Two Worlds II: Pirates of the Flying Fortress Previews
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Flying Fortress begins immediately after the events that concluded the previous game. You find your character on a beach, pointing a sword at a foe shaking on his knees. The poor sap begs for you to spare his life, but that's the coward's way of handling conflicts. You plunge your pointy killing device through his chest and then say, "Die." Seconds later, your moment of victory evaporates. Those dirty pirates double-cross you, hitting you in the back of the head and taking you on board their pirate ship.
Story details beyond that setup are sparse now, but we did find out a bit about changes to the basic structure. First, your boat plays a much bigger role than in the main game. Before, there was no marker on the map to help you locate your lost skiff, and it was difficult to find a place to dock when you were on board. Now? A blip guides you in the right direction when you're separated, and you can crash into just about any beach to take to shore. In other traveling news, your horse has its own armor. No more arrows bouncing off its hide!
Then we head to RPGamer for some more:
A lot of the content that went into making this expansion comes from previously planed Two Worlds II paid DLC and content taken from Two Worlds III. The team behind the game thought it was best to not only combine all of that content into one large expansion, but also address a few of the criticisms that people had with the game. There are all new animations in both the combat and dialog sequences and all new recorded dialog, voiced by an all new cast. This includes a recast of the main character.
Other new features include new hair styles and faces to choose from during character creation. Horse Armor has been added to the game in order to give your steeds more customization options and more of a fighting chance out in the world. I was also told that the actual mechanic of riding horses has been improved, making riding horses far less of a chore than it should be. In addition, there is a new class of ranged weapons, crossbows, which are very powerful, but reload slowly. The map has been improved with a boat and horse marker, so you will never lose your boat or horse again. In general, the game is also far more sailing friendly. All of the new islands are approachable and dockable from all sides so you no longer have to search for a suitable place to anchor your boat. The freedom you are given to move around the island chain with your boat adds a lot to the pirate theme of the game and should prove more fun than the base game.
Followed by Destructoid:
TopWare says they're very serious about this expansion, taking player feedback from Two Worlds II to try and make the best possible experience for the fans. Voice-over work has been completely redone and the team is packing in loads of new animation. Mounts are also being improved with new breeds of horses, all new mounts (including a Warg-inspired beast yet to be named or seen) and what TopWare called, "impact oriented horse armor."
I was shown the boat travel between the islands, which looked lovely, shrouded in mist. There was also a graveyard sequence to demonstrate the combat, which appears as heavy and satisfying as before. All in all, it seems like TopWare is giving the fans what they want with the expansion with an expected ten hours of new content and the game's single-player world increased by twenty-five percent in size.
