Is it over for Piranha Bytes?

[Vergil]

I found modded Gothic 3 to actually be fun. I've been meaning to do a writeup on what mods to use/what settings for a while. The community did a lot of post-release work, modded Gothic 3 is underappreciated.

I'd like to see that.

I'd also be curious to see that. I still need to give Gothic 3 a try.

[rusty_shackleford]

re: gothic 3

My feedback from when I first played it:

Becoming very repetitive. The small selection of available gear is pretty boring. Same few enemy types everywhere, sometimes they get a new color if it's in a different zone.
There's not really much of a story at all and the the world feels pretty empty outside of camps/towns.
Enjoyed the Risen games much more than this.

Followed by:

Restarted with Alternate Balance off, using quest pack + content mod, enjoying it a lot more tbh.
Turn up the Entity.ROI in the ge3.ini to increase the radius the world simulates at(enemies appear, NPCs act, etc.,) Game feels like it was intended to be played with a super high setting but it makes the game lag pretty bad. 8000 is a decent compromise(4000 is default)

The content added by the quest pack + content mod is mandatory, the game feels unfinished without it and it was rather good/faithful additions.
Also suggest turning "Alternate Balance" off(can't remember which mod adds it, Community Patch perhaps?), as it feels like you're simply never increasing in power with it on.

[rusty_shackleford]

It looks like there's still an active modding community for G3 btw, with some big mods in progress.
https://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/f ... fikationen

Perhaps a separate thread if someone is willing to go through and figure out what the current state of G3 mods is

[Rand]

[wndrbr]

https://www.cdaction.pl/publicystyka/re ... ylko-u-nas

tl;dr

Bjorn Pankratz wanted Elex 3, other devs wanted to make a small-scale fantasy rpg (not necessary Gothic 4, something in the vein of Risen 1). Bjorn left, and now PB is being headlined by Mikael Ruve, PB's president. PB isn't finished, currently there are two unnamed publishers contemplating the idea of acquiring the studio. If they won't buy PB, then PB will likely try to use Kickstarter to fund their next game.

[Wretch]

Often happens when studios get bought or exist for too long. They become complacent and lazy. Only studio I can think of which is still going strong is fromsoft really.

And all From Software does is asset flip Dark Souls ad nauseum. Even Bethesda puts more effort into reskinning Skyrim. You can probably still fine dozens of animations and sound effects from Dark Souls in Elden Ring.

Sure most animations get reused but most studios do that. We still get plenty of new looking monsters with different attacks/abilities and great worlds/lore/music. And Sekiro/Bloodborne played quite diferently than dark souls or eldenring. Also no microtransaction crap and hot waifus. Only reason tho I didnt buy Eldenring was I knew the pvp would be **** in an openworld where you cant invade people like in the catacombs in dark souls3 and you always had to fight 2+ and couldnt even invade single hosts. That probably removed like 500hours gameplay for me. The pool of targets becomes just too small to invade with this many areas and only 2+ people and if you cant even choose the area with lots of trap/ledges to throw people down that sucks too. Was enough in dark souls3 that invasions prioritized 2+ but if those werent there you could annoy single hosts.

Reusing animations, models, and the winning combat formula in ds games is the only thing they got right with the sequels. The initial gimmick that made the games so popular (and was done very well) invasions and co op have only got worse with every iteration. Game balance and lore have gone down the drain as well. Their atmospheric storytelling used to be good and their minimal quests were acceptable for the time it was taking to make their games and the overall feel and scope of the games they were making. Now that they’re just making comically large open world games with stealth and crafting mechanics there is no reason to keep their “Zanzibart…forgive me…” nonsense. It was charming at first but it has become a parody of itself now.

I wish more game devs stopped these counter intuitive design practices of needing to reinvent the wheel every game and instead just made slight improvements here and there. If bethesda just kept cranking out morrowind or oblivion but with slight improvements in new regions with new quests they would be at the top of the industry. Even Skyrim would have worked as a template. Instead, look at them now. They’re irrelevant, humiliated, and about to go under.

Even though I think fromsoft has backslid in many aspects of their games they have gained undisputed dominance in the arpg genre by simply not breaking what works.

[Element]

Everything I've read about Embracer is that they've repeatedly, to their own detriment, given developers chances upon chances to actually do their job and have gotten nothing in return but failures.
Publishers like EA exist because developers don't deserve any better than EA. It's a shame gamers have to suffer due to developer incompetence.

Often happens when studios get bought or exist for too long. They become complacent and lazy. Only studio I can think of which is still going strong is fromsoft really.

And all From Software does is asset flip Dark Souls ad nauseum. Even Bethesda puts more effort into reskinning Skyrim. You can probably still fine dozens of animations and sound effects from Dark Souls in Elden Ring.

