E3 Encounters: Two Worlds II for PS3

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Fans of epic open-world RPGs like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Fallout 3 will want to keep their eyes peeled for Two Worlds II, an upcoming fantasy RPG that’s headed to the PS3 this fall from developer Reality Pump. I sat in on a demonstration at E3 to learn more about the game, but before I start yammering away, check out the trailer below to get a sense of the universe and visual style.

Set in a massive open world teeming with animal life, Two Worlds II is an RPG that’s intensely focused on player freedom. You won’t find rigid character classes like “Barbarian” or “Thief.” Instead, you’ll build a custom class by assigning skill points across a wide range of talents: assassination, melee combat, trade, lockpicking, and magic to name just a few. Want to combine the spell-casting acumen of a Wizard with the brute melee force of a Warrior? No problem: just assign your skill and stat points accordingly. You use the directional pad to swap quickly between your gear loadouts, so you could soften up an enemy with magic while wearing your spell-boosting equipment, then instantly swap to your heavy armor and axe to dash in and finish the job.

Two Worlds II for PS3Two Worlds II for PS3

Magic spells are similarly dynamic and customizable (are you sensing a theme here?). Rather than find and assign a typical “Fireball” spell, for example, you can mix and match various magic traits (in the form of cards) to achieve a witches’ brew of effects. In my demonstration, I saw the player combine a fire card, a multi-shot card, a heat-seeking card, a summon card, and a reflection card to create a wicked spell that flung bouncing, splitting, heat-seeking, flaming projectiles that spawned demonic enemies on impact. Not bad, eh? Two Worlds II will contain a vast number of spell combinations – I overheard “10 to the 16th power” – and might draw comparisons to Borderlands’ similarly monstrous weapon arsenal.

Two Worlds II for PS3Two Worlds II for PS3

The online mode is expansive, with eight-player PvP duels (ranging from 4v4 to free for all bloodbaths), a separate co-op campaign that supports eight players as well as a unique quest and environments, and a “Village” mode where you can grow and evolve your own fantasy-RPG city. In the Village mode, you’ll be able to invite your PSN friends to visit your town and share their specific talents with your townspeople, be it leather crafting or weaponsmithing. Guild support for online play is also a go.

Two Worlds II runs on the Grace engine, and is highly optimized for the PS3 hardware and DualShock 3 controls – a major departure from its predecessor’s PC focus. If you have questions about Two Worlds II, let me know in the comments and I’ll try to shed more light on my experiences with the game.

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104 Comments

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  • dam looks good thnx for posting dindt hear about it at E3 and now another game on my list…..

    soo many games!

  • does the story follow the first Two World … i don’twant to buy a 360 to not feel like i lost some infos

    • It does and it doesn’t — it’s a continuation of the first game, but I was told you didn’t need to have played the first game.

    • Confirmed – you don’t need to have played the first game. The events in this version of the game take place several years after the events in the original Two Worlds, and the game will give you some context and background as to what’s been going on in the world of Antaloor before the beginning of the game. :)

  • looks pretty awesome, hopefully it has crazy online support

    • Did you read my paragraph about online play? It’s quite ambitious!

    • Believe me when I say we at TopWare set out with multiplayer as a major focus for the game, and there will be more than enough to keep you busy for maaaaany many hours!

  • Buying this game!!!

  • Hows the online play? What is it like? Can you do split screen? Or does it have one screen for both players?

    • I have a whole paragraph on online play above: 8 player competitive, 8 player co-op, and a “Village” mode. Lots to do online!

  • If this will be on par with Oblivion, I will buy it. For now it looks nice, nothing impressive.

  • Does the game have towns with houses that you can break into like in Oblivion? That was one of my favorite things to do in Oblivion.

    • I did not see this personally, so it’s an open question. We’ll try to get the developers back to the Blog soon so they can answer questions like this!

    • The game does have households within the towns that you can lockpick the doors to, and ransack the unsuspecting homeowners chests full of goodies…just don’t get caught by the guards!

  • im not that crazy about RPGs or DUNGEN AND DRAGONS..but this game looks good..im sure SONY can come up with a better game..with diffrent time zones..and chracters..like NINJAS or PIRATES..soudns wierd..but im sure with ALOT OF HELP from the SONY DEVs it would sell :p

  • This sounds similar to Guild Wars so I’m pretty excited about it. I’m just hoping there’s no monthly fee like I’ve heard about for DCUO.

  • Well I’m highly doubting it but would there be a possibility of offline co-op? Say we made 2 characters assigned to two different PSN accounts and save files

  • digitalgoodtimes

    Wow, but will I have time for this and New Vegas!!!

  • Not much of a question, since it’s already confirmed to use the Dualshock 3 but… Any chance we can see this game on the Move eventually? It sure does look good for it, with all the magic, archery and sword and shield stuff going on.

