risen Risen on PC

[cyrodiilwarrior 0]

I've been trying out Risen (2009) - Steam version. I headed to it's page on PCGamingWiki. I downloaded and extracted the Unofficial Patch. On NexusMods.com most popular MODs for Risen, I noticed - 'Risen Remaster'. I downloaded and extracted this which gave me it's own Risen_Remaster_Launcher.exe. Each time I run the .exe, nothing happens. I've tried running it as Administrator and nothing. I followed the MOD's page instructions.
- Risen_Remaster_Launcher, -Textures, -Update, -Loading Screens

Do you have any suggestions? Since it's an old game and the first one of the series, I was to make sure it's modded correctly to improve performance and visuals on modern Windows 11 hardware.

[cyrodiilwarrior 0]

I found buried deep down on the internet...

Game has been updated from 32-bit to 64-bit !

This, however, has broken many MODs. The game no longer receives the same love and care as it did before.

People should be modding the game to take advantage of it being 64-bit.

[romatthe 1]

Correct, Risen was updated somewhere in 2023, primarily in an attempt to port over some engine improvements that were made when Risen was ported to more modern consoles (it originally came out on PC and X360, but has now been released on PS4, XONE and Switch). This was originally also going to include a DX11 renderer I believe, but that never materialized. Despite wanting to do a replay, I haven't had the time yet to play this new version, so I can't really tell if the improvements are worth it.

But yes, the unofficial patch does indeed ship with several .dlls that are not going to be compatible with this new version for several reasons.

Here's something you can do however. As you probably know, Steam allows you to download older versions of the game from the depots. It's a bit of a hassle, but you can do it just fine. I believe you should be able to download the following manifest from 2021: 2187120273980209558.

You should be able to download this by opening the Steam console and issuing the following command:

download_depot 40300 40301 2187120273980209558

You can then copy the downloaded files over the ones over the installed files in your steamapps/common folder, but hopefully you get the idea. Don't shoot me if I made any mistakes in the instructions. You now have the older version of Risen, and the unofficial patch should work with it.

I haven't done this myself so I might have made a mistake here. I'm not in front of my home workstation. I would also try and play the two version and see if the 2023 patch is worth it, and if rolling back to the older version makes you lose a lot of the improvement of the patch.