Get Yahaha studio for free here: mtchm.de/ctgsd Edit: I got the part about the DLC wrong. Risen 2 and Risen 3 did have some DLCs, although they weren't big by any means. Especially compared to Night of the Raven. What did you think about Elex 2 in general? Better or worse than Elex 1?
Nothing happen it just got released toghter with elden ring and end in the forgoten place i did not even touched it yet, ive not even finished elden ring. Due to lack of time. They really need to make something like a DLC to market the game.
Gameplay, Exploration was better, story was worse. Sidequest and Lore was on par to Elex I. Morkons were amazing. Nice twist to have 3 Fractions which actually split up again to 5. was sceptical but actually worked out.
Legitimately didn't know Elex II had released and I really enjoyed the first game. Dropping it a week after Elden Ring is worse than even releasing Kingdoms of Amalur when everyone was still playing Skyrim.
I get what you mean, I never heard of kingdoms of amalur until the remaster came out, never heard of elex 1 or 2 until it came out on ps plus. The AAA games cast a shadow over these ones and they went unnoticed due to that
@@MrKrampyHands I love skyrim but I can never get into kingdoms of amalar I feel like the graphics are horrible on console PC version was better but the game which was really weird it was like rotate warcraft but offline
Elex 2 appears to be a better game, but you need to give it time to strengthen your character. Sometimes the game makes you wait because your character is not strong enough.
Your video made me think of how much of a gem THQ is as a publisher. They always have their eye out for niche games with smaller audiences, building their portfolio with average sales numbers. Keeping a foothold in the AA game market while the bigger publishers focus on AAA titles.
THQ biggest strength is the way they choose developers for certain franchises they intend to bring back. It's always a perfect synergy, and for that I find that the best publisher around.
I mean... they are just about one of the biggest software conglomerates around... see my above post about Embracer for more context... but you know... actions are definitely not as loud as marketing and PR departments, and outside of their name lol, just the lack of a news cycle is a almost proof enough they might actually intend something near abouts to their mission statement... a history of actually doing it over the years is even better lol... strange world we live in I suppose... annoying one... and for some reason PR and marketing think they speak human still... better to say nothing as a corp or little no nothing and I'll take that as a much better sign bout what your intentions are...? Funny how rare that is.
I found elex 1 because I love trying strange RPGs, like gothic, and two worlds. Elex 1 and 2 are now my favourite RPGs, if I compared it to Skyrim I'd say the factions in elex are much more involving and eventful, great companions, and a very difficult learning curve, it took me so long to get out of goliet in elex 1 because I weren't used to the game and didn't have confidence to explore too much but I reached the clerics and went along with them and I saw why elex is such a great game
to be honest, after 50 hours of playing, I love this game. Maybe as much as I love Elex 1 and maybe even more! By the way on my PC directx12 works very well, only start take more time to load.
I have not played this game myself... I watched The Revs play-through and loved it! There is something about Pirhana bytes games thats really hooks you, and they have always done it! So much atmosphere!
Piranha Bytes, in short, completely nails the feeling of not being the chosen one. The games are a bit janky, but worlds feel alive and the experience is pretty brutal compared to a power fantasy like Skyrim. They also have a habit of building their maps vertically, rather than vast horizontal expanses.
@@zozihn8047 Even if you are the Chosen One, like Gothic 1 and Gothic 2, you still have to work your ass off to actually get to the godlike point you end the game on, and even then you can easily get swatted by group's of enemies, who don't nicely come at you one at a time, even if you could 4 shot the last boss with your slab of steel or crazy magic. You can be the Champion of Innos, some highly decorated Alb Commander, or a dude who beats Titan's to death with a wooden stick, but you are still in a world that wants to kill you and doesn't care how it does it. Just because you end up a demigod doesn't mean an overgrown chicken or giant rat can't tear you apart until you get going.
So i was excited for this and really liked the 1st one, but I feel off of this game pretty quickly. I think I just didn't get grabbed by the story the same way I did with the first.
I love the Elex series and I can't wait to know what will happen to Jax in Elex 3. I am still bitter that Jax ended with Kaja and not with my favourite girl Nasty.
Yeah, the timing of the release is a big part of why I still haven't purchased Elex 2 even though I really liked Elex 1 when I first played it on Xbox and bought it again on PC to play as preparation for Elex 2. I was legitimately excited for Elex 2, but then Elden Ring completely stole ("spoiled"?) my focus for a couple months. And then I saw the reviews for Elex 2, and I kinda just decided to let it sit on the Steam wishlist until a good sale comes along. Honestly my backlog of games is already getting out of hand (22 started but not finished, 33 never played), and I'm almost finished reading the Witcher books for the first time, so I plan to replay all 3 of those soon (super excited for Witcher 1 remake as well, even if it's several years away). I really do plan to play Elex 2 eventually, but it's just not my top priority as far as games go right now. I guess I also need to finish the mess that is Gothic 3 and get started on the Risen series. I hope G2 and 3 get a second chance with THQ because they need it way more than G1, IMO.
Steam sales are the devil when it comes to creating an unattainable catalogue of games to finish. I almost 500 games on my account (purchased over more than a decade), and I've maybe finished a quarter of them, if that, and I still have so many I want to finish. It's definitely better to focus on a small number at a time, even if that's 20-30 haha.
Despite everything Elex 2 is one of my favourite games in 2022. There is something gripping about it that made me invest 100+ hours. It was the same situation with the original Elex I think I spent 120 h playing Elex. I really hope we see Elex 3.
So question for you then. I myself felt ekex 1's combat and....just how character progression is handled, what character challanges you encounter and how they did enemy placement. Is elex 2 better in this regard? I could get into riven 2 because i like pirates but also hiw you get more skills just clicked in that one, with elex it was less so, mostly because of basically every character tries to take advantage of you.
Worst PB game for me. Gothic 3 was unpolished and unfinished, but it was unpolished and unfinished gem. Elex 2 is just mediocre in most aspects. I have no idea how they managed to create worse game than Elex 1 and especially Risen 2 (Elex 1 wasn't that bad). They had biggest budget ever, 5 years of dev time and many assets from first Elex game. It feels like this game was made in 1.5 years max. Feels rushed and unfinished. And this ancient engine needs to be either replaced or heavily modernized. I'm not interested in Elex 3 after this game.
I'm not surprised. I'm playing Elex 1 right now, and am about 30 hours in, but the game is becoming a chore to play. The story isn't moving anywhere, every enemy encounter is the same, and I am doing nothing but errands for faction leaders, or companion quests. I hope it gets more interesting soon, because if not, I will probably give up.
I LOVED the first Elex and was really looking forward to the next one. But the E2 was a huge disappointment to me mainly for two reasons: first - the optimization and bugs - It is unacceptable to release the game with outdated graphics, poor performance and graphical glitches A YEAR AFTER it was supposed to release when they had a whole another year to optimize and bug-test the thing. The game was even unable to start on a couple of older graphics cards! And the second reason is the simple story and illogical events - I don´t want to spoil but there is one important character that died in the end and the rest of the crew completely ignored the event, like it never happened. That was too much for me. This game taught me to not preorder games. I have no desire to play this again (I forced myself to finish it).
Loved Elex, loved Elex II even more. Played them both on PS4. If they make Elex III, I will buy that too! I think they are highly underrated and deserve more attention. Never played Gothic, but the remake looks awesome, cant wait. I just hope they release it on console.
I had a lot of gripes with the game, but still enjoyed it. I definitely picked it up at launch while everyone was on Elden Ring. My performance was all over the place and I spent a lot of time tweaking it. In any case I look forward to more from PB
thank you for all your awesome content. I am a big fan of Piranha Bytes and THQ Nordic games and especially the two most recent Elex I and Elex II. bought and played Elex II on launch and enjoyed it much more than Elden Ring which also launched then.
