So an official DLC for Two Worlds 2... 7 years later?

[Starfox]

I must confess, I didn't quite followed on Two Worlds 2 news during the past couple of years because this is after all a pretty old game with no modding community. However for no apparent reason, Two Worlds 2 had an engine overhaul by its developer Reality Pump in 2016 introducing better graphics (at least I can confirm the textures look better but not how much better as my memory of the original is a bit fuzzy) then in June 2017 a new single player DLC was release titled Call Of The Tenebrae and the only reason for which I know that is that GOG.com has a promo running for it in its "Polish Games" week-end sale (no doubt there'll be another sale around Chritsmas).

I don't know how Call Of The Tenebrae fares compared to Pirate Of The Flying Fortress (the original and for 7 years only DLC for the game). I have to reacquaint myself with Two Worlds 2 gameplay before attempting to play it.

Apparently there would be a second single (new) player DLC titled Shattered Embrace in the work too which would make a grand total of three DLCs over seven years.

The point of releasing a new official DLC for a game that is older than Skyrim or The Witcher 2 (and a lot of other games indeed)? No idea. No reason was really given either. Most companies wouldn't bother but there you have it. Maybe its the way for Reality Pump to do a Two Worlds 3 without going through the pain of developing a whole new engine.

And I realize that I will have to make an official review of all that (the "review" I did back in the days was not really formatted, just my opinion noted on the side of a napkin). bobdog had a more constructed opinion in its own review 

I wouldn't mind though seeing new DLCs for a bunch of other old games.

[Starfox]

Well, I've gotten around to play a bit of this DLC and... I'm far to be impressed. Actually before the DLC I also replayed a bit of the original game and the first official DLC.

Call of the Tenebrae doesn't really bear the comparison. It's not only that they changed the voice of the hero (7 years later I suppose it can be understood but they didn't even try to find a voice close enough -- curiously the battle interjections and in game comments are the original ones which make the whole thing even more weird -- in fact I'm not quite sure and it's possibly only my imagination but the English voice actor for the hero reminds me from the one of the first Two Worlds) but the whole DLC is of an amateurish level. A team of modders would have developed this DLC I would have said "yeah, nice effort" but we are talking about the same company that developed Two World II in the first place and in this DLC that doesn't really show. It's like the thing was either developed quickly in six months without paying a lot of attention to details or Reality Pump hired a new team and put them to work on an old title to test their skills.

I'll pass over the bugs I encountered like the one where you make your way through some kind of forest to go to a cemetery and suddenly you find yourself swimming in a pool of water that obviously is not supposed to be there. Yeah we're talking about this level of bug. Later I realized that I was not supposed to reach the cemetery that way well OK but nothing prevented me to reach it that way so at the very least were looking at bad level design. There are merchants that are not even where they should be (a shop sign hangs at one building but the building is in fact a house and the merchant is 50 meters from there in another house, that makes finding things troublesome).

Then even if the story is OK (and up until where I am it seems to be) the whole character interaction is all over the place. Example, you meet a woman near the beginning that is well, nice to you (more than the rest of the village she lives in) and even try to flirt with you a bit. Then you start a quest some times later that makes you go see her again and right there suddenly because this particular quest is running she treats you like scum out of the blue (possibly because the quest demands that she treats you like scum even though she was nice all the times before). That's sloppy quest and character design. Either they should have made this person hostile to the player since the very beginning or choose a totally different character for the quest. As it is one would think that this particular character is bipolar.

Dungeon design: Oh My God! The first dungeon gave me flashbacks of the first Two Worlds and no good ones. Seriously.... Symmetrical design, same rooms after same rooms populated by dozen of enemies. Sure Two Worlds 2 was somewhat recycling stuff during dungeons but nothing as generic as that.

I wouldn't call this DLC an attempt at a quick money grab because there's enough new material in there (even though some of the armors are just recolored versions of the base armors from the vanilla game and the first DLC) to just be that... However it is really really sloppy.

Too bad...