Nobody really liked Two Worlds. Let’s not beat about the bush. It was technically unfinished, shabby, dull and full of utterly woeful voice acting. Its very name became symbolic of the true terrors of gaming’s worst offerings, and it seemed an utterly fanciful notion that a sequel should, or would, ever even try to raise its head from the nightmarish mire in which it’s spent the last couple of years.

Good axe work. Love the way you decapitate.

And yet... here it was. Booted up, and sitting right in front of us. And actually, it looks all right. More than all right, in fact. Two Worlds II looks like it might actually be rather good.

As managing director of joint developer Topware, James Seaman reeled off the features that, technically at least, will surely help to save the game from the sub-mediocrity of its predecessor. We could tell that this was a man who, with around 20 years experience in both videogames and the fantasy gaming genre, has the talent and drive to restore order.

The GRACE engine that drives Two Worlds II is imbued with a fully realised physics system. We were shown swinging hooks on chains, barrels being thrown at other barrels and falling realistically to the floor and rolling around. All standard stuff, but crucial facets in a creating a complete and believable fantasy world. On top of this, with Two Worlds’ often shockingly bad animation system constantly coming under fire, the team has made the decision to almost entirely motion capture all the movement in the game. This is taken to the extent of employing German and Polish Olympic sword fighters to act out the weapon moves, and enlisting Hollywood’s largest mocap suite that specialises in horse riding for all the equine animations.

Prithee, this dialogue hath sensibly becometh normal English.

Crucially, whereas the first game was developed in Poland and produced in Germany, Seaman has kept production in North America, keeping a tight control over the quality of the coding work carried out over in Eastern Europe. As well as overseeing the company, Seaman is also contributing to writing duties. The other writing lead is Devin Smith, who possesses writing credits on Dead Space.

Still, impressive technical bells and whistles are nothing without the crucial playability factor that, of course, was something else desperately missing from Two Worlds. While we weren’t shown a whole lot this time (the walkthrough instead showcasing some impressively realised dungeon spaces, an open-world countryside with superb draw distances and realistically moving grass) promises were made.

These promises include a “close-to-unlimited amount of spells”, which goes some way to illustrate the emphasis placed on pleasing both hardcore and casual gaming audiences. Spells will come in the form of equippable amulets that will accomplish standard fantasy spell type stuff like, shooting fireballs. However, it will be possible to open those amulets up and start to tinker about with the ingredients within. The given example was adding ‘necromancer’ and ‘zombie’ characteristics to the fireball, which will mean each fireball cast will raise a zombie from the ground that will then shoot health at you. Obviously, while some of the combinations will turn out to be routinely useless, it’s an attractive prospect to be able to make your own stuff to such a degree.

… continued