I completed ELEX II four times and today I started playing it again I have played all the Piranha Bytes games and for me the best is Gothic 1 Gothic 2 Gothic 3 and Risen 1
Thoroughly enjoyed both one and two. Desperately want a third… just hope they don’t go for the filler ending with kill 10-40 of x, y and z. I love the world, the characters and I’m invested into it.
Personally as a die-hard Piranha Bytes fan I found the first Elex to be very underwhelming and just overly reliant on their formula for making rpgs. They need to move on and by that I don't mean scrap all they were doing so far completely,but just develop it in some direction. Like Rockstar did for example with their concept of a sandbox game. From missions bound to specific,clearly marked locations in the open world,through random strangers,appearing on your radar only when you were in their close proximity,to random scripted encounters,that often play out "in-game" rather than force you into cutscenes and all activities being much more mechanic-based and immersed into the world rather than instantiated. And I know Piranha is no Rockstar,but I didn't want to draw this comparison scale-wise,but rather approach-wise
Small technical correction to a statement you made - Gothic 2 was NOT their only game with DLC. Risen 2 & 3 also had DLC with extra islands to explore. However, in those cases the DLC came out at launch, so I'll grant you that Gothic 2 is the only one with DLC that was worked on after the game was released, which is the point you were making (post-release support).
Most people were curious about ELEX 1, so they checked it out. It was something completely new from PB. So I think curiosity was the driving factor for the first game's success. As for the 2nd - it seems pretty much the same as the 1st one. So all this curiosity goes out the window. The ones who liked ELEX1 will buy ELEX2, the ones who didnt - wont buy it. I personally didnt get to play ELEX1 myself, as I dont have a good PC. But even I, upon hearing that they were apparently planning to do for a whole ELEX trilogy, let out a big sigh. What i saw from videos on ELEX 1 didnt really impress me, so hearing that PB is going to spend another 4-7 years doing more ELEX games wasnt exciting at all.
Overall, Elex 1 was the better game. Elex 1 kept me engaged while in Elex 2 the last 20 hours was a major grind, I finished it but only because I have finished every PB game. The story was pretty bad, I didn't care about the kid and the reveal at the end was meh so I'm not really excited for the next game. Quests were often weak, many of them didn't make any sense and people didn't respond to your choices. Also, the camera made the game absolutely unplayable until modders fixed it. Next time I'm waiting 1 year after release to buy.
I just started watching the vide, but right off the bat I just wanna say: Elex 2 vastly disappointed me. I did finish the game, but it just did not hit for me. IDK why... so let's watch your video so I can hear more! lol
Same, but i coudn't even finish it, also not sure why, i had many hopes because i finished first one many times. On the paper it looks better, but in reality many aspects seem off, uninspired, unfinished and boring, especially quests and exploration, and this is most important things for me in this kind of games.
I'll tell you why: the 1st half of the game was decent, it felt just like the classic games, but the 2nd half felt like turd... Its like they gave up and just copy pasted generic quests of go there and kill 30 enemies then go over there and kill 50 enemies... I used cheats to get infinite jetpack and that only put it in perspective of how boring the finale is... The ending with the aliens is also extremely dumb and felt more like a rehash of the 1st game... And don't get me started on factions, you spend all that time and effort to join one and all you get is some armor, ZERO story impact, now that's just lazy writing...
@@IncomingLegend I just finished the game, and I agree with everything you said. The game eventually felt like a drag, the storyline sucked and the finale was extremely disappointing.
The morkons didnt really appeal and the city hubs were made so big I never really learned them. The companions were just a bit meh and cleric armor changed. Looked a lot better visually but art direction in some areas was a bit off, mainly companions. Shame because i loved elex 1!
I never played any PB game, but from all those videos about them I got the feeling that they're happy with their production model and don't try to increase their ambitions with each game like Spiders or CDproject back before witcher 3. I'm not sure they're even trying to increase their audience. It's probably a good thing, for fans of their style of games. Don't jinx it by wondering what a triple-A gothic would be like ^^
I put it on hold about 7-8 hours in, there were just other titles this year that have captured me more. I'll try to finish it in a few months, but it wasn't as fun as the first to me.
Pretty sure Elden Ring is what happened. I still haven't bought Elex 2 bc I simply don't have the time to play it. (Haven't even finished Elden Ring). I hope I can get to it around Christmas or so, I do love PB games.
Finished both games and I have to say I liked the second more than the first. It has not had the novelty of the first, but improved on a lot of things that it had on a mechanical/gameplay level. Kind of like Gothic 2 did to Gothic 1.
So how are the maps and memory leaks in Elex 2? The map, besides being barely adequate in Elex 1, fritzs out all the time (ps4pro) and I have to zoom in and out and play around with it to teleport to the Hort, sometimes I have to restart the game to get there. Additionally, there seem to be memory leaks in Elex 1 that sloooow the interface down over time. When I start the system it will reload a save point in a medium amount of time and throw up the Judicator interface in about 6 to 7 seconds. After playing a few hrs, it takes about twice as long to reload a save point and the Judicator can take 14 seconds to display! That's brutal. Restart the game and everything is faster again. It's a shame. It definitely makes Elex feel like a Non-polished AA game. I have to add, tho, that Skyrim was just as bad. After I got pretty far in the game, the shops would take well over 10 seconds to load. Its just poor testing . Thorough testing takes time and dedication, which Microsoft lacks for sure...we're all just beta testers to Microsoft. I'd hope THQ could do better, but Apprently not.
I loved Elex 1. Played over 200hrs. But Elex 2 was crap from beginning to the end. Never touched it again after 70hrs. The whole look and feel is way worse than the first one. Huge disappointment!
Kinda have to correct you about DLCs from PB. They made DLCs for the Risen 2 and 3 games under Deep Silver though by publishers demand. But those where day-One DLC for pre-order and CE buyers ranging from a reskin of late-game-armor with high stats and some "cut"-islands and temple maps that are not essential to the main story but feel like they have been cut out just to market them as DLC.
Has the recent DX12 update significantly improved performance ? There are some reports about it introducing some visual glitches (and somewhat lower image quality) and also much longer loading times.
Playing at 4k with a strong pc, the performance improvements for me are negligible and a few settings ste stuck on low. The dx12 update introduces things like anti aliasing not working and environment render range being stuck on low no matter what. Any performance gains are probably sue to those settings not working properly
If you haven´t played it yet i highly recommened SpellForce 3 (which can be played even without knowing 1 and 2) It also had a terrible release back then. But the devs made up for it. Reworked the whole thing and released 2 additional addons. Also they added a freegame-mode and an arena mode. And even more or less proper modding support for the community.
I have 25h in Elex 2 and i love it for now, maybe more that first one. Am in chapter 2 and I'm playing like Berserker just like in first one but this time Ranged Combat-Bow. I love PB games, thay have great atmosphere and world building, as well as well-written characters and quests.. And I love the Jetpack, it made exploring the world more interesting and fighting more fun, especially if you choose to fight from a distance.
I wonder how many good old Gothic veterans you have following your channel and how many have never played the old games. Would be interesting to see the different review scores for Elex in a side-by-side comparison.
I just started the game after 100+ hours in ELEX. First impressions.... different button pads, more or less upgraded version of the same I enjoyed in the first game. This means I will like the game enough to play at least 100 in game hours.
I got a bad feeling when, after starting a demo, the game crashed in 30min. I might have only been playing it on a ps4 pro, but it still made me worried about technical performance.
