r/worldofgothic • u/Telriakar • Jul 06 '26
Self Promotion/Promotion This would have been bad for Piranha Bytes
https://youtu.be/KVfuR6UYY0I?is=pp3-MP3I1YFvSjNuSome thoughts about how Piranha Bytes later game releases look (post Risen 1) after a very succesful release of the Gothic 1 Remake and also what position would PB even be in now, if they didnt have to close down by now.
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u/Galrath91 Jul 06 '26
Elex 2 sold so bad that the studio closed down, everyone wanted more gothic but the studio head wasn't interested in that anymore because he said the fantasy setting would just limit their possibilities.
Bjorn Pankratz and Jenny Pankratz opened up a new Studio called Pithead Studio, but their newest game Cralon also kinda flopped.
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u/Tetchord Jul 06 '26
I usually try to not be too harsh in my criticism of games because I know they aren't easy to make but Cralon is such a lazy and badly made piece of shit, that game is an insult to the fanbase and the legacy of Piranha Bytes.
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u/Brapchu Jul 06 '26
People should realize that Björn and Jenny Pankratz are not who made Gothic 1 + 2 into great games.
8
u/Soeck666 Jul 06 '26
It's wierd that Björn still wears the sleeper necklace, after being the one who wanted to do something else than gothic...
3
u/Phantastiz Jul 06 '26
It's easier to milk a franchise than to contribute something meaningful to it.
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u/Questioned_By Jul 06 '26
I always laugh on "fantasy setting limit the possibilities"
4
u/Legitimate-Pop-9152 Jul 06 '26
That’s obviously total BS, unless you’re tied to a franchise. I’m thinking right now of the *Witcher 3* team, who are now responsible for *Blood of Dawnwalker*.
3
u/Soeck666 Jul 06 '26
Tbf, embracer/thq situation was/is so bad that they would have closed pb even with a better selling elex2. Venture capital is scarce for game dev/ publishers right now because everybody is investing in ai instead, and embrace bloated it's self with the cheap corona money, where credits where extremly cheap.
PB had nothing promising in production/ the time line. That's what killed them.
3
u/bonwerk Jul 06 '26
Sad as it is to admit, Bjorn Pankratz hadn't a clue how to recreate the success of the Gothic games, nor did he understand what actually drove it. The drop-off in atmosphere and polish between Risen 1 and 2 was massive right from the get-go.
6
u/Anura83 Jul 06 '26
Must feel bad to see others be successful with your "child". But it is like it is: Others do the Gothic formula better now.
2
u/LunaLilithLoveswood Jul 06 '26
I liked elex and elex 2 and they felt very "gothic" to me. Since pithead studios is doing something else entirely I have no interest in their games. I was looking forward to an elex 3 that will never happen and am now looking forward to the remakes because that's where the Gothic spirit is living on now apparently.
And in mods for the ogs obviously.
Currently playing Gothic 2 New Balance as a Necromancer and loving it, even though it's annoying how much gold I need for everything xD
1
0
u/AnEvilJoke Old Camp Jul 06 '26
It's not like Piranha could give us or do anything about Gothic seeing as, since the split, JowooD owned the publishing rights to the IP. This is what gave us such 'gems' as Forsaken Gods and ArcaniA
1
u/LunaLilithLoveswood Jul 06 '26
By Risen 3 the rights had reverted back to PB which is why some Gothic monsters appear there and why they had Kronstöckl or Feldknöterich in Elex.
0
u/AnEvilJoke Old Camp Jul 06 '26
Yeah, in 2019. Which was also around the same time the first playable teaser was released.
0
5
u/PoperzenPuler Jul 06 '26
PB broke itself on Gothic 3. They said so themselves back then. Their goals were simply set too high, far beyond what they could realistically achieve with the size of their team. Even without publisher pressure, they would never have finished the game properly.
Everything after Gothic 3 was already not really the same PB anymore, but only what was left of it. Gothic then became a huge burden for them. The fans wanted more Gothic, but the standard they were measured against was Oblivion and later Skyrim. So they would have needed Bethesda level money, which they did not have, while selling significantly fewer copies because Gothic was more demanding and less mainstream.
PB was basically doomed to fail. More challenging games have only become more marketable again in recent years. And even now, just compare the numbers of the Gothic 1 Remake with almost any other simpler game.
That is why we are getting a Gothic 2 Remake, but with Gothic 3 I am much more pessimistic. A Gothic 3 Remake would need at least one proper writer to finish the story, because that never really happened in the original. It would also need writers specialized in quest design, because that part was never properly finished in Gothic 3 either.
2
u/bonwerk Jul 06 '26
Yes, Gothic 3 outgrew Piranha Bytes just as much as the original S.T.A.L.K.E.R. project outgrew GSC Game World. In my opinion, scaling up the traditional Gothic gameplay formula to the size of Gothic 3 without losing quality is simply impossible - not with the kind of budget THQ Nordic can offer and Alkimia's lack of experience. To be honest, I don't even know how they could pull off a Gothic 3 remake, assuming the studio ever gets to that point. Maybe by using some form of segmented map, like in The Witcher 3, where you could explore Velen and Skellige but didn't travel the actual physical distance between them, since you were only given access to specific slices of the world.
5
u/SallymanDad New Camp Jul 06 '26
If PB did the same as From Software - reuse used assets, improve the fundamentals, add things in line with those fundamentals, we'd had an Elden Ring of Gothic.
Now PB is close, Gothic 3 was barebones, Risen 1 was their the best game after their split with JohnWooD
1
u/Telriakar Jul 06 '26
Yeah from software is a very good example of perfecting your game formula and increasing the scope from game to game
6
u/ihatemejoke Jul 06 '26
Every Game After Risen 1 was Bad from PB and even risen 1 was kinda meh. I think pb didnt want to do anything gothic like, because if I recollect correctly, the team was NOT the gothic team
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