As per Polish outlet CD Action, anonymous sources have revealed that Piranha Bytes shut its doors at the end of June. The studio was allegedly looking for external investments in the lead-up to its closure in the hopes of being bought out, but after being unable to secure the necessary investment, it was forced to shut down.

The report claims the developer had intended to work on a new dark fantasy RPG similar to Gothic, and it would have been built on Unreal Engine 5. Piranha Bytes or Embracer Group are yet to make any official statements regarding the studio’s closure, and according to the report, that is unlikely to change.

Founded in 1997 and acquired by THQ Nordic in 2019, Piranha Bytes has released several fan-favourite RPGs over the years, including the likes of Gothic, Risen, and Elex, as well as their respective sequels. A remake of the original Gothic developed by Alkimia Interactive is set to release sometime later this year.

The season seems pretty ripe for acquisitions and mergers as companies are expanding. One of them is THQ Nordic, who have been expanding at a rapid pace ever since taking the THQ name, along with many of their previous licenses. They’ve now added even more to their already sizeable catalogue, as it was announced today thay they have officially purchased developer Piranha Bytes.

Piranha Bytes is the developer of several midrange RPG games, like Gothic, Risen and, most recently, ELEX (the last game being published by THQ Nordic). In the statement announcing the sale, they say that despite this new development, Piranha Bytes will maintain creative freedom and continue pursuing the type of games they’ve been known for. No announcements about what titles to expect in the near future came with the news.

This adds more IPs to the publisher’s ownership, and it’s already pretty packed. Just today we also learned they are working with Metro developer 4A Games on a new “AAA” production, and have a staggering 80 games in some degree of production. We also know they’ll be at E3 this year and reveal at least two games from “beloved franchises,” so we might start seeing some newer games from that mass catalog of IPs soon.

Darkeater Midr – Dark Souls 3: The Ringed City

When a fight starts with a boss able to simply roast you from above or knock you off a bridge, you know it’s going to be fun. Darkeater Midr is a combination of all the horrifying boss tropes – he has absurd health, a weak point that’s tough to attack, the camera is uncooperative during the battle and he can insta-kill with some attacks. At least he looks metal as all hell.

Piranha Bytes is back with ELEX… and admittedly, it is not their finest work to date. Still, those of you who can look past the jank to get into the nuances of their typically deep RPG mechanics will find a meaty RPG here waiting for you, if nothing else.

Others… will find themselves utterly, absolutely bewildered and overwhelmed, as you try to figure out just what you should be doing and where you should be going. ELEX is a big game, and it is also extremely obtuse- it makes no attempt to explain itself to the player.

So, in such a situation, what you might find yourself needing is some help- and if that is the case, we’re here for you with this video walkthrough for the title, complete with ending. Just remember, as always- this will have spoilers. Also remember that since this is an open world RPG, there is a lot to do that this walkthrough will not cover. Now let’s get right to it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Xr-jUg8BNw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzULCwuGk_4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mQhC-_ZDI-k

Piranha Bytes open world Soulslike, ELEX has been making the rounds for awhile, but if you’ve been waiting for enhancements to come to dive into the sci-fi epic, it seems like now is the time. A press release announces the new patch for the game out now, which among many balance changes, adds even easier difficulty options for those who would just like to tour the unique world.

The highlight of the patch however are new visual updates for the PlayStation 4 Pro and Xbox One X, taking advantage of the more powerful hardware. Curiously, the term “4K Rendering” is only tossed out for the PlayStation 4 Pro, while the Xbox One X gets “Improved Resolution”. The possible implication being that the Xbox One X isn’t hitting 4K as opposed to its less powerful competition. Both systems offer better supersampling for 1080P displays with the patch.

When ELEX launched back in October, Gamingbolt found it to be a middling experience that could use some polish, but it seems like at least the visual improvements have arrived. Will this get you to try the game? Let us know in the comments.

PlayStation 4:

• 4K rendering for PS4 Pro
• Increased quality on PS4 Pro with 1080p display

Xbox One:

• Improved resolution for XBOX
• increased quality on XBOX with 1080p display

New Difficulty Settings:

• Player Damage: damage dealt by the player (chicken)
• Opponent Damage: damage dealt by your Opponents (double chicken)
• Stamina cost: modifies the stamina cost for your actions (TRIPLE CHICKEN!!!!)

