It's been known for quite a while already that Risen 3: Titan Lords is in the making. But apart from a CGI-trailer that said nothing about the game as well as some videos and articles in German, the game hasn't had a lot of exposure so far. With barely three weeks to go before release, you'd think that the hype train would already be rolling hard. But that hasn't been the case.

Finally, we get some proper official gameplay shown, in this 11-minute video explaining some of the games' features - Rockstar style. Apparently, Risen 3 will be going back to its roots, both the roots of the franchise, and Piranha Bytes' roots with the Gothic series. And the gameplay sure looks sweet, with a number of improvements over the previous instalments.

Gothic 2 being my all-time favorite game, this is good news for me. Of course, Risen 2 was a mess in every regard, and this could just be the usual empty PR talk we're used to in the industry. If there's something the German developer is known for, it's that they fail just about every time they get too ambitious. Just look at Gothic 3 and Risen 2 if you don't believe me. So let's hope they're actually serious about taking a few steps back and look to what made the first Risen and the two first Gothic games such cult classics.

Risen 3: Titan Lords is set to release on August 15 on the PC as well as the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and if you pre-order the game on Steam you get the usual "totally not taken out of the game and used as pre-order bait"-incentives in the form of a an exclusive explorable area, a quest-line and some clothes. Because games just wouldn't be worth buying if we weren't constantly tricked into thinking we'd get a good deal on content that should've been in the game at no additional cost.