The expansion forTwo Worlds IIis around the corner, but how does one do a pirate-themed expansion for a pretty large open-world role-playing game? It turns out you do it by adding a lot of new content to play with and play through, a new story, and a laarrrrge update on the tech side.
With a new area added to the existing world,Two Worlds II: Pirates of the Flying Fortresswill take you on a side adventure with a pirate theme.
Two Worlds II: Pirates of the Flying Fortress(PC, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)Developer: Reality PumpPublisher: TopWare InteractiveTo be released: September 2011
Pirates of the Flying Fortressis about a group of pirates who have been stranded on a cursed archipelago, trapped for all eternity until someone comes along to resolve the situation.
Reality Pump has been working on a lot of improvements to the engine used inTwo Worlds II, and the expansion looks really nice. There’s better lighting with real-time refractions and better fluid dynamics for the water (what’s a pirate game without water?).
Some gameplay elements that were scrapped or not fully implemented inTwo Worlds IIwere put into this expansion, such as the Oculus, a flying eye. While walking around an area littered with petrified soldiers, you come across a basilisk. Hiding out of the beast’s sight, you’re able to use an Oculus to fly around to the basilisk’s eyes and subsequently burn them to blind it. After doing so, it becomes safe to attack it as you would ordinarily do.
New weapons like a crossbow and pirate swords fill up the pirate atmosphere, although it seems to be more of a really large side quest toTwo Worlds IIthan a standalone kind of expansion where you are a pirate yourself.
There is still some trademark ridiculous stuff in here, though, such as an undead bar filled with skeletons, zombies and mummies that has its own quest line. Find an eye for a rotting zombie, and he will give you a leg to trade it at another character. If you complete this quest line, you gain access to a VIP area, which is a smaller version ofMass Effect 2‘s Afterlife club, but with naked female zombie dancers.
A music minigame fromTwo Worlds IIhas been expanded a bit and you may play music to activate certain things. One of them was a Golem that you could wake up, who had tons of armor until you pull four levers in the room.
Besides walking and riding your horse, you’re able to now use a boat as a mode of transport between the islands that make up the archipelago world ofPotFF. It’s not quite a full-on pirate ship with cannons and a crew of scurvy dogs, but then again, this is not that kind of game. Another key feature of the game: horse armor. Yep.
During a section in which you are playing through a dream, the camera has a slight fish-eye point of view with a bunch of post-processing effects to make it look more surreal. Small things like this on the graphical side will be all over the place.
Two Worlds II: Pirates of the Flying Fortresswill also be the first open-world RPG to feature stereoscopic 3D, which should please the 248.6 people who play games in 3D. The graphical tweaks will also be included in an update to the main game, so if you are more of a ninja fan, you’ll still be able to replay the main game with the higher visual fidelity.
It looked likePotFFwill do what an expansion is supposed to do — add new content and some new gameplay elements — with the added bonus of all the work Reality Pump has put into the engine to make it look really good. I don’t know if it’s going to win over people who didn’t care aboutTwo Worlds II, but for the fans it should be a fun and better-looking expansion.