Engine:

• Added FXAA T2x and SMAA T2x anti-aliasing techniques

Quests:

• Improved Angrim’s routine behavior, when he should have a small-talk with Zerwas. (works only if Zerwas hasn’t already talked to the third Berserker)
• The map targets regarding the research papers of the Clerics will now be updated correctly if the player has the task to obtain them for the Claws.
• Fixed some Duras ques targets
• Fixed a bug with Eva and a letter
• Fixed illogical dialogue with Connor regarding his recruitment for the Clerics, fixed map targets for Connor and Xander in terms of Connor’s recruitment
• Fixed issue where player can get stuck in a dialogue with Karl (only new game)
• Gondar’s key can now be found near his corpse
• One of Hunter’s Quests should now closer properly if the player decides to kill Gustav
• Fixed map targets involving Balder trying to become a Legate of the Clerics
• Fixed several daily routine issues
• One of Galar’s quest should now close properly if the player convinces him to work for the Clerics
• Ryan should have now a proper trading inventory
• Player can get the Alb Commander armor. Depending on the players actions he can even get the Alb Elexetor Armor now.
• Regarding your actions before (Jax helps Trevor or Lucky Sam), Mad Bob’s second Scrap Delivery Quest will work now properly and all involved NPCs should trigger the right dialog options.
• Fixed a bug where the player was unable to give Chloe the Elexit bags of some Berserkers.
• If the player used the power of Suggestion to get hand on the stolen Elex packages Kral has in his possession, he will now do so. If the player already had the Suggestion dialogue with Kral he now only has to report back to Caldrim and the quest situation will behave normally
• Fixed some dialogue issues regarding Thorgal and Emmet’s farm
• Korin will now behave normally if you pickpocket metal parts from him for Jora.
• The dialogue with the dead letter box makes now clear what the player needs to do if he looted Logan’s chest in beforehand
• Hakon now rewards the player with a proper sword
• Fixed an issue where the player was sent by Cormag to help Born. If Born is dead, he will now be able to tell Cormag that Born is dead and the questline will proceed as intended.
• Fixed an issue where Snake had an illogical dialog option
• Fixed some illogical dialogs Cindy might have had in certain cases
• One of Balder’s quests should now have a proper quest target and close properly if the player reports back to Balder. Furthermore, he is now a trader if the player joined the Clerics (if the player was already a Cleric you have to talk twice to Balder to make his trading info appear).
• Removed Ethan’s loyalty exploit for crew members
• Alois should now take money from the player if he has to pay up for a committed crime
• Walter should now hand over some shards if the player asks for it
• Fixed illogical dialogue for Oran after player bribes him to trade again with one of the Clans
• Adjusted amount of Elexit for Shorty in certain cases
• Removed illogical dialogue option for Rijka in case Bertram is not alive anymore
• Fixed a dialogue issue regarding Irdor’s reward depending on the player’s actions
• Vito should now trigger a certain info about the thieves guild at the right time
• A quest target showing Martha will now be removed correctly if the player delivered all the food
• Ragnar’s quest should now succeed correctly if the player told him that all warlords gave him their approval for redemption. If this situation lies in the past, just talk to Ragnar again until he has nothing to say anymore and the quest should succeed itself
• Fixed a map target regarding Alois’s quest involving Paige
• A quest regarding Irdor’s food problem will now be closed if the player hands him enough Cultivator’s bread loaves
• Fixed missing quest targets for one of Caleb’s quests
• Fixed some map targets involving Caldrim and Kral
• Fixed a quest and map targets involving Jorg, Caleb, and Fenk
• Fixed a situation where Ray should attack Walter
• Fixed a dialog with Logan about Ulrich and Konrad
• Shorty now has a trade inventory

Game content itself:

