E3 2011: Two Worlds 2: Pirates of the Flying Fortress preview – now with added zombie strippers

Two Worlds was, for all intents and purposes, a dead franchise. It was a still-born Oblivion wannabe from Polish studio Reality Pump. Then, somehow, publisher Topware managed to bring it back from the dead with the comparatively far better sequel Two Worlds II. And now, with more than two million copies of Two Worlds II sold worldwide as proof that the series is worthy, the publisher is looking to sweeten the deal with Pirates of the Flying Fortress, a DLC expansion.

It’s okay to be surprised – we were too. But once we stopped saying “Two million? But we only know one person who played that game!” we realized we actually rather liked what we saw. The developer has been listening closely to a lot of the fan complaints and at this point it seems like they’re sparing no expense to improve the TWII experience. For example, they’re ripping out a lot of the dialogue and have re-cast some of the lead characters due to complaints. They’ve improved the combat engine, animations, and added an all-new facial animation system.

And they’ve focused upon seafaring, as you might guess from the whole pirates thing in the title. You’ll have a much greater focus on sailing in your little dingy, and pirates will be everywhere. We didn’t get to see a ton of the content, but what we saw was pretty great. The ocean at sunset as we sailed across was legitimately beautiful, and the massive pirate ships are impressive.

We also got to see a brief glimpse of an undead/graveyard level which looks similarly cool. Dueling with skeleton warriors looked like a blast, and we’re told there’s even an entire undead city below the ground complete with zombie strippers.

You heard us. Zombie strippers. We were just about to speculate about whether the expansion might kill off some of the existing bugs in the massive open world, but really? It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re in.

Jun 15, 2011