So we have a city called Setarrif - let's do something with it...anything.

User Rating: 5 | Arcania: Fall of Setarrif PC
After a long hiatus, Arcania: Fall of Setarrif finally arrived back in late 2011 as it was originally announced to be released during mid-2010, and then postponed indefinitely around March 2011. Obviously it's an expansion pack for Arcania: Gothic 4 and if you remember late in that game, there's a town you couldn't enter; well that was Setarrif. Actually you can enter it using cheats however this town was half completed at the time when Arcania: Gothic 4 was released.

What this tells you is that the town was actually there as most likely the developers ran out of time thus releasing Gothic 4 without Setarrif. That's just an assumption though however it does grip me a little as players need to buy more to enter this town. Thankfully though, Fall of Setarrif is a little more than just this city (as probably they need to justify players buying a full expansion) yet unless you are a diehard Gothic fan, you can miss this mishmash as it felt more of 'we have this incomplete city, let's do something with it' instead of letting it lying around doing nothing.

And because of this, the premise is somewhat confusing. In Gothic 4, you were blandly being told you cannot enter – period as granted, they are at war with you. If that was me, I would attack and destroy the hero however that wasn't the case. Anyways, at the end of Gothic 4, you exorcise the demon from King Rhobar III however this demon decides to make a detour to Setarrif and explodes the volcanic mountain in the process. And because of this, the surrounding areas are possessed with demonic forces. And what makes matters worse, Setarrif still at war with you – the plot thickens.

Nothing much changed in this expansion as Setarrif is now a fully explored city (in flames though thanks to the volcano) and there are a couple of new areas – namely the beach scene during the early goings with bikini clad women attacking you. Granted there was a comment made by one of your pals that you saved (won't say who) claiming that he was captured because they wanted his willy. Of course you broke the bad news and stated that they are all cannibals.

So when it comes to highlights of this game, I have to say it's the conversation. For most parts it's pretty bland however there are touches of that dry sense of humour – hidden if you are not careful enough. I love these types as even though they are few and far between, are memorable, especially the conversation between the soon-to-be-queen of Setarrif and the hero and the hero's comment about women always demanding to challenge him into a duel instead of peaceful negotiations (he blames this on his hair style).

Because the game revolves around Setarrif, there's plenty of dungeon crawling and not too much land exploration. Gone also are relics hunting so basically it's pretty linear. And considering the plot is to locate four pieces of artifacts to open some long lost tomb which holds legendary items to defeat the demon, makes you wonder how in the world did I defeated him in the first place? And sadly there are very minimal side quests to complete.

There are little of new items to craft and very little of new critters but the good thing is that you can transfer your old character over from Gothic 4 without losing any of your equipment. So I not sure how the scaling goes if I do create a new character from scratch as I transferred my level 30 hero across. At least that was a good thing as after all it is a continuation of the same story.

The expansion shouldn't take long to finish as I knocked it off around the 8hrs mark. So I reckon an average player should finish it around 4hrs as I do take my time. So there isn't much else to go by as it's more of the same – that is no new combos / no new crafting items / no new locations / no new spells and so forth. That's not to say it's a bad thing however I felt that Setarrif was always there however left out for some unknown reason. And to call it an expansion they need to add some sort of storyline link with Gothic 4 however just didn't get it right.