• Added Chinese language package
• Improved breaking chance of lockpicks for chests
• Weather and lighting improvements
• Added missing small white socket stones
• Some NPCs had wrong weapons equipped, now they have a proper one
• Arva and her Troll will now react in a correct behavior
• 2-handed weapons and heavy weapons now need the perk Level of 2 to dismantle them
• You need the Build Ammo perk on Lvl 2 to build ammo for heavy weapons
• Fixed a bug where the player has endless jetpack energy
• Fixed an issue with the Pickpocket skill when the player has an equipped item that gives him a bonus skill
• Fixed some issues when creatures and NPCs fell through the ground
• Sunglasses don’t give armor bonus anymore
• Fixed a bug with energy regeneration
• Crony regenerates HPs now after he got unconscious
• Socket Items now give a bonus when attached to a shield
• The XP malus for using stims is working now
• The perk Good Eater now doubles the effect of food, it was tripled before
• Fixed an issue where the loot screen was hidden by the body of the player
• When falling the player uses his fall animation correctly
• Dead ambient creatures don’t have collision anymore
• Female body parts now behave correctly during dialogs
• Fixed a bug in which weapon modes were not shown in the HUD
• Adjusted some loot
• Option for deactivating the evade roll on double-click is saved now
• Fixed some icon issues
• Pure mana also regenerates mana now (only for Berserkers)
• Fixed some issues with ranged weapons not having an ammo count when drawn
• All potion can be used in quick slots
• Sulfur will now be shown in the inventory screen of the player
• Fixed some recipes
• The perk “One with the Weapon Ability” now has a cooldown
• Some weapons didn’t deal damage with the 4th hit, they’ll do now so
• Creatures stop chasing the player now if the player is far away
• Fixed some issue with exploiting Elexit by trading
• Improved combat behavior for some monsters
• Flamethrower single shots now have a cooldown and a decreased radius
• Many mesh and texture reworks and improvements
• LOD range of red rusty metal plates has been corrected. The plates are now using the correct LOD when close by and are no longer flat
• The collision mesh of one of the rusted electrical towers is more accurate. The player no longer falls through some of the horizontal beams

It’s certainly got a high concept going into it. A grand post-apocalyptic sci-fi, fantasy, open world, role playing combat with heavy social simulation aspects where in big bold marketing letters, the player can do anything. The game literally borrows elements from heavyweights like The Elder Scrolls, Witcher, Mass Effect and just a touch of Dark Souls for the combat and RPG systems. This is not a bad thing but it is in the execution that ELEX falters.

"The game literally borrows elements from heavyweights like The Elder Scrolls, Witcher, Mass Effect and just a touch of Dark Souls for the combat and RPG systems. This is not a bad thing but it is in the execution that ELEX falters."

As it’s been unfortunately shown many times before, a game where the player can do anything is also a game that focuses on nothing. The world of Magalan, a post apocalyptic Earth that was devastated by a meteor which bought with it the volatile, power holding substance called elex.

Outlaws, Clerics, Albs and Berserkers are all trying to make their way on the devastated planet, and each makes use of elex in their own way. Berserkers swear off the drug and live pure lives off the earth, while Outlaws scavenge and trade it to eek out a survival. Clerics use it to power high technology from the old world and Albs, a faction that stands as the central antagonists outside a few offshoots, inject it for the fantastic power it provides. Each faction has it’s own society to engage with as the protagonist manages the different relations in pursuit of his goals, all the while hiding his past with the murderous Albs from those he would ally himself with.

In reality it boils down to a ton of fetch quests that is a giant pain to begin with. The game buries waypoint setting behind about three menus and sometimes asks you to travel across the map to find specific objectives, sometimes into overly hostile territory you aren’t ready for. Sure you can ignore the quest and take care of things by just moving through the world on your own but without having the quest activated you can easily miss the NPC in the building you strutted by. Leaving the player with the options of tediously hashing out one quest at a time or littering with waypoints their map to the point of uselessness.

"Tanking frame rates can have a huge impact on the flow of combat. This causes delayed inputs which results into missed attacks or damage taken that doesn’t really feel like your fault."

Bad quest design doesn’t usually bury games, but compared to other recent open world titles like Zelda which make moving through the world its own joy, or even ones that just allow that movement to stay out of the way like Witcher 3, ELEX’s quests seem pretty janky. The landscapes look good, but not good enough to excuse such dramatic and frequent frame rate drops as I was experiencing.

Combat is designed to work off a similar stamina management style to Dark Souls, giving you a choice between a light and heavy attack and allowing you to chain blows, parry and dodge roll, while controlling the flow of the battle by knowing when to press and when to back off. While the game largely succeeds in the intent, and manages to add a few wrinkles with ranged magic and guns, the general problem of the engine hampers the combat quite a lot, making it less enjoyable than contemporaries like The Surge. 

Tanking frame rates can have a huge impact on the flow of combat. This causes delayed inputs which results into missed attacks or damage taken that doesn’t really feel like your fault. Locking onto enemies is automatic as soon as you draw whichever weapon you happen to be using, and won’t unlock unless you holster, and the stickiness of the system makes hasty retreat more difficult than necessary.

