Two Worlds II Previews

The Internet is home to a couple more hands-on previews of Reality Pump's Two Worlds II, starting with a brief one-pager over at OXM:
"Production has been totally taken over by our studio," says James Seaman, managing director of the Las Vegas-based TopWare Interactive.

"We decided that we'd get some story writers in from North America, use a North American team to do the voice-overs and also produce the game from here."

All change, then, with one of the few things being carried over from the original being the story of the Dark Lord Gandohar and his relentless bloodlust for your sister. Devon Scott, a writer on Dead Space, was drafted in to create origin stories for all the main characters, and to give the script a darker, more relevant edge.

And then we move to GameShark for a little more content:
Two Worlds 2, however, has upped the ante with maps and cities, giving you an African Savannah area (where we saw our hero wander to close to an ostrich flock and so got chased into a reload situation) as well as Japanese and Middle Eastern themed cities to counter the typical medieval Europe palettes. Is it plausible that all these things will be on the same small continent? Does it really matter? The variety shakes things up visually and lets developer Reality Pump show off its dynamic lighting system in a bunch of different areas.

The crafting system is also new and original. Instead of the usual formulas, like "One Badass Sword + One Badass Sword = One Super Badass Sword" or "Collect the Potions and Magick the Thingy", items in Two Worlds 2 are themselves made of components. You can break the items down into their smaller parts and then use these to create or alter your weapons. The intent is to build a sort of continuity between your hero and his equipment. Weapons and armor can be stylized and will slowly improve over time instead of you just dumping swords or helmets along the way because you found one that was a little stronger.