  • I really liked the first Two Worlds on the PC for online, i hope this one has good online also!
    Gorgeous graphics in the first one, even better in this one, AWESOME.

  • This looks very atractive, can’t wait to findmore info about it =)

  • looks like oblivion

  • Thanks for this info about Two worlds II, Sid!

    Could you bring us some detailed info about Deep Black – the recently announced 3rd-person underwater action game: http://ps3.ign.com/articles/110/1104727p1.html

  • Any release date announced yet? also did they mention anything about multiple races?

    • October 5th is the day to mark! :) And as far as multiple races go, the game continues the story of the human player from the original game – it’s got a narrative focus on telling the story of a specific character so you’ll be playing as this set character. But, the cool thing is, this time you’ll be able to do a ton of customization to the character’s physical attributes – there’s well over 20 different attributes that you can change via sliding scales. :)

  • is it open world? cuz thats the part i loved most about oblivion was just mindlessly killing bandits and in caves.

  • In the video, there is this guy in t-shirt and jeans… is that how you start?

    • He’s actually in a prison uniform. :) When you start the game, you’ve been held captive in Gandohar’s prison for several years and are busting out!

  • weird the first one was called a poor man’s Oblivion… Looks like they made some major improvements… wow!

  • if this is anything like the first two worlds, it’s going to be awful.

  • FutureGarbageMan

    Not Move support after september 18th Rpg’s should be with move support the technology is there and it will only make the game more fun

  • Looks interesting. I’ll be watching for more about this title as we get closer to Fall.

  • The first game in the series looked good also until you actually played it. It is possibly the worst game I played this generation. I advice people not to be fooled by how this game look, but the original tricked a lot of people before it was release.

    • They explained to me that a big problem in the first game was the control scheme, which has been radically overhauled for TWII for a console-centric user interface. Didn’t play it myself, but watched a solid half-hour of live gameplay.

    • We aren’t making ant excuses for the shortcomings of the first game. The original Two Worlds was our first RPG, first console title, and we like to think we’ve learned a LOT since then. Hopefully the our gameplay videos, trailers, and previews are beginning to show evidence of that fact.

  • The first game in the series looked good also until you actually played it. It is possibly the worst game I played this generation. I advice people not to be fooled by how this game look because the original tricked a lot of people before it was released. I just would like to know why the even made a sequel base on how horrible the first game was.

  • I’m not a big fan of these “Western RPGs”, but have to admit that my interest has been piqued. Looks something like Demons Souls in a Shining Force type world. I’ll keep an eye on it at release and see if it is up my alley.

    Question: Are the skill/stat point earned via a leveling system? If so, what else is gained when leveling up?

    • Aside from skills and stat points, not sure. We’ll hopefully have the developers on the Blog soon to talk more!

    • There is a EXP based leveling system, and with each level players are granted xx number of parameter & skill points, based on the level achieved. How you allocate them are up to you, but obviously certain pieces of equipment have certain statistical requirements, and how you balance your skills determines how proficient you are in each area of combat (magic, melee, ranged).

  • I have Oblivion, Fallout 3, Demon’s Souls, and Sacred 2 and just really like those types of games. This will be a buy for me regardless of press or reviews. My only question is when?

    • Hey there! Aubrey from SouthPeak here – the official date is set for October the 5th and we cannot wait! :D

  • Aw, I was with you until you mentioned Oblivion. Oh well, it was an exciting… 3 seconds.

  • The videos work on PS3 browser now. Thank you so much, but what did you do?

  • Not sure where else to post, but for the last couple of weeks, Viddler videos are not working in Firefox (3.6.6 and previous). There is a snapshot (with an X in the background).
    Right clicking and selecting “Play Video” sends the browser to viddler, but the URL is slightly wrong (/html5mobile on the end of the URL rather than just /html5).
    Works fine in IE8 and Chrome, though for this video, Chrome did not do an age verification (thought that’s probably still a HTML5 in-development item, right?)

  • the co-op campaign and Village mode are the most interesting to me. I’ll have to wait and see if the story gets decent reviews for depth and consistency, though.

    Speaking of which, who’s writing the story?

    Can you choose to make your character gay, like in Fable or Dragon Age? Are any of the NPCs gay?

    Who is doing the music? will the audio assets be 24-bit HD?

    Will the co-op mode support local play? Without splitscreen?

    Thanks in advance for answes!

    • The story is being collaboratively written by our team consisting North American, German, and Polish writers. No more forsooths

      There are no mechanics in the game to influence the hero’s sexuality.

      Audio tracks for the game have been composed and performed by the German philharmonic orchestra.

      As mentioned earlier, co-op is restricted to online only, no local splitscreen action.

      Thanks for the questions!

  • Demo? Please????

  • Plazticsyke

    I don’t really think there should be a need to “make” the character gay. Just make romantic interests open to both genders and let the player decide. “Gay” is actually culturally constructed concept- in many cultures, you can be “gay” at one point and “straight” at another. (We have a concept “Bisexual” but it’s nowhere near the same thing.)