If you combine the art style and atmosphere of the first game, with the combat and playability of the second, then you'd have a truly great game. As much as I love PB games, it's always a case of one step forward, two steps back. Gain some interesting elements, but lose some in the process.
Elex was a very hard game. The devs said Elex II was even harder, for those of us that got frustrated at the game difficulty of the first game were never going to buy the second game, like I didn't.
I would say it was easy then first. The combat is alot more easy for casual games. The first one had to have the right timing to push the attack . The second you don't.
@@stockpilethomas7900 I never managed to find the right "timing". Also hand weapons are so weak, why did they implement them at all? With Elex, PB lost a great fan. I bought all previous games, but Elex was definitly my last PB game.
I liked elex a lot but I’ve only recently stopped playing elden ring as my main game and it’s been 15 months. Now that they released elex 2 on ps plus for “free” I’m finally getting to playthrough this game and I am really enjoying it.
Played the game for about 30 hours. Elex II is a continuation of the first game on the same area covered in the first game but it's obviously different.Once I got over that I could enjoy it. Lot's of choices you can make in the vien of Fallout New Vegas.
Lets just say it plain, Elex2 is the only PB game I haven't played. And I'm one of those who lets say played Gothic 1&2 more times then I care to count.
I don't often "finish" RPG's and end up stopping halfway through to go to another game. I finished Risen 2: Dark Waters. I think it's truly one of the best pirate games ever made. It nails the aesthetic, arguably, better than AC Black Flag and SoT. I consider it the VtMB of pirate games, if you will.
Elex 3 could be awesome with a big map ,many quests,many towns and villages,factions,skills ,spells like in Gothic 3,but everything else from gothic 1 and 2
One day I might check it out, but there's so much stuff to play... I'm still not a big fan of a mashup of generic(ish) sci-fi and primitive, grounded technology. In theory, it's fairly original but doesn't click with me. And without atmosphere, there's not a lot in the gameplay department. For a quick Gothic fix I'd rather reinstall G3, Risen3 or Archolos, despite finishing each of those at least a couple of times. They clearly had a limited budget and IMHO aiming for something with a production value above AA was a mistake. It would be better to focus on gameplay and RPG elements and content.. In the end even the presentation was 'just' OK when it came out. Idk, it's a shame. Still I'm excited about Gothic remake. Gothic 3 remaster would be amazing too, with integrated CP +tons of fixes, some new equipment, side quests and elevated graphics.
I couldn't even finish this game, it was so boring and dragged out story/gameplay wise it just felt like a chore. I'm a massive Gothic fan but if the next Piranha Bytes game plays anything like Elex 2 I'm definitely skipping it. U can literally feel that the devs give a shit what u think about their game, they make whatever they think is fun/good for them. In their opinion the die hard fans will buy their games anyways. Really sad the studios work is a shadow of its former self
I was interested in this game, despite not too fond of the Hank and wonky combat I’ve seen, until I found out there was no character creator. Huge deal breaker for me when it comes to RPGs. If even Japanese console developers can sort themselves out when it comes to that stuff(Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Dragons Dogma), I don’t see why I still have to put up with it from PC devs. I barely put up with it for Witcher. If they put in a character creator for part 3, I’ll check it out, if not I’ll just play other RPGs with character creators.
I love PBs style of games and I appreciate them sticking to their strengths, although I'd not be opposed to them finding ways of increasing the production value in some ways. Even after 60 hours of Elex 2 in my first playthrough I could never get fully used to the character models in dialogues - they felt like a step back in some ways? Some uncanny valley type stuff I'm sure. Still gearing up for another playthrough now and already looking forward to zooming around with the jetpack :D Your point about DLCs is not quite accurate I'm afraid. There were some DLCs for Risen 2 (one for some bonus starting gear, Treasure Island with Patty, and some Storm Island thing where you smack some gargoyles). They were enjoyable enough, although more simplistic in their scope compared to Night of the Raven which really integrated and completed Gothic 2 at the time. The reason PB never stuck with making DLCs for their subsequent games is that, according to Björn Pankratz, they received a lot of criticism along the lines of "omg you're cutting out content to sell it to us after" even if that wasn't really the case. You're also right that the limited ressources of the small development studio are another reason - Björn also said that they would rather concentrate on making new games rather than worthwhile DLC, as the effort required would be comparable but the money made would be much less. He likes to compare it to Witcher 3s Blood and Wine in that regard.
08:59 Thats not Quite right, risen 2 had some lackluster dlc implementation, according to Björn they were forced to do it this way from deep silver , their former publisher. Night of the Raven is more of an addon in my book As well, i am not aware of a downloadable Version of it ^^
Nice video, made me want to play Elex I again. I liked Elex I. Liked the arty graphics in it and gameplay. Played it just before Elex II was released. Elex II felt more like a shell compared to Elex I. The open world was generic and repetitive compared til Elex I. Don't get me started on the character art, and the story was a bit meh. I am still going to buy Elex III when it comes 😄
As a Gothic fan who got burned out on Piranha Bytes' newer games a long time ago, I was mildly interested in Elex 1 because of the new setting (didn't end up buying it though), but never considered touching Elex 2. So I'm not surprised at those Steam peak player numbers.
This is kinda my point whenever someone brings up Embracer buying up beloved IP's, especially from studios that were put into a toxic abusive relationship with their overlords like Eidos Montreal had with Square... So far Nordic has kinda been exactly what you want from a large publisher, or at least the best case one could hope for with the bar as low as it has fallen... Unlike the former namesake for THQ... Nordic has been surprisingly supportive and as the embracer conglomerate goes, they have thus far not been anything other than creepy by name alone(1). Funny though the Company buying the namesake of a massive publisher that went all in to bankruptcy on a preverbal Etch A Sketch(2) and thus far have been bout the polar opposite in operation and financial responsibility... But I can't think of any real standout AAA publisher conglomerate moments, which again, a low bar, but just that they have been super chill and let the sublets do their thing... so far for real... you know like every hungry conglomerate says they will after a good gobble, like EA or Activision in the late 90's or just anyone in corpoland.... before gutting the studio or converting them to indentured franchise support staff. Thus far I think THQ Nordic just as a standalone(3) has done what no one else is doing in that investment in the mystical unicorn of ol', the AA game... and while no one is perfect and they are still a publisher, like the bar is low... and the kinda support and whatnot they seem to offer and the projects, ect... like it would be reasonable by the older standards before AAA, nowadays, it's downright saintly... at least thus far. Feels odd, praising a conglomerate for going above the bare minimum, or not being outright misanthropic as a business model, but thus far I feel credit is due where it is, and will call it all out should Embracer Nordic Q whatevermajig live up to the dystopian namesake they branded their company(4)... But Ever since the last big roundup that re-negotiated Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamic's indentured servitude, people have been acting like this is a bad thing... cause the passive aggressive and abusive relationship that Square Enix had with it's studios was workin out great right? Well now they got a publisher that has a proven track record of... actual... low... interference publishing... and even better, they have more than a few forays into the whole medium budget affair... which that alone is a better sign than many would really understand till you look at the landscape of modern AAA and how that budget and scale and manipulation to justify it to a speculative market that lives in an infinite feedback loop and has nothing to do with it... well... Dunno... Gonna go reflexively vomit now for putting this many words into cooperate shillery lol... hopefully that's just reflexive, but again... with THQ big hugs edition... they kinda have for a while now actually done the thing they said, and with little notion to call attention to that there of... Which whenever a large corpo entity starts waxing bout the things... is always a really bad sign bout anything they are up to lol... and all of them do it endlessly like they don't seem to comprehend humans don't speak PR marketing. (1)Maybe it's a Swedish thing... I mean... they are kinda... well... lutefisk... (2)You would think they coulda seen the writing on the wall... HA! Man... no one get's that joke, but THQ died in one of the most RCA-esque manors, but instead of apathetic and too little to late, they did it with pride and oblivious vigor... good riddance. (3)There are two, but the THQ branding is more core Embracer group, as opposed to it's other sublets... SO both do different things, but... well.. ehh... nvm... (4)On purpose lol... like they were Under THQ Nordic as an over all listing... and were like... this is better... not creepy at all... Sweeds...
i felt elex 2 was a let down story and gameplay wise compared to elex, little was improved on and i feel like the criticism that was about elex 1 was either ignored or was too late to implement in to its sequel, also the fact that there was a noticeable downgrade in graphics compared to the first game felt like to me that this was just another mass effect andromeda
I will get this game , just waiting for it to be cheap as I have a huge back catalogue that needs playing, I'm looking forward to finally getting around to playing it 😁
I love the first ELEX! I love Elden Ring & played the hell out of it! Its release made me forget about ELEX 2! I have heard horrible reviews of ELEX 2! I want to get it & want it to be good like the first one!
I would chose consistent FPS I don't want to play a game in 720p. Only will give up on better resolution if there is no other choice, my eyes are killing me in low resolutions.
I just picked it up after watching this. Seems like a lot of what people initially complained about has been fixed. It's a pretty solid CRPG I'd say. Nice lighting, and the jetpack is cool. Runs just fine on my 3060. I couldn't really get into the first one - it was just too much jank. This one is an improvement though.
It was obvious the story is going to continue with the same character, it is like being dissapointed the you have to play as Geralt in the 3 Witcher games.
@@dennisdavidov782 I know, its not really a critic or anything, just my personnal opinion. Its the same reason why I dont really like the witcher game in fact XD I have real issue with immersion and premade character in rpg.
the PS5 version is still unplayable in the Ice-Region even Peformance mode is like 20 FpS. I have to say after Elex 2 Piranhas Gothic Bonus is gone for me
Another explanation for the drop of interest could be that people who became first interested in Elex 1 (it being new PB IP and quite interesting one in general) found out they didn't like it enough to be interested in sequel. I am certainly not one of them but it wouldn't be that surprising IMO.. Another large chunk could be those caring most about technical side and while it seems like decent evolution from all the trailers and gameplay, it's not a revolution nor huge leap and if someone didn't like gameplay of Elex 1, they wouldn't buy Elex 2.
ELEX is a game that centers on story and conversation. If you didn't focus on the story, of course you can't focus on the game. If someone blames motion and combat systems for being clumsy, that person is not qualified to evaluate ELEX. It is technically impossible to build an Eldon Ring combat system in an ELEX interactive open-world game engine.
I thoroughly enjoyed Elex 1 and kind of remembered Elex 2 was already out about a month ago, so I watched some reviews and decided to buy it. I was honestly extremely disappointed with the game. From technical aspect the game was great. Combat felt better, jetpack was great, levelling was improved with potions no longer affecting levelling, visual as well. However I could not bring myself to like the story, characters or anything that the devs wanted me to like. Ditto with the quests - some really missing the mark for me, not to mention the constant forced companions. Two things that I also felt was worse compared to first that was not as talked about was the exploration and enemy placement. In the first game I feel like every time I asked myself - oooh, whats there. I got rewarded with something and made me love the exploration in first elex. I felt this was missing in the second game. Second was enemy placement which ties to traversing the place. There seemed to be no natural progression. Huge dangerous enemies right at the doorstep of faction bases, no weaker enemies on the more travelled paths and the dangerous ones off the beaten path. Even the first game had some issues with this but Elex 2 just haphazardly placed them wherever it seemed to me. So I returned the game, got a 50% refund and bought Elden Ring.....
Still haven't played Elex 2... I did finish Elex 1 twice, shortly after release too! But Elex 2... eh... I don't know. Playing the remaster of Kingdoms of Amalur with the DLC right now, maybe after that...
I liked PB games, been playing their games since Gothic 2, but I grew tired of their formula. I respect the "artisanal" aspect to some extent, but after all those years, it also seem a little cheap in my opinion. I have been waiting for almost 20 years for them to make a game with a actual budget and less jank. They'll never do it, I'm sure of that now. They're too satisfied with not being perfectionists, and too proud to stop being independent.
One thing that really bugged me was I played as Outlaw faction, as I did in E1 too, and PB just shoehorned the Outlaws into the Berserker quest line. What was the point? armor had same stats, outlaw weapons were found and crafted, Crafting stims was pointless as I was already OP with shotguns. Lost opportunity IMO And I think they shoehorned Alb faction into Clerics. Dumb
Get Yahaha studio for free here: mtchm.de/ctgsd
Edit: I got the part about the DLC wrong. Risen 2 and Risen 3 did have some DLCs,
although they weren't big by any means. Especially compared to Night of the Raven.
What did you think about Elex 2 in general? Better or worse than Elex 1?
I've been waiting to play this for so long just haven't bought it yet
Elex 1 was a much more enjoyable and expansive experience
heres hoping they learn for Elex 3 that the world isnt as important as the individual factions. The Morkons we're a step in the right direction
Nothing happen it just got released toghter with elden ring and end in the forgoten place
i did not even touched it yet, ive not even finished elden ring. Due to lack of time.
They really need to make something like a DLC to market the game.
Gameplay, Exploration was better, story was worse. Sidequest and Lore was on par to Elex I. Morkons were amazing. Nice twist to have 3 Fractions which actually split up again to 5. was sceptical but actually worked out.
Legitimately didn't know Elex II had released and I really enjoyed the first game. Dropping it a week after Elden Ring is worse than even releasing Kingdoms of Amalur when everyone was still playing Skyrim.
What? Your last sentence lost me.
I get what you mean, I never heard of kingdoms of amalur until the remaster came out, never heard of elex 1 or 2 until it came out on ps plus. The AAA games cast a shadow over these ones and they went unnoticed due to that
Kingdoms of Amalur was and still is a masterpiece tbh if it would been released earlier or later than Skyrim it would got the recognition it deserved
@@MrKrampyHands I love skyrim but I can never get into kingdoms of amalar I feel like the graphics are horrible on console PC version was better but the game which was really weird it was like rotate warcraft but offline
Elex 2 appears to be a better game, but you need to give it time to strengthen your character. Sometimes the game makes you wait because your character is not strong enough.
Your video made me think of how much of a gem THQ is as a publisher. They always have their eye out for niche games with smaller audiences, building their portfolio with average sales numbers. Keeping a foothold in the AA game market while the bigger publishers focus on AAA titles.
My favourite publisher.
THQ biggest strength is the way they choose developers for certain franchises they intend to bring back. It's always a perfect synergy, and for that I find that the best publisher around.
I mean... they are just about one of the biggest software conglomerates around... see my above post about Embracer for more context... but you know... actions are definitely not as loud as marketing and PR departments, and outside of their name lol, just the lack of a news cycle is a almost proof enough they might actually intend something near abouts to their mission statement... a history of actually doing it over the years is even better lol... strange world we live in I suppose... annoying one... and for some reason PR and marketing think they speak human still... better to say nothing as a corp or little no nothing and I'll take that as a much better sign bout what your intentions are...? Funny how rare that is.
I'd live another Red Faction Guerrilla-ish game
THQNordic is not really the same anymore
I found elex 1 because I love trying strange RPGs, like gothic, and two worlds. Elex 1 and 2 are now my favourite RPGs, if I compared it to Skyrim I'd say the factions in elex are much more involving and eventful, great companions, and a very difficult learning curve, it took me so long to get out of goliet in elex 1 because I weren't used to the game and didn't have confidence to explore too much but I reached the clerics and went along with them and I saw why elex is such a great game
"We will definitely see another Elex game from Piranha Bytes". That quote did not age well unfortunately.
to be honest, after 50 hours of playing, I love this game. Maybe as much as I love Elex 1 and maybe even more! By the way on my PC directx12 works very well, only start take more time to load.
I have not played this game myself...
I watched The Revs play-through and loved it!
There is something about Pirhana bytes games thats really hooks you, and they have always done it!
So much atmosphere!
Piranha Bytes, in short, completely nails the feeling of not being the chosen one.
The games are a bit janky, but worlds feel alive and the experience is pretty brutal compared to a power fantasy like Skyrim. They also have a habit of building their maps vertically, rather than vast horizontal expanses.
@@zozihn8047
Even if you are the Chosen One, like Gothic 1 and Gothic 2, you still have to work your ass off to actually get to the godlike point you end the game on, and even then you can easily get swatted by group's of enemies, who don't nicely come at you one at a time, even if you could 4 shot the last boss with your slab of steel or crazy magic.
You can be the Champion of Innos, some highly decorated Alb Commander, or a dude who beats Titan's to death with a wooden stick, but you are still in a world that wants to kill you and doesn't care how it does it. Just because you end up a demigod doesn't mean an overgrown chicken or giant rat can't tear you apart until you get going.
Absolutely love your retrospect videos, keep 'em coming. Uživaj, burki!
Uživaj ? Where you bois from ?
@@aljosap8445 Balkan gigachads 😎
So i was excited for this and really liked the 1st one, but I feel off of this game pretty quickly. I think I just didn't get grabbed by the story the same way I did with the first.
Loved Elex 2. Finished it 4 times. Here's hoping they come through with Elex 3.
I think the Elex games are the only games I enjoy enough to consider playing on high difficulties just for the fun of it.
this game is a shyt xD
I love the Elex series and I can't wait to know what will happen to Jax in Elex 3.
I am still bitter that Jax ended with Kaja and not with my favourite girl Nasty.
Yeah, the timing of the release is a big part of why I still haven't purchased Elex 2 even though I really liked Elex 1 when I first played it on Xbox and bought it again on PC to play as preparation for Elex 2. I was legitimately excited for Elex 2, but then Elden Ring completely stole ("spoiled"?) my focus for a couple months. And then I saw the reviews for Elex 2, and I kinda just decided to let it sit on the Steam wishlist until a good sale comes along. Honestly my backlog of games is already getting out of hand (22 started but not finished, 33 never played), and I'm almost finished reading the Witcher books for the first time, so I plan to replay all 3 of those soon (super excited for Witcher 1 remake as well, even if it's several years away). I really do plan to play Elex 2 eventually, but it's just not my top priority as far as games go right now. I guess I also need to finish the mess that is Gothic 3 and get started on the Risen series. I hope G2 and 3 get a second chance with THQ because they need it way more than G1, IMO.
Steam sales are the devil when it comes to creating an unattainable catalogue of games to finish. I almost 500 games on my account (purchased over more than a decade), and I've maybe finished a quarter of them, if that, and I still have so many I want to finish. It's definitely better to focus on a small number at a time, even if that's 20-30 haha.
Despite everything Elex 2 is one of my favourite games in 2022. There is something gripping about it that made me invest 100+ hours. It was the same situation with the original Elex I think I spent 120 h playing Elex. I really hope we see Elex 3.
So question for you then.
I myself felt ekex 1's combat and....just how character progression is handled, what character challanges you encounter and how they did enemy placement.
Is elex 2 better in this regard? I could get into riven 2 because i like pirates but also hiw you get more skills just clicked in that one, with elex it was less so, mostly because of basically every character tries to take advantage of you.
Avoid 2 like the plague
@@thehatter9400 sorry for the delayed response. ELEX 2 is improvement in everything
Worst PB game for me. Gothic 3 was unpolished and unfinished, but it was unpolished and unfinished gem.
Elex 2 is just mediocre in most aspects. I have no idea how they managed to create worse game than Elex 1 and especially Risen 2 (Elex 1 wasn't that bad).
They had biggest budget ever, 5 years of dev time and many assets from first Elex game.
It feels like this game was made in 1.5 years max. Feels rushed and unfinished.
And this ancient engine needs to be either replaced or heavily modernized.
I'm not interested in Elex 3 after this game.
Although I liked the first Elex - I never finished for some reason. Reached maybe the half of the main story line and got tired.
I'm not surprised. I'm playing Elex 1 right now, and am about 30 hours in, but the game is becoming a chore to play. The story isn't moving anywhere, every enemy encounter is the same, and I am doing nothing but errands for faction leaders, or companion quests. I hope it gets more interesting soon, because if not, I will probably give up.
Don’t play 2 then 😅
I LOVED the first Elex and was really looking forward to the next one. But the E2 was a huge disappointment to me mainly for two reasons: first - the optimization and bugs - It is unacceptable to release the game with outdated graphics, poor performance and graphical glitches A YEAR AFTER it was supposed to release when they had a whole another year to optimize and bug-test the thing. The game was even unable to start on a couple of older graphics cards! And the second reason is the simple story and illogical events - I don´t want to spoil but there is one important character that died in the end and the rest of the crew completely ignored the event, like it never happened. That was too much for me. This game taught me to not preorder games. I have no desire to play this again (I forced myself to finish it).
Loved Elex, loved Elex II even more. Played them both on PS4. If they make Elex III, I will buy that too! I think they are highly underrated and deserve more attention. Never played Gothic, but the remake looks awesome, cant wait. I just hope they release it on console.
If you liked Elex, you will much more like all the Gothic series, even with the old graphic it is still the best series.
I had a lot of gripes with the game, but still enjoyed it. I definitely picked it up at launch while everyone was on Elden Ring. My performance was all over the place and I spent a lot of time tweaking it. In any case I look forward to more from PB
Choosing this game over elden ring is hilarious!!!
@@thetrashcanman7537 yup, I laughed all the way til the credits rolled. Had a great time.
@@justrok79 I’d laugh tears if I had that bad of taste in games too
@@thetrashcanman7537damn nobody can have their own opinion.
@@porkerpete7722 I answered his opinions with facts
thank you for all your awesome content. I am a big fan of Piranha Bytes and THQ Nordic games and especially the two most recent Elex I and Elex II. bought and played Elex II on launch and enjoyed it much more than Elden Ring which also launched then.
The last skit where you show the Arcania game, reminds me of durmin paradox. Nicely done
That guy made some great videos about Gothic games and just disappeared. :(
^^ this. I wonder what Durmin is up to now 😄His Gothic videos are awesome.
It runs very well on DX12. Great game, anxious for Elex 3.
I completed ELEX II four times and today I started playing it again I have played all the Piranha Bytes games and for me the best is Gothic 1 Gothic 2 Gothic 3 and Risen 1
Thoroughly enjoyed both one and two. Desperately want a third… just hope they don’t go for the filler ending with kill 10-40 of x, y and z.
I love the world, the characters and I’m invested into it.
Personally as a die-hard Piranha Bytes fan I found the first Elex to be very underwhelming and just overly reliant on their formula for making rpgs. They need to move on and by that I don't mean scrap all they were doing so far completely,but just develop it in some direction. Like Rockstar did for example with their concept of a sandbox game. From missions bound to specific,clearly marked locations in the open world,through random strangers,appearing on your radar only when you were in their close proximity,to random scripted encounters,that often play out "in-game" rather than force you into cutscenes and all activities being much more mechanic-based and immersed into the world rather than instantiated. And I know Piranha is no Rockstar,but I didn't want to draw this comparison scale-wise,but rather approach-wise
It's like PB doesn't care. It's just adequate on many fronts.