"It’s clear that there’s a core of an ambitious game in ELEX that wants to build a world to stand beside darlings like The Witcher and Skyrim, but technical issues and horrid writing hamper nearly every aspect of the game, well past the point of enjoyability."

In the quieter moments, animations are stiff and poorly rigged, if they were even touched at all, recalling the disaster of Mass Effect Andromeda earlier this year. Conversations consists completely of shot-reverse-shot, back and forth, with the camera on several occasions clipping into nearby people and scenery, jaws flapping vaguely in time with what’s actually being said and awkward gestures giving the impression of bargain bin terminators attempting human interaction, as if most of the game was left to an algorithm to manage.

The writing does nothing to help matters, you’re dropped into the dense lore developed by Piranha Bytes built up knowing nothing and piecing it all together, as if you’re a first timer walking in halfway through Fellowship of the Ring, while knowing absolutely nothing. It’s worse in actual conversations, as the Mass Effect and Skyrim styled conversation tree doesn’t even try to dress up the banal and plain dialog script. Poor dialogues like “Tell me about the thing you just mentioned” can only be heard so often.

It’s clear that there’s a core of an ambitious game in ELEX that wants to build a world to stand beside darlings like The Witcher and Skyrim, but technical issues and horrid writing hamper nearly every aspect of the game, well past the point of enjoyability. ELEX might have been truly special if only it saw the polish it desperately needed. Unfortunately, the grand world of Magalan and the diverse factions residing in it can be boiled down to one thing: Boring.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Battle Chasers: Nightwar

Based on the comic book series, Battle Chasers: Nightwar is a JRPG-style game funded by Kickstarter and developed by Airship Syndicate. Featuring a mix of turn-based combat and isometric dungeon exploration with animated cutscenes for the narrative, Battle Chasers: Nightwar comes across as one of the more unorthodox RPGs this year. There’s a ton to experience though like randomly generated dungeons, bosses, six heroes to create a party of three with, crafting and so much more. The fact that it looks cool doesn’t hurt either. Battle Chasers: Nightwar is out on October 3^rd for Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The Chinese Room, known for developing Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture and Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, is apparently working on a new game called Little Orpheus. This was revealed by Creative Europe which has a list of applicants who have successfully received grants. Little Orpheus was provided €72,339 and it’s apparently the name for the isometric RPG title that The Chinese Room calls Total Dark on its website.

If that weren’t enough, the list also revealed that 11 bit Studios (This War of Mine) and Plastic (Bound) have received grants for €150,000. 11 bit Studios is apparently working on a game called Dreamtime, which is interesting because it’s also developing the upcoming Frostpunk.

As for Plastic, it’s next game is called Diama though creative director Michal Staniszewski later told Eurogamer that this would “most probably” change. He also noted that it could change just Bound, which was “A completely different project when we started. A lot of things didn’t work, even if they were brilliant ‘on paper’. We will have to wait and see what the future will bring.”

It also seems like ELEX will be receiving a sequel, having been granted €150,000 despite the first game having yet to release.

German developer Piranha Bytes is currently hard at work on their upcoming science fiction/fantasy action RPG ELEX– and today, we got brand new footage on the game, showcasing its gameplay in glorious 4K, presumably from the PC build of the game. You can check it out for yourself below.

The footage comes to us courtesy of World of ELEX, a fan site dedicated entirely to following this game, and was captured during E3. The game continues to look as intriguing and exciting as always- but if you were not already on board with it, then this footage will not be what changes your mind. On the other hand, if you were, then you will like what this footage has to show greatly.

You can check out the footage for the game for yourself below- what do you think? Will you be picking this up? How does the game look in 4K to you? Let us know in the comments section.

Piranha Bytes has been responsible for underrated RPGs like Gothic and Risen. With ELEX, published by THQ Nordic, it will look to combine magic and science fiction in one crazy universe. ELEX has a release date of October 17th and will head to Xbox One, PS4 and PC.

THQ Nordic has also announced a Collector’s Edition that includes the game, a manual, artbook, a cloth map of the game’s world Magalan, a “combat drone” amulet, the original soundtrack and a 10 inch figure of an Alb Mage.

As an open world sandbox RPG, ELEX has you playing as an Alb, stuck in a world without the precious resource to aid you. ELEX won’t restrict players from exploring any of its five regions from the start and will combine sci-fi tropes like mechs with medieval weaponry like swords and crossbows. Along with five regions, players can join four different factions and influence their path.

What are your thoughts on ELEX and its Collector’s Edition? Let us know in the comments.