Piranha Bytes have now also officially commented on the studio's current situation (e.g. on Facebook) In the statement, the Piranhas confirm their difficult situation, but they are confident that they will find a new partner and continue to develop games in the future. Should there be any news on this project, the Piranhas will get in touch again. We are keeping our fingers crossed!

The whole statement:

Source: Piranha Bytes

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Members of our community had noticed that no more Piranha Basin TV episodes have been appearing on YouTube since November and that the Piranha Bytes website now only shows the company logo. In addition, Piranha Bytes' upcoming project, codenamed WIKI6, had disappeared from the BMWK's funding database (as reported by Gamestar and others.)

Now the german video game podcast 'The Pod' has spoken out and reported that Piranha Bytes has been affected by the studio closures of its parent company Embracer Group. The podcasters spoke to Piranha Bytes employees, among others, and found out that the employees had been informed in November. However, they were initially sent on short-time working in December to give the team time to work on a pitch for potential takeover bidders and avert the closure.

Talks with other publishers are ongoing. Embracer is also discussing to hand over the Elex brand with the studio in order to facilitate the takeover. According to information from the podcast, most of the employees were nevertheless given notice at the end of December. Björn Pankratz had already left the team in November due to creative differences. Parts of the team wanted to work on a Gothic, while Björn had finished with the brand. However, Gothic is to remain with THQ Nordic, also because the remake of the first part is imminent.

The future of Piranha Bytes is therefore still uncertain at the moment and is likely to be decided in the coming weeks and months. Will Piranha Bytes manage to find a new publisher and start anew? Will they continue working on Elex 3 or start a new project? In any case, it is to be hoped that the current situation will end smoothly for the employees.

Update: Gamestar has now also commented on the situation at Piranha Bytes and confirmed the previous information. However, Gamestar's assessment is much more pessimistic: Piranha Bytes now only exists on paper and it is almost impossible that a buyer will be found for the developer. This would bring an almost 27-year history to an end.

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As Gameswirtschaft report, the German Federal Ministry of Economics is supporting Piranha Bytes' next role-playing game with over 3 million euros. This is the second highest amount a game has received since the start of the funding program. The amount is supposed cover almost half of the development costs. The project is currently codenamed WIKI6 and is scheduled for release by early 2026. There is much to suggest that it will be Elex 3 however.

Links

As announced earlier this month, the DirectX 12 patch for Elex 2 was released this month. However, initially there was some confusion, because on 11/8 an old version was uploaded first by mistake. The correct version followed the next day. According to THQ Nordic, this patch contained around 20 improvements for DirectX 12 and fixed the hacking minigame, for example. It has also increased the performance in the graphics limit by up to 50% in our tests in addition to improving the CPU performance. After the patch, it is also possible to choose between DirectX 11 and 12 when starting the game. However, this also doubles the installation size of the game, since both versions are available separately.

However, there were still technical problems with the DirectX 12 version after the update, such as an overexposed moon. This problem was fixed on 11/21 with another patch. On the other hand, other problems persist: The night becomes bright as day a few minutes after midnight and stays that way until morning, and shadows from light sources pop into the image way too late, as can be seen in the Morkon tunnels. This update also causes a new problem, because the resolution resets for some players with every start. According to THQ Nordic, this issue is being investigated. This is the changelog of the latest patch so far:

As THQ Nordic's community manager 'Zyddie' announced on the Steam forums today, the final DirectX 12 patch for Elex 2 will be released before the end of the month. The patch will be made available to all PC players on Steam, Gog and Epic. Exactly how DirectX 12 can be activated and whether the patch will bring further changes has not yet been announced at this time.

So as promised some news this week.
I can now finally confirm that before November is over DX12 will be rolled out on Steam, GOG and Epic.

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The day before yesterday a new patch for Elex 2 was released for consoles, as announced by THQ Nordic. The update integrates an optional performance mode for all consoles except the base PS4 and Xbox One, in which the resolution is limited to Full HD. The patch also brings the same fixes as the last update for PC. For all changes please click on "Read more"!

Yesterday Piranha Bytes and THQ Nordic released a new patch (version 1.0.107) for Elex 2 on Steam that fixes some bugs. There is also an optional beta patch that gives Elex 2 DirectX 12 as the graphics API. This version requires another 27.4GB download and takes a longer time to load on first launch (presumably to compile shaders).

Players report significantly improved performance in processor-critical areas like camps. At one point in the crater, our CPU performance increased from 30 to 80 frames per second! However, there are also reports of reduced visibility and non-working anti-aliasing. For the full changes of the update and how to enable the DirectX 12 beta, please click "Read more"!

05.04.2022 17:35

As announced by THQ Nordic, the long-awaited patch for consoles has been released today. The patch brings the same changes as the patches for PC, so now also integrates the alternative game camera. To read the full patch notes, please click "Read more"!

22.03.2022 14:51

Today a third patch was released on Steam by THQ Nordic and Piranha Bytes. Among other things, the patch 1.0.103.0 fixes plot stoppers and many other bugs. If you click "Read more" you can read the full patch notes!

11.03.2022 14:26

Just in time for the weekend, Piranha Bytes and THQ Nordic have released a new patch for Elex II on Steam. The update 1.0.85 adds an alternative camera due to complaints from numerous players about the in-game camera. This can be activated in the gameplay options and prevents the camera from zooming out while running by always having the camera zoomed out. In addition, a few bugged quests that previously made it impossible to complete those quests will be fixed. Also, according to initial reports, a bug with Irissa that was holding up the Albs joining quest has been fixed. A video of how the new camera works can be found here:

The full patch notes are:

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