Small technical correction to a statement you made - Gothic 2 was NOT their only game with DLC. Risen 2 & 3 also had DLC with extra islands to explore. However, in those cases the DLC came out at launch, so I'll grant you that Gothic 2 is the only one with DLC that was worked on after the game was released, which is the point you were making (post-release support).
Most people were curious about ELEX 1, so they checked it out. It was something completely new from PB. So I think curiosity was the driving factor for the first game's success. As for the 2nd - it seems pretty much the same as the 1st one. So all this curiosity goes out the window. The ones who liked ELEX1 will buy ELEX2, the ones who didnt - wont buy it. I personally didnt get to play ELEX1 myself, as I dont have a good PC. But even I, upon hearing that they were apparently planning to do for a whole ELEX trilogy, let out a big sigh. What i saw from videos on ELEX 1 didnt really impress me, so hearing that PB is going to spend another 4-7 years doing more ELEX games wasnt exciting at all.
That actually makes a lot of sense. It's very interesting to see a brand new IP in general.
Still playing elex 2
A lot in it that makes you want to keep going back on it.
Overall, Elex 1 was the better game. Elex 1 kept me engaged while in Elex 2 the last 20 hours was a major grind, I finished it but only because I have finished every PB game. The story was pretty bad, I didn't care about the kid and the reveal at the end was meh so I'm not really excited for the next game. Quests were often weak, many of them didn't make any sense and people didn't respond to your choices. Also, the camera made the game absolutely unplayable until modders fixed it. Next time I'm waiting 1 year after release to buy.
I just started watching the vide, but right off the bat I just wanna say: Elex 2 vastly disappointed me. I did finish the game, but it just did not hit for me. IDK why... so let's watch your video so I can hear more! lol
Same, but i coudn't even finish it, also not sure why, i had many hopes because i finished first one many times. On the paper it looks better, but in reality many aspects seem off, uninspired, unfinished and boring, especially quests and exploration, and this is most important things for me in this kind of games.
@@buc991 Yeah! Boring is right. The jetpack was cool, though.
I'll tell you why: the 1st half of the game was decent, it felt just like the classic games, but the 2nd half felt like turd... Its like they gave up and just copy pasted generic quests of go there and kill 30 enemies then go over there and kill 50 enemies... I used cheats to get infinite jetpack and that only put it in perspective of how boring the finale is... The ending with the aliens is also extremely dumb and felt more like a rehash of the 1st game... And don't get me started on factions, you spend all that time and effort to join one and all you get is some armor, ZERO story impact, now that's just lazy writing...
@@IncomingLegend this is my issue with Risen. The first half was SO good
@@IncomingLegend I just finished the game, and I agree with everything you said. The game eventually felt like a drag, the storyline sucked and the finale was extremely disappointing.
The morkons didnt really appeal and the city hubs were made so big I never really learned them. The companions were just a bit meh and cleric armor changed. Looked a lot better visually but art direction in some areas was a bit off, mainly companions. Shame because i loved elex 1!
I hope in the future games Pirahna would scrap this awful soulslike combat and just go with something less infuriating, slow and stupid.
I never played any PB game, but from all those videos about them I got the feeling that they're happy with their production model and don't try to increase their ambitions with each game like Spiders or CDproject back before witcher 3. I'm not sure they're even trying to increase their audience. It's probably a good thing, for fans of their style of games. Don't jinx it by wondering what a triple-A gothic would be like ^^
I plan on buying elex2 at the next steam sale. I own elex on ps4 but I've been having alot of fun with Mt steam deck and I'd love to play elex 2
I've been wanting to play this for so long
10:00 Aged like milk
I put it on hold about 7-8 hours in, there were just other titles this year that have captured me more. I'll try to finish it in a few months, but it wasn't as fun as the first to me.
They should partner with Spiders studio , they both make great budget title rpg that almost play the same.
Spiders actually improved a lot with Greedfall, unlike PB.......
@@johnd3124 😜 Im a bigger fan of Spiders too gotta say
Pretty sure Elden Ring is what happened. I still haven't bought Elex 2 bc I simply don't have the time to play it. (Haven't even finished Elden Ring).
I hope I can get to it around Christmas or so, I do love PB games.
Finished both games and I have to say I liked the second more than the first. It has not had the novelty of the first, but improved on a lot of things that it had on a mechanical/gameplay level. Kind of like Gothic 2 did to Gothic 1.
So how are the maps and memory leaks in Elex 2?
The map, besides being barely adequate in Elex 1, fritzs out all the time (ps4pro) and I have to zoom in and out and play around with it to teleport to the Hort, sometimes I have to restart the game to get there.
Additionally, there seem to be memory leaks in Elex 1 that sloooow the interface down over time.
When I start the system it will reload a save point in a medium amount of time and throw up the Judicator interface in about 6 to 7 seconds.
After playing a few hrs, it takes about twice as long to reload a save point and the Judicator can take 14 seconds to display! That's brutal.
Restart the game and everything is faster again. It's a shame. It definitely makes Elex feel like a Non-polished AA game.
I have to add, tho, that Skyrim was just as bad. After I got pretty far in the game, the shops would take well over 10 seconds to load.
Its just poor testing . Thorough testing takes time and dedication, which Microsoft lacks for sure...we're all just beta testers to Microsoft.
I'd hope THQ could do better, but Apprently not.
I never managed to complete the game- still working on that. Overall good game- no real complaints here.
I loved Elex 1. Played over 200hrs. But Elex 2 was crap from beginning to the end. Never touched it again after 70hrs. The whole look and feel is way worse than the first one. Huge disappointment!
Kinda have to correct you about DLCs from PB.
They made DLCs for the Risen 2 and 3 games under Deep Silver though by publishers demand. But those where day-One DLC for pre-order and CE buyers ranging from a reskin of late-game-armor with high stats and some "cut"-islands and temple maps that are not essential to the main story but feel like they have been cut out just to market them as DLC.
Has the recent DX12 update significantly improved performance ?
There are some reports about it introducing some visual glitches (and somewhat lower image quality) and also much longer loading times.
Playing at 4k with a strong pc, the performance improvements for me are negligible and a few settings ste stuck on low. The dx12 update introduces things like anti aliasing not working and environment render range being stuck on low no matter what. Any performance gains are probably sue to those settings not working properly
If you haven´t played it yet i highly recommened SpellForce 3 (which can be played even without knowing 1 and 2)
It also had a terrible release back then. But the devs made up for it. Reworked the whole thing and released 2 additional addons. Also they added a freegame-mode and an arena mode.
And even more or less proper modding support for the community.
I have 25h in Elex 2 and i love it for now, maybe more that first one. Am in chapter 2 and I'm playing like Berserker just like in first one but this time Ranged Combat-Bow. I love PB games, thay have great atmosphere and world building, as well as well-written characters and quests.. And I love the Jetpack, it made exploring the world more interesting and fighting more fun, especially if you choose to fight from a distance.
Nobody likes this game more then the first, it's so bad they closed the studio lol.
Love your videos and share your passion towards Gothic! I hope Piranha Bytes goes back to fantasy after ELEX, even if it's not for a Gothic game.
I wonder how many good old Gothic veterans you have following your channel and how many have never played the old games. Would be interesting to see the different review scores for Elex in a side-by-side comparison.
I just started the game after 100+ hours in ELEX.
First impressions.... different button pads, more or less upgraded version of the same I enjoyed in the first game. This means I will like the game enough to play at least 100 in game hours.
I got a bad feeling when, after starting a demo, the game crashed in 30min. I might have only been playing it on a ps4 pro, but it still made me worried about technical performance.