  • Finally something to play since Oblivion. Can’t wait as it looks like a day one purchase for me.

  • The first game was terrible by the way. This looks much better.

  • If this is as good and similar to Dragon Age i’m gonna buy day 1.

  • OMG! should of read before i posted comment this is an open world game like The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion thats a big plus day 1 for sure if its good.

  • This looks really awesome, and the coop 8 players is something I’ve been hoping for in an open world since Rockstar did this with Red Dead. Not MMOR, but not Deathmatch, but an open world RPG with 4-8 player coop.

    Definitely looking forward to it.

  • Hell yea! Now this is a day 1 buy for me!!! Game looks amazing!!!

  • ahhhhhhh sweeeeeet i hope its likr demon souls and white knight cronicles combined finally more rpgs thank you sony by the way i have a question for you guys when will the final fantasy 14 ps3 beta start? i signed but no word from square or u guys so can u please answer my question ill buy more psn games :P

  • Jeff – I kind of cheated and replied to your comicon tweet…

    On topic: Been kinda following this for a while. I have a bunch of newsletters which I have not read about this. Interested to see if this is a new video or the really old one…

    • Hiya :) Aubrey from SouthPeak here – we created this trailer right before E3 using footage that we captured from the game at that stage in development. It’s all recent, and the game has even come farther since then! :)

  • O ya i for got one more thing, What ever happened to the gladiator game that was announced at E3?? I didnt really get to hear that much about it, any way it could be put up here?? I dont remember the name of it.. I hope you do.

    Thanks.

  • Sure the control scheme in the first Two Worlds was bad, but one thing that made me mute the game while playing it was the voice acting.

    I’ve criticized Bethesda for having too few voice actors for NPCs because they blow their budget on big voice names; which is just not necessary. All we want is quality variety voice acting. That is, many distinct voices that don’t sound like script readers.

    The first Two Worlds seemed to have more variety than Oblivion’s 4 voice actors, but most of it was atrocious. It sounded like people were chosen from developmental reading classes at a community college!

    Please, tell me the voice acting is better quality still with a bit of variety.

    Looks SUPERB, by the way!

    • Voice acting is being coordinated and recorded locally for each international region (no big names), and overseen by the writers themselves. The game features over 200 unique voices, so there should be no lack of variety.

  • First of all, props on having viddler work for the ps3 again!
    Now, I did NOT expect to see this title on PS3 at all. I thought it was a 360 exclusive. But I’m glad it’s coming to the PS3! If it’s anything like Oblivion on crack + extensive/addicting online play, then count me in.

    I have several questions about the co-op. What happens if I already finished a quest but the other person hasn’t? Will it let me still play with them? How does it work?
    Is there some sense of direction in co-op, like which quest to do first (Instead of 8 players roaming around the world seperately)?
    Can you invite friends to play online?

    Is there voice-chat?

    • The single player and multiplayer features of the game are distinctly separate, however with the village mode there is still tons of open-area questing to do with friends which vary from town to town.

      In addition to the village mode, there is a co-op campaign designed in a mission style format that has a unique narrative aside from the main single player plot.

      Players can invite each other to play PvP together, run a couple co-op missions, or into their player specific village at any time.

      Plans are to support voice chat through the Playstation Network.

  • I never did play the first one because everyone i talked to said it was complete junk, but this one looks pretty neat, i’ll just wait till about a week or so after it comes out and see what people think first.

  • OMFG!!! YES!

  • XScreamingEagleX

    wow

    this looks interesting

    looking forward to it, while i wait for another elder scroll :)

    will there be any sort of multiplayer?

    • Tons of multiplayer – there are three modes: one focuses on PVP ranging from free for all matches to pairs and teams, up to 8 participants in each session. The co-op mode will feature 6+ hours of co-op missions for up to 8 players at a time, and last but definitely not least, Reality Pump is putting their RTS background to use in what we like to refer as “Village Mode” which takes an overarching city management approach to the Two Worlds universe. :) More detailed info to come about multiplayer soon!

  • As I last read on the magazine that the first Two Worlds had some bugs and glitches. Is that all going to be improved in this one or there going to be updates on this game.

    • Hey there! There are a TON of improvements in Two Worlds II vs. the original – literally everything from the entire game engine, lighting, controls, user interface, crafting, combat, magic system, writing and voice acting, horseback riding, etc. etc. etc. has been -completely- overhauled. Topware and Reality Pump are very passionate about taking feedback from the first to heart and making a game that RPG fans will absolutely love! :)

    • Ya, what she said!

  • @Sid Shuman
    Sorry Sid Shuman, but controls were the least of all the problems with the first game. Controls are not going to magically make the second game better.

  • I’m amazed the first one got a sequel considering the bad word of mouth & reviews highlighting the bugs & glitches.

    If the managed to fix these then I would consider checking it out

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