This post is kind of old but is the first result on google for me and helped me get the game running. I was able to get the game to run using playonlinux. I followed this guide exactly and was able to get it working without any additional steps: gamersonlinux.com/forum/threads/risen-guide.643/ playonlinux actually has an option to install and tweak settings of wine to get the game working. The game looked like it installed correctly, but I wasn't able to run the game without crashing on startup.
Looking back at it, I think it would have worked if I had set the 'direct draw render' setting to opengl, so if you decide to do this route then that small change would probably make it work. The guide I posted is pretty thorough, but I'll just give a quick overview of what you need to do to quickly install the game easily.
Install playonlinux- sudo apt-get install playonlinux 2. Run playonlinux, go to wine version manager and install neweset version of wine. 1.9.13 worked for me and is the newest version as of writing this (use x86). Download risen.exe setup file from GOG, then go through wizard on playonlinux to manually install a program. Alternatively you could just use playonlinux to search through games and download the Risen setup and skