The Risen 3 Report, Day 1: Boobpirate vs Hulk Chicken

Editor's wibble - I'd hoped to have a full Wot I Think of Risen 3: Titan Lords, Piranha Bytes' latest openish world RPG by now, but sadly code has been incompatible with my PC. I have been able to play it in short bursts on a laptop with lousy integrated graphics, but there was only so much low-detail 20FPS play I could stand before needing a lie down. However, I am ready to tell of my earliest adventures in its world of pirates, monsters and magic, as The Risen Report returns.

I'm a pirate. I'm on a boat. There's a fight. I'm on the shore. A beach. An island. A quest for lost treasure. A sister.

A sister dressed like this:

Sigh.

A sister who shouts "FUCKING BASTARDS!" at anything from zombie pirates to lizardmen to small, flightless dragons to angry crabs to fearful monkeys. She seems so full of misplaced anger towards the world and everything in it, though out of combat her attitude is more that of obnoxious know-it-all with a superiority complex. She constantly brags about herself and constantly mocks and belittles me, her brother, even though I do the lion's share of monster-killing and monkey-scaring, and frankly her entirely impractical and physically impossible Erotic Pirate Fancy Dress outfit makes me embarrassed to be seen with her. There's an overtone of Lannister to her too, and I don't mean in the impressive 'we will rule everything through sheer force of will' sense, but rather in the 'I'm a wee bit incesty' sense. She's negging me, and we all know why people neg each other, don't we?

Mostly though, I just straight up hate her. She's spoiling all my fun. In fairness, whenever I speak I do sound like I'm on methadone and have no idea what words are coming out of my mouth, so maybe her insults are somewhat warranted.

At least I'm allowed to ignore her instructions that we follow the marked path on our hunt for whatever this lost treasure is. She mocks and belittles, but I head West along the coastline and merrily forage for oysters or sporadically get into brief fights with assorted FUCKING BASTARDS, or 'relatively harmless sea-beetle things and the occasional giant green chicken' as I prefer to call them.

The scenery is beautiful, picking up oysters and checking them for pearls is vaguely therapeutic, and I even find a few pouches of gold amongst the driftwood. This would all be rather tranquil, if not for the insane person barking "BASTARD!" every two minutes or suddenly plunging two anti-gravity grapefruits into my field of vision while I'm trying to stab a crab.

I hate her.

Determined that I will not, no matter the cost, head down the path she wants me to, I swim out to sea. While Mystical Forces prevent me from returning to the ship we came from, I am able to reach a smaller island, with a small hill atop it. It has a winding path to its summit, along which assorted FUCKING BASTARDS and a few plain old BASTARDS lurk. These must be dispatched with my sword and my pistol, which I realise too late does not in fact have infinite bullets. I have to slow my assault, take a few swigs of rum and eat a few provisions, and so long as I'm more careful I shouldn't perish before I even reach the first town.

At the top of the island hill, I find a crabshell. I am informed that it is valuable and that I have completed a quest. It is unclear for whom, and with what effect. Still, hey, I've got a crabshell. Rather than retrace my steps back down to shore, I take a leap of faith off the edge and into the water, risking my own life purely to save a few seconds. I survive unscathed, but there's a wonderful side effect.

My sister hasn't followed me. I'm alone. Alone! By God, it's blissful.

I swim to shore, expecting the air to turn blue any second, but no grapefruity silhouette appears. No-one says anything scornful as I leisurely gather oysters. I fight a few sea-beetles, and no-one gets called any names. This is more like it! I even find a treasure chest - not the treasure chest we're looking for, but it's got gold and a rubbish sword inside - and it feels like a reward for escaping my nightmarish sibling. This is bliss.

Less blissful is the fight I get into at the top of a narrow clifftop trail. Three of those FU... big green chickens encircle me, taking it in turns to kick me to the ground as I scramble to stab any one of them. It's a brutal scrap, proving that I have a great deal to learn about chicken-fighting, and if it weren't for prodigious mid-battle rum consumption, I'd be pecked to death.

A well-timed roll takes me out of reach of those deadly beaks though, and Bruce Lee-style I handily dispatch the Hulk Chickens they stupidly charge me one-by-one. I'm alive, but only just. I'm proud, but only just - a chicken-based death would not have been a noble one. As I stoop to gather meat from the bird's corpses (hopefully I'll find some way of cooking them later, because if I do end up stinking of rotten meat maybe it'll turn out my damned sister was right about me all along), I hear a noise from behind me. I freeze. More Hulk Chickens?

Worse. Infinitely worse. I hear a voice. A voice that speaks false words, dripping with patronising scorn.

"Well done!"

My blood chills.

I turn around, in case I'm somehow mistaken.

Oh no.

More to follow. Risen 3: Titan Lords will be released on August 15th.