They oscillate between new stuff and a tried and tested DS formula when making their 'souls like'. DSII, Bloodborne, DSIII, Sekiro, ER. Think we'll be getting something new next.
Edit: Also From games have unique bosses. People pay money for a new challenge, and that's something that isn't copied from the previous games, even if there are superficial similarities.

[wndrbr]

RIP

https://www.cdaction.pl/newsy/piranha-b ... ow-gothica

Piranha Bytes closed. This is the end of the studio that created Gothic.

The creators of Gothic had problems before, but - as CD-Action found out - on the last day of June, their over 20-year adventure in the industry ended.

One of the Piranha Bytes employees, with whom we have been in contact since the publication of the first information about the studio's crisis situation, told us that the company responsible for the creation of Gothic ceased operations at the end of June.

The crisis had been going on for a long time, but from time to time investors interested in helping the studio appeared on the horizon. According to the information provided to us, a cash injection of EUR 3 million was expected. After all, it was one of the most popular game development companies in our western neighbors. Unfortunately, in the end, "Piranha" was not bought out, and the financing from Embracer was enough to support the team until June 2024. In the meantime, many employees said goodbye to the studio, opting for more secure employment. A few days before the material was published, the company's office looked like this:



We know that the plans after the possible takeover were to distance ourselves from the last games produced under the command of Björn Pankratz (who, together with his wife, left Piranha Bytes in November last year and today announced the founding of the Pithead studio), i.e. the Elex series, and create a new title in the style of dark fantasy on Unreal Engine 5. It was, of course, supposed to resemble Gothic, to which Piranha Bytes did not have the rights.

The current president of Piranha Bytes, Michael Rueve, has not yet commented on the fate of the company, but according to our information, the studio will most likely not make any official statements, allowing itself to leave peacefully and quietly.

[rusty_shackleford]

I broke my 'no purchase' rule and purchased Elex 2 when it released. They deserve this for doing that to me.

[Finarfin]

https://www.cdaction.pl/publicystyka/re ... ylko-u-nas

tl;dr

Bjorn Pankratz wanted Elex 3, other devs wanted to make a small-scale fantasy rpg (not necessary Gothic 4, something in the vein of Risen 1). Bjorn left, and now PB is being headlined by Mikael Ruve, PB's president. PB isn't finished, currently there are two unnamed publishers contemplating the idea of acquiring the studio. If they won't buy PB, then PB will likely try to use Kickstarter to fund their next game.

I heard somewhere that the rest of the team wanted to do something similar to gothic or even a new one but björn kept pushing Elex to the point where people were considering it a job instead of something like a passion project.

[gerey]

They would have probably sold more if they had done a Gothic clone, instead of the weird mishmash of ideas that ELEX was.

It's still sad to see the studio closed down, even though they never managed to recreate something like Gothic 2.

[Xenich]

They would have probably sold more if they had done a Gothic clone, instead of the weird mishmash of ideas that ELEX was.

It's still sad to see the studio closed down, even though they never managed to recreate something like Gothic 2.

I never understood game companies. The first game they make that is a hit should have been milked, tuned, and improved (within its original scope) over several project releases until they felt that it was time to move on to a new engine due to limitations where they build on its foundations. All of that money from those releases could then fund the new engines creation to begin a new cycle of taking the game to the next level.

but no... reinvent the wheel each time, completely change direction and essentially lose everything they gained from their first success. I think that is why Larian became a success over the years. Their games are essentially iterations of their original one being refined, improved, etc... with each cycle of releases. Even when they "changed" their designs because of modern mainstream conformity, their games were still always a base template from their original focus and you can see it carried over from game to game as a goal to see their ultimate vision.

[rusty_shackleford]

The development time of Elex 2 was twice as long as Elex(2.5 yrs vs 5 yrs) despite using the exact same technology including many of the same art assets down to the map in Elex 2 being ~70% copy/pasted from Elex 1. Compare Elex to Risen 3, the differences are massive!
Shutting them down was absolutely the right thing to do.

Elex 2 is something gamedevs used to put out a year after a decent hit to get more cashflow from reusing existing assets. Now it's considered a half-decade long serious project that causes them to go bankrupt.

[Tweed]

Gothic 2 was Gothic, but bigger. Gothic 3 would have followed suit, but JoWood didn't give them enough time to finish it and then took the Gothic IP away and made ****. Risen rode on the back of Gothic and it was fine. Risen 2 was a bit of a black sheep, but a good game, but Risen 3 was crap.

With ELEX it seemed like they might be learning their lesson, but instead of ELEX 2 being like Gothic 2 they did a bunch of ******** ******** instead and while they were at it they made Jax look like a soy-swilling wuss. Either way the era of half-decent action RPGs is over now.

