expansion and were given a short time period to finish the dlc. They were unable to finish the expansion to the standards they were hopping to which is evident while playing in the two zones. The developers for sacred 2 quit after finishing up the expansion meaning sacred 3 wasn't made by the same developers. The devs were working on a new game but sadly one of them passed away due to cancer.

Wow, this is sad that one of the developers passed away. Perhaps we will never get a true Sacred 3 then, since new teams tend to change a lot of things - altering the character of the game.

[ELK]

On the bright side we still have sacred 1 and 2