If you combine the art style and atmosphere of the first game, with the combat and playability of the second, then you'd have a truly great game. As much as I love PB games, it's always a case of one step forward, two steps back. Gain some interesting elements, but lose some in the process.
Still my favorite RPG of 2022! Praying for ELEX 3. 🙏
About to play it. Never played an Elex game before. Here’s to hoping I love it!
@@TheProphegy hopefully you’re playing the first ELEX and not just jumping into the sequel lol, but I hope that you love it too. 😊
@@gri22lybear I’m jumping straight to sequel. I heard it looks and runs way better. I heard you don’t need to play the first one or do I?
@@TheProphegy it’s optional, but the original also did things I liked more than the sequel.
Elex was a very hard game. The devs said Elex II was even harder, for those of us that got frustrated at the game difficulty of the first game were never going to buy the second game, like I didn't.
I would say it was easy then first. The combat is alot more easy for casual games. The first one had to have the right timing to push the attack . The second you don't.
@@stockpilethomas7900 I never managed to find the right "timing". Also hand weapons are so weak, why did they implement them at all?
With Elex, PB lost a great fan. I bought all previous games, but Elex was definitly my last PB game.
I liked elex a lot but I’ve only recently stopped playing elden ring as my main game and it’s been 15 months. Now that they released elex 2 on ps plus for “free” I’m finally getting to playthrough this game and I am really enjoying it.
About to do the same! Never played an Elex before. Hope I love it. You still enjoying it?
Played the game for about 30 hours. Elex II is a continuation of the first game on the same area covered in the first game but it's obviously different.Once I got over that I could enjoy it. Lot's of choices you can make in the vien of Fallout New Vegas.
Lets just say it plain, Elex2 is the only PB game I haven't played. And I'm one of those who lets say played Gothic 1&2 more times then I care to count.
It kinda seems like Piranha Bytes has a knack for disappointing sequels at this point tbh
I don't often "finish" RPG's and end up stopping halfway through to go to another game. I finished Risen 2: Dark Waters. I think it's truly one of the best pirate games ever made. It nails the aesthetic, arguably, better than AC Black Flag and SoT. I consider it the VtMB of pirate games, if you will.
Elex 3 could be awesome with a big map ,many quests,many towns and villages,factions,skills ,spells like in Gothic 3,but everything else from gothic 1 and 2
8:59 I believe Risen 2 got a few short story DLCs.
One day I might check it out, but there's so much stuff to play... I'm still not a big fan of a mashup of generic(ish) sci-fi and primitive, grounded technology. In theory, it's fairly original but doesn't click with me. And without atmosphere, there's not a lot in the gameplay department. For a quick Gothic fix I'd rather reinstall G3, Risen3 or Archolos, despite finishing each of those at least a couple of times.
They clearly had a limited budget and IMHO aiming for something with a production value above AA was a mistake. It would be better to focus on gameplay and RPG elements and content.. In the end even the presentation was 'just' OK when it came out. Idk, it's a shame. Still I'm excited about Gothic remake. Gothic 3 remaster would be amazing too, with integrated CP +tons of fixes, some new equipment, side quests and elevated graphics.
Night of the raven was before DLC became a thing on PC - we oldtimers used to cal them 'expansions' :P
I couldn't even finish this game, it was so boring and dragged out story/gameplay wise it just felt like a chore. I'm a massive Gothic fan but if the next Piranha Bytes game plays anything like Elex 2 I'm definitely skipping it. U can literally feel that the devs give a shit what u think about their game, they make whatever they think is fun/good for them. In their opinion the die hard fans will buy their games anyways. Really sad the studios work is a shadow of its former self
I was interested in this game, despite not too fond of the Hank and wonky combat I’ve seen, until I found out there was no character creator. Huge deal breaker for me when it comes to RPGs. If even Japanese console developers can sort themselves out when it comes to that stuff(Dark Souls, Elden Ring, Dragons Dogma), I don’t see why I still have to put up with it from PC devs. I barely put up with it for Witcher.
If they put in a character creator for part 3, I’ll check it out, if not I’ll just play other RPGs with character creators.
I love PBs style of games and I appreciate them sticking to their strengths, although I'd not be opposed to them finding ways of increasing the production value in some ways. Even after 60 hours of Elex 2 in my first playthrough I could never get fully used to the character models in dialogues - they felt like a step back in some ways? Some uncanny valley type stuff I'm sure. Still gearing up for another playthrough now and already looking forward to zooming around with the jetpack :D
Your point about DLCs is not quite accurate I'm afraid. There were some DLCs for Risen 2 (one for some bonus starting gear, Treasure Island with Patty, and some Storm Island thing where you smack some gargoyles). They were enjoyable enough, although more simplistic in their scope compared to Night of the Raven which really integrated and completed Gothic 2 at the time. The reason PB never stuck with making DLCs for their subsequent games is that, according to Björn Pankratz, they received a lot of criticism along the lines of "omg you're cutting out content to sell it to us after" even if that wasn't really the case. You're also right that the limited ressources of the small development studio are another reason - Björn also said that they would rather concentrate on making new games rather than worthwhile DLC, as the effort required would be comparable but the money made would be much less. He likes to compare it to Witcher 3s Blood and Wine in that regard.
08:59
Thats not Quite right, risen 2 had some lackluster dlc implementation, according to Björn they were forced to do it this way from deep silver , their former publisher.
Night of the Raven is more of an addon in my book As well, i am not aware of a downloadable Version of it ^^
I'm playing now the enhanced edition of Gothic 3 forsaken gods and now is completely playable
I forgot I still have to finish this. I think I'm around halfway done
You should review Archolos, the gothic 2 mod of the year, its truly amazing
Nice video, made me want to play Elex I again. I liked Elex I. Liked the arty graphics in it and gameplay. Played it just before Elex II was released. Elex II felt more like a shell compared to Elex I. The open world was generic and repetitive compared til Elex I. Don't get me started on the character art, and the story was a bit meh. I am still going to buy Elex III when it comes 😄
is it worth the price if im diehard piranha b fan?
Risen 2 had DLCs as well. Adding sets and new adventures.
As a Gothic fan who got burned out on Piranha Bytes' newer games a long time ago, I was mildly interested in Elex 1 because of the new setting (didn't end up buying it though), but never considered touching Elex 2. So I'm not surprised at those Steam peak player numbers.
You should play the first one. I enjoyed it a lot and I've been playing their games since the release of Gothic 2.
Elex games is actually really interesting, like the gothic was kinda funny and the magic system is amazing tbh
I beat Elex 1, and was super hyped for Elex 2. Admittedly, I bounced off it after like 3 hours and never came back. I should go back and try again.
This is kinda my point whenever someone brings up Embracer buying up beloved IP's, especially from studios that were put into a toxic abusive relationship with their overlords like Eidos Montreal had with Square... So far Nordic has kinda been exactly what you want from a large publisher, or at least the best case one could hope for with the bar as low as it has fallen... Unlike the former namesake for THQ... Nordic has been surprisingly supportive and as the embracer conglomerate goes, they have thus far not been anything other than creepy by name alone(1).
Funny though the Company buying the namesake of a massive publisher that went all in to bankruptcy on a preverbal Etch A Sketch(2) and thus far have been bout the polar opposite in operation and financial responsibility... But I can't think of any real standout AAA publisher conglomerate moments, which again, a low bar, but just that they have been super chill and let the sublets do their thing... so far for real... you know like every hungry conglomerate says they will after a good gobble, like EA or Activision in the late 90's or just anyone in corpoland.... before gutting the studio or converting them to indentured franchise support staff.