[Shillitron]

Gothic 2 was Gothic, but bigger. Gothic 3 would have followed suit, but JoWood didn't give them enough time to finish it and then took the Gothic IP away and made ****. Risen rode on the back of Gothic and it was fine. Risen 2 was a bit of a black sheep, but a good game, but Risen 3 was crap.

With ELEX it seemed like they might be learning their lesson, but instead of ELEX 2 being like Gothic 2 they did a bunch of ******** ******** instead and while they were at it they made Jax look like a soy-swilling wuss. Either way the era of half-decent action RPGs is over now.

Risen 3 is on my "TODO List". The first 10 minutes look better than Risen 2 but I keep getting distracted.

(The factions look lame as **** though.)

[Yankee Zulu]

Whats the point of closing the studio and opening a new one? Is this how they do business in Germany?



I mean everyone now knows PB failed under this guy.

[Rand]

These two blocked the team from making the game they knew players wanted for at least 8 years.
Forcing production of Elex (3 years) and Elex 2 (five years, for no discernable reason since it's largely an asset flip).

I have no faith in their ability to produce desirable games on their own.

[KnightoftheWind]

This is entirely the fault of Piranha Bytes themselves, so for that reason I can't really get upset.

[Finarfin]

Whats the point of closing the studio and opening a new one? Is this how they do business in Germany?



I mean everyone now knows PB failed under this guy.

gotta say, the german government gives every "hinz und kunz" money if they just send their game idea and description and some of them are literally base templates explaining **** that sounds like virtually every game ever.
"It is going to be a game where you move the character, and also the camera and solve objectives and move forward"

[The_Mask]

I'm so glad that the only games of their that I have ever paid for are their best.

I wish them all the best going forward, but that doesn't mean that I don't understand that this is, most likely, a dead end.

[1998]

Whats the point of closing the studio and opening a new one? Is this how they do business in Germany?



I mean everyone now knows PB failed under this guy.

Replacing the leadership. Bjorn was always a talentless fraud. If the new guy calling the shots is any better, who knows? But hard to imagine a worse outcome than what would have been Elex3.

[wndrbr]

Whats the point of closing the studio and opening a new one? Is this how they do business in Germany?

Replacing the leadership. Bjorn was always a talentless fraud. If the new guy calling the shots is any better, who knows? But hard to imagine a worse outcome than what would have been Elex3.

but the new guy is Bjorn.

[Zothique]

So they modded sluts into the game? No way.

[Zothique]

Whats the point of closing the studio and opening a new one? Is this how they do business in Germany?



I mean everyone now knows PB failed under this guy.

gotta say, the german government gives every "hinz und kunz" money if they just send their game idea and description and some of them are literally base templates explaining **** that sounds like virtually every game ever.
"It is going to be a game where you move the character, and also the camera and solve objectives and move forward"

What the **** is that on the left?

[1998]

Whats the point of closing the studio and opening a new one? Is this how they do business in Germany?



I mean everyone now knows PB failed under this guy.

gotta say, the german government gives every "hinz und kunz" money if they just send their game idea and description and some of them are literally base templates explaining **** that sounds like virtually every game ever.
"It is going to be a game where you move the character, and also the camera and solve objectives and move forward"

What the **** is that on the left?

Your average German female...

[Tweed]

Reminds me of the cartoon trope where the husband and wife look exactly like each other.

[Zothique]

gotta say, the german government gives every "hinz und kunz" money if they just send their game idea and description and some of them are literally base templates explaining **** that sounds like virtually every game ever.
"It is going to be a game where you move the character, and also the camera and solve objectives and move forward"

What the **** is that on the left?

Your average German female...

I'm not convinced that's a woman at all.

[rusty_shackleford]

Goes a long way towards explaining why women in Elex look the way they do tbh.

[Xenich]

It is not just gaming, this is happening everywhere. All throughout various industries, incompetent people are being put in charge and they destroy everything they touch. There have always been these types in the past (liars, cheats, manipulators, etc... who "work hard" to move themselves up the ladder with effort and precision that never seems to have anything to do with the actual work they are doing), but it has become far more common place and with the ******/fem/*** worship, it has only gotten worse (in the past, I would say the largest percentage of these incompetent people tended to be those types who got promotions playing "Game of Thrones" to move up). I have literally seen people in high up positions actually outright say "I worked my *** off to get to this point so I don't have to work" when berating lower position leaders in their positions because the company "****** up" due to a policy that same idiot implemented that caused problems.

[Xenich]

What the **** is that on the left?

Your average German female...

I'm not convinced that's a woman at all.

They both look like **** to me.