RPG Dev Piranha Bytes Struggling to Find a Publisher for Next Game

Welp, not gonna lie, won't be missing them. Never liked any of their games. Shame for those who do I guess. Wonder who those people are.

Loved the original Timesplitters, the parody of GTA Saints Row and the looter shooter Borderlands. Enjoying Wonderlands right now. Eager to see what comes next.

It’s a shame the Borderlands movie is going the way of Batgirl.

The RPGs like Tecnomancer and Elex 1+2 are games I really wanted to like and started playing. They are known to be "eurojanky" but especially Elex felt pretty good to play in the hour or so I tried it.

It seemed to have some depth to it as well. But I think other, bigger titles pulled me away from this tasty jank food.

Hope they find someone to publish it soon. Been a fan of them since Risen on the Xbox 360 and went back to play the Gothic games too, they're truly unique with their design. We don't get many Eurojank AA games these days. Everything's always overdesigned movie slop or god forbid, Starfield.

Not a massive fan of their games. Tried elex and then I played elex 2 as it was supposed to be better but it wasn't.. it was crap. Risen was alright I guess but it just wasn't good enough for me to keep at it.@Thrussted maybe show a little compassion to the people who are going to lose their jobs and find it hard to support their family's. You don't like the games and you are entitled to your opinion but jeez dude just show a little respect.

Hmm... i always looked but could never get into their games.
But, i am confused. I thought they were part of the embracer group and the group has publishers such as thq nordic. I am confused on why they don't publish their games.
But, piranhabytes is resting on their laurels. They should make a new gothic. It's their biggest ip. There is a remake of the first one in a different developer in the group.
Not sure what sort of management mess embracer is, but i'm getting concerned.

I'm not surprised. Their games are a dated looking buggy mess. I wouldn't want to publish anything from them.

I really liked Risen 3 on PS4, on the other hand I dropped Elex but let's be real: they are recycling Gothic 2 for years and years, who should be interested in them?

Probably because their games are pure jank and not very good.

They haven't made one good or even okay game, so no tears to shed

Embracer got The Lord of the Rings rights cheaply, though. I wonder why bigger companies didn't snatch it. I think it also includes movie rights. I understand that making this IP game or movie can be quite expensive; it is still a big IP.

Make better games then

How can they still be with Embracer and not have a publisher?

@Thrussted

ever heard of Gothic 1 & 2 ?

@NoHope I have. Didn't like it. At all.

@Northern_munkey I mean, that goes without saying. Not that I can change much about it. Doesn't change the fact that I didn't like any of their games.

Gothic 1&2 were ok back then, not awesome, but I liked them. I tried Elex for a bit, I think I would give that a try. Their games seem to be stuck in time.

Hope they can be saved.

Had a lot more fun with their titles, despite the jank and flaws, than for example, the constant blandness of Ubisoft titles regurgitated year after year.

It always sucks when a smaller, AA studio goes thru something like this. Embracer group sucks ass, I think we can all agree on this. Hopefully they find a new publisher in someone like Deep Silver or Nacon.

@Thrussted Germans. German PC-gamers in particular. Piranha Bytes has a huge cult status over here, mainly due to their "Gothic"-series, which set the template for every following game they made. In another dimension PB and their type of games could have become what are now From Software with the "Soulsborne"-style. They are unique and undeniable clunky (and infamously buggy), but also very dense, fascinating and rewarding.
Their closure is kind of a big deal in most German PC-gaming outlets.

Not sure if taking to Twitter and making the desperate plea is the right choice here. Would you feel confident backing a game when they admit they have been showing their project to everyone willing to listen and gotten no interest? Not a good sign for the quality of the project.

Maybe gamepass will bail them out for the day 1 content.

Been playing these games since gothic,I enjoy these games I spend hours levelling up and kick ass game has save state which is all I want no auto save just a manual save 😂

Crowdfunding it is I guess and self publishing. Taking to Twitter is something but not many investors will notice that much there compared to a GDC or just having talks with business meetings if they even can. I wish them the best but man it's a tough industry these days.

Go smaller with some vets to form new studios or crowdfund I think is the right way to go. Too many people, too big of project scales. It's too much. Fans that love the studio's games will come to aid if no big investors care to support them.

As much as I don't like Spiders made a soulslike after Greedfall I won't deny they got to survive and in this era of gaming uniqueness means nothing. Many AAA make the formula hopping. We see it with Metroidvanias of Song of the Deep 2016/Prince of Persia Lost Crown 2024, God of War/Last of Us 2 roguelike modes. Nothing wrong with that but I mean come on. Do I blame the average consumer or gamers for this or AAA publishers/investors for stagnation or Indies that follow nostalgia too much in platformer or racing spaces as well. Sigh. Yet I can research tons of the past all more unique then we just followed Mario 64, Banjo and Outrun. Like come on lazy and nostalgia. Popular and easy spaces, put a spin on it. Consumers will eat it up, devs eat it up. It's just disgusting.