Thus far I think THQ Nordic just as a standalone(3) has done what no one else is doing in that investment in the mystical unicorn of ol', the AA game... and while no one is perfect and they are still a publisher, like the bar is low... and the kinda support and whatnot they seem to offer and the projects, ect... like it would be reasonable by the older standards before AAA, nowadays, it's downright saintly... at least thus far.
Feels odd, praising a conglomerate for going above the bare minimum, or not being outright misanthropic as a business model, but thus far I feel credit is due where it is, and will call it all out should Embracer Nordic Q whatevermajig live up to the dystopian namesake they branded their company(4)... But Ever since the last big roundup that re-negotiated Eidos Montreal and Crystal Dynamic's indentured servitude, people have been acting like this is a bad thing... cause the passive aggressive and abusive relationship that Square Enix had with it's studios was workin out great right? Well now they got a publisher that has a proven track record of... actual... low... interference publishing... and even better, they have more than a few forays into the whole medium budget affair... which that alone is a better sign than many would really understand till you look at the landscape of modern AAA and how that budget and scale and manipulation to justify it to a speculative market that lives in an infinite feedback loop and has nothing to do with it... well... Dunno...
Gonna go reflexively vomit now for putting this many words into cooperate shillery lol... hopefully that's just reflexive, but again... with THQ big hugs edition... they kinda have for a while now actually done the thing they said, and with little notion to call attention to that there of... Which whenever a large corpo entity starts waxing bout the things... is always a really bad sign bout anything they are up to lol... and all of them do it endlessly like they don't seem to comprehend humans don't speak PR marketing.
(1)Maybe it's a Swedish thing... I mean... they are kinda... well... lutefisk...
(2)You would think they coulda seen the writing on the wall... HA! Man... no one get's that joke, but THQ died in one of the most RCA-esque manors, but instead of apathetic and too little to late, they did it with pride and oblivious vigor... good riddance.
(3)There are two, but the THQ branding is more core Embracer group, as opposed to it's other sublets... SO both do different things, but... well.. ehh... nvm...
(4)On purpose lol... like they were Under THQ Nordic as an over all listing... and were like... this is better... not creepy at all... Sweeds...
i felt elex 2 was a let down story and gameplay wise compared to elex, little was improved on and i feel like the criticism that was about elex 1 was either ignored or was too late to implement in to its sequel, also the fact that there was a noticeable downgrade in graphics compared to the first game felt like to me that this was just another mass effect andromeda
I will get this game , just waiting for it to be cheap as I have a huge back catalogue that needs playing, I'm looking forward to finally getting around to playing it 😁
Just discover this game and WOW i love it..I don't understand that I haven't heard of this game. ♥️♥️♥️
I love the first ELEX! I love Elden Ring & played the hell out of it! Its release made me forget about ELEX 2! I have heard horrible reviews of ELEX 2! I want to get it & want it to be good like the first one!
I would chose consistent FPS I don't want to play a game in 720p. Only will give up on better resolution if there is no other choice, my eyes are killing me in low resolutions.
There are also the Elex 2 first timers that wanted to play Elex 1 and bought it.
Wow I had no idea that Elex 2 came out.
I’m a huge Gothic fan and had no clue.
This is already out?! Lmao, I didn't even realize it had released! I enjoyed the first one well enough, I need to pick this up soon.
I just picked it up after watching this. Seems like a lot of what people initially complained about has been fixed. It's a pretty solid CRPG I'd say. Nice lighting, and the jetpack is cool. Runs just fine on my 3060. I couldn't really get into the first one - it was just too much jank. This one is an improvement though.
I finished the game had high hopes for it but it was kinda underwhelming. Piranha will never make a game like Gothic ever again.
I remember when you streamed Elden Ring with the title "is it as good as Elex 2" hahahaha
Umm, I'm pretty sure I didn't do that, lol. I think it was something like 'is it really that good'.
@@click4gameplay 100%, may have been the thumbnail if not the title. but one of them said something like that, which tickled me no end.
Nop, I just checked. I had a single Elden Ring stream with no such title or thumbnail. Good job though, u made me look, lmao.
Elex 1 was alright but I was not hype at all for elex 2. I was disapointed it was still a premade avatar and not a custom one.
It was obvious the story is going to continue with the same character, it is like being dissapointed the you have to play as Geralt in the 3 Witcher games.
@@dennisdavidov782 I know, its not really a critic or anything, just my personnal opinion. Its the same reason why I dont really like the witcher game in fact XD
I have real issue with immersion and premade character in rpg.
the PS5 version is still unplayable in the Ice-Region even Peformance mode is like 20 FpS. I have to say after Elex 2 Piranhas Gothic Bonus is gone for me
Womp womp
What's the best camp to join if you want the best guns?
Another explanation for the drop of interest could be that people who became first interested in Elex 1 (it being new PB IP and quite interesting one in general) found out they didn't like it enough to be interested in sequel. I am certainly not one of them but it wouldn't be that surprising IMO.. Another large chunk could be those caring most about technical side and while it seems like decent evolution from all the trailers and gameplay, it's not a revolution nor huge leap and if someone didn't like gameplay of Elex 1, they wouldn't buy Elex 2.
ELEX is a game that centers on story and conversation.
If you didn't focus on the story, of course you can't focus on the game.
If someone blames motion and combat systems for being clumsy, that person is not qualified to evaluate ELEX.
It is technically impossible to build an Eldon Ring combat system in an ELEX interactive open-world game engine.
jeez didnt even know pirahna has a sequel to a new series already... I'm still living in the Risen era lol!
I'm gonna have to check this out...I loved Gothic so I'm hoping ill enjoy Elex2
I thoroughly enjoyed Elex 1 and kind of remembered Elex 2 was already out about a month ago, so I watched some reviews and decided to buy it. I was honestly extremely disappointed with the game. From technical aspect the game was great. Combat felt better, jetpack was great, levelling was improved with potions no longer affecting levelling, visual as well. However I could not bring myself to like the story, characters or anything that the devs wanted me to like. Ditto with the quests - some really missing the mark for me, not to mention the constant forced companions.
Two things that I also felt was worse compared to first that was not as talked about was the exploration and enemy placement. In the first game I feel like every time I asked myself - oooh, whats there. I got rewarded with something and made me love the exploration in first elex. I felt this was missing in the second game. Second was enemy placement which ties to traversing the place. There seemed to be no natural progression. Huge dangerous enemies right at the doorstep of faction bases, no weaker enemies on the more travelled paths and the dangerous ones off the beaten path. Even the first game had some issues with this but Elex 2 just haphazardly placed them wherever it seemed to me.
So I returned the game, got a 50% refund and bought Elden Ring.....
I'll probably buy it when it's heavily discounted.
Still haven't played Elex 2... I did finish Elex 1 twice, shortly after release too! But Elex 2... eh... I don't know. Playing the remaster of Kingdoms of Amalur with the DLC right now, maybe after that...
I liked PB games, been playing their games since Gothic 2, but I grew tired of their formula.
I respect the "artisanal" aspect to some extent, but after all those years, it also seem a little cheap in my opinion. I have been waiting for almost 20 years for them to make a game with a actual budget and less jank.
They'll never do it, I'm sure of that now. They're too satisfied with not being perfectionists, and too proud to stop being independent.
Really looking forward for your Archolos review 🤞
One thing that really bugged me was I played as Outlaw faction, as I did in E1 too, and PB just shoehorned the Outlaws into the Berserker quest line. What was the point? armor had same stats, outlaw weapons were found and crafted, Crafting stims was pointless as I was already OP with shotguns. Lost opportunity IMO
And I think they shoehorned Alb faction into Clerics. Dumb
In hind sight I should have played factionless for the challenge. Save it for E3
Will there be another gothic or elex or risen soon? We all need one:)