It's not that bad or good compared to the Gothic franchise.

Very small game world if I'm comparing it to Gothic 3 BUT
It's bigger and has more content that the first Risen.
I enjoyed the ranged flintlock combat a lot.
Like the previous one,you pick one of the major factions to side with.
Dozens of side quests to keep you distracted.
Get it on sale.

This is how to run Risen 2 guide is written by a guy called Banana ( NOT by me, but may helpy you)
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Risen 2 - Dark Waters > Guides > banana's Guides

Forcing Risen 2 to Run on Modern Computers [Text and Video]
By banana

I've decided to make a return to Risen 2: Dark Waters after a few years and quickly discovered that it was having difficulty running on modern hardware. Now I'm not exactly sure what the root cause of each and every specific issue is but I've compiled a list of popular fixes as well as what seemed to work for me. Since using these fixes I've put a further 15 hours of playtime into Risen 2 and it has seemingly managed to fix the frequent bugs and crashes I had been experiencing before.

For context I am running the game on Windows 11 and playing the Steam version however I have included information in regards to playing a non-Steam version as well as through the GoG Galaxy launcher.

This guide is presented in text format but also includes video for demonstration.

GUIDE INDEX
Overview
Video Format
Installation Location
PhysX
Compatibility Mode/Run as Administrator
RefreshRate/Windowed Mode/Resolution
Unofficial Patch
NTCore 4GB Patch
Full Reinstall/Verify Integrity of Files
Unable to Load Saves

Comments
Video Format

Video format of this entire guide is available here!
Installation Location
First we need to learn how to access the folder our game is installed to. This will be dependent on where you choose to install your games. I will show a shortcut way to find this folder via steam and GoG Galaxy but if you do not use either of these the install path is typically something like;
(C:)-program files- (gamefolder)

Steam
Find the game in your library.
Right click on it and scroll down to "manage."
Click "browse local files."

GoG
Click the dropdown menu next to the play button.
Scroll down to "manage installation."
Click "show folder."
PhysX
Now that we are in the folder containing all of the Risen 2 files we can click on the 'redist' folder and then the 'PhysX' folder. A executable file will be inside named PhysX_SystemSoftware. We can use this to reinstall and/or repair the PhysX software. This could potentially work because the most up to date and modern versions of PhysX don't necessarily get along with older games but the install file located within the Risen 2 folders is an older version with the PhysX files Risen 2 had been built for. Alternatively of course you can also potentially try reinstalling the most up to date version of PhysX driver as available on the NVIDIA website. Sometimes software is funny like that.

After these reinstalls you are likely to need a full computer restart for the files to take hold.
Compatibility Mode/Run as Administrator
Return to the main Risen 2 folder. From here we'll follow to the system folder to find the 'Risen2.exe' application file. Right click on it and select the properties option. From here find the compatibility tab. Depending on your computers operating system there will show a box asking to run this program as an administrator. We want to put a check mark in there. As well as this we can choose to run the game in compatibility mode to trick it into thinking we are using an older operating system. This can be a trial and error process to figure out which selection works best, but I've had mine selected to Windows 7.
RefreshRate/Windowed Mode/Resolution
Return to the main Risen 2 folder. From here we'll select the data folder and then the ini folder. Open the ConfigDefault.xml file in Notepad. Don't forget to save this file after you are done editing it. As well as this be aware messing around in here too much can cause even more bugs and errors - I advise not using this document as a playground unless you know what all the values do.

-refresh rate
Click the CTRL and F key on your keyboard to use the find function. Find RefreshRate and change its value from 0 to 60.

-windowed mode
use CTRL + F once again for the Fullscreen option. It will be valued with a true or false. Go ahead and make it false to enable windowed mode.

-resolution
If you know what aspect ratio your computer moniter uses you'll be able to manually edit the sizing to be a perfect fit here as well. There are pre-selected values for different ratios, you simply need to change the numbers to be proper.
Unofficial Patch
Downloading the community created game patch will certainly help with lots of bugs and problems. It is available in a couple places under different names but I will go on record to say that I initially had downloaded it as part of the 'Risen 2 Remaster' on Nexus Mods HOWEVER the patch managed to completely break dodge rolling. The version available through ModDB called 'Risen 2 Unofficial patch v0.5 file' did not cause me any problems and it is the file I would advise over any others listed. It uses its own installer that should be self explanatory.

DIRECT LINK HERE;
https://www.moddb.com/games/risen-ii-dark-waters/downloads/risen-2-unofficial-patch-v05
NTCore 4GB Patch
This is a handy tool that I think might of been the biggest boon to my troubles getting Risen 2 to run correctly. I'm not a super tech-y person but if I understand correctly for some reason the game thinks it can only run 2gb of virtual memory and once it exceeds that limit it causes a crash. This tool simply tells it that it is allowed 4gb of virtual memory.

After downloading NTcore 4GB Patch open the zipped file and run the program. From here you'll need to track down where your Risen 2 game is installed and then select the Risen2 application file in the system folder.

DIRECT LINK HERE;
https://ntcore.com/4gb-patch/
Full Reinstall/Verify Integrity of Files
Lastly if errors persist we can try doing a full reinstall of the game and starting over. Besides a full reinstall we could try using Steams game repair function. Find the game in your Steam library and right click it. Select properties. From here go to the Installed Files tab. Click the button 'Verify integrity of game files.' This will scan all of the files before redownloading and installing any missing and/or broken.


Hopefully at least one of these presents itself as a fix that enables you to enjoy the world of Risen 2 - Dark Waters. If there are other fixes and/or errors please feel free to post them in the comments and try to help eachother out.
Unable to Load Saves
Users who are experiencing a save/load malfunction can try this fix. For some reason it appears the games configuration document has installed without the save folder being named?

We'll return to the ini folder but this time open the one named 'mountlist_packed.ini' as a notepad file. Use CTRL+F to use the find function and find the 'save=' code. Change it to 'save=SaveGames' before saving the document.

TL;DR
\SteamApps\common\Risen 2\data\ini\mountlist_packed.ini file

change 'save=' to 'save=SaveGames'

(this one isn't featured in the video as it was brought to my attention after it had been created)
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