Not everything has to be broader but seeing as we had broader and barely anyone took to those mechanics (only some odd occasions like the racing examples of Ride 4 and WRC 2023 in their own ways) most are repeats of popular games and even then too heavily. Average people don't care for gameplay so when we get eh gameplay and I go seriously Resistance 2 is like COD in mechanics and they back track it in 3 for the better (the studio's actual strengths and probably weapon leveling patent maybe? Otherwise why not push your strengths of creativity, Sunset Overdrive give me tower defence any day over generic outposts, oh Spiderman has outpost never mind) I do question the stupidity of gameplay changes most people don't even notice, care about or why would we want that? That and blaming critics for bland directions of gameplay.

You had rarity like Super Paper Mario and Crush (PSP/3DS) had a similar 2D/3D mechanic or Ratchet 2 & 3 or Mario Galaxy 1 & 2 had large or small planetoids with interesting gravity. So sometimes games had similar ideas around the same time but they weren't inspired by each other so heavily like PS3/360 shooters you want cover based shooting like Gears/Uncharted well besides 1 unique mechanic many of them are that. GREAT! Sigh. Killswitch started it to the others popularised it. Alfa Romeo Racing Italiano started rewinds in racing games (and still original because of what it did) and Forza Motorsport 3 & Grid 2008 popularised it but dumbed it down and it's been that same dumbed down rewind system for years. Why not points to scale the rewind or other aspects of the car when a 2006 advertising game for one car maker (would be considered shovelware) by Milestone (made many innovative racing games back then) did it and their current studio status they also follow suit with the dumbed down rewind system than their older staff started with the more fleshed out one with a points system to the car and rewind system. Go figure there developers. XD

From 3D Indie platformers being too fan game like in quality of 'inspired by and what design were familiar with and consumers eat up nostalgia and familiarity in popular games'/nostalgic and less original then the 5th gen are too Mario/Banjo/Spyro inspired by Indies yet the competitors weren't clones and had far more original ideas then even these Indies still do it says a lot with AAA or even some Indie genres how much lacking originality there is.

Like there is atmosphere and visuals, and then their is game design and being boring of that game design appearing everywhere. I'll go back to 5th gen 3D platformers then Indie ones they are just so boring and repetitive already and the revival of them has only been a thing for a few years now.

Racing is kind of making a come back but I mean while I like the Forza Motorsport 1 & 2 region system but improved in Ride 4 and Sega GT Car builder in WRC 2023 (in it's own way I assume or improvements) while I could say eh, they are still far more original compared to the live services, separating content of some racing sims on PC and the service nature and eh progression and direction of GT and Forza Motorsport entry by entry disappointing me more and more. FM8 has a position selector like that's cool but it's pretty weak still.

Or crowd funding where your audience is investing and can scale the interest in the project they have in mind (if they also can downscale it to get buy too, maybe remaster the games they haven't too to help them out and put it up digitally as disk and other production costs are probably very high).

With so few AAs left I don't really want to see Piranha Bytes go unless they get bought up to be secure but hopefully for the better and not control and going whelp there they go and making tropey games then what more projects they'd like to make and be more satisfied with.

Or if they want Independence/Indie status still that's fine but survival is tough.

Finding publishers is very hard I assume as formulas many expect, budgets are high, signing deals and just support for so many people that make up the team the companies get too big

I think it's also best for them to just scale down and to form Indie studios with veterans like many others have even if in some cases for different reasons.

I don't play their games but I don't deny they had really cool qualities, charm, fair world building/stories, the mechanics were fair.

But with how how janky and bad their engine must be or their releases and need of fixing.

I like to give European continent region studios a break and I do know some great ones that do pull above the janky stereotypes many can be known for and an umbrella put on them

That and their many budgets being hard to work with or the staff just not always pulling it off well (In some cases they 'overcompete' or overcomplicate their games and their ambitions are too high for AA studios) but sometimes you can't deny some studios just don't do well to fix their games up.

I've tried playing risen 1-3, and elex 1,2, and I just always get my ass severely beaten.

Related Video:
https://youtu.be/lD06adeasRs?si=6IO09h1TnPEsABx8

@Thrussted that's fair enough but maybe think about how you you phrase your points in future because they came across as pretty cold hearted. Not just yours but a few others that followed after.

@sonicmeerkat This is always the way with their games: start out really weak (to the point you have to flee some encounters) then slowly build up to an overpowered superhero in the endgame. I like this way personally but its not for everyone.

That's too bad, hopefully this doesn't lead to layoffs. I actually like their games, especially Elex. But of course, I don't mind "eurojank".

@Northern_munkey he doesn't need to think about anything, what he stated was a simple opinion, devoid of anything remotely insulting or insinuating that he was happy people are losing their jobs. While we're telling people what they need to do, YOU need to stop being so sensitive and reading too much into benign statements.

@tangyzesty yawn...thanks for the sermon.

@Perturbator I can handle the games Spiders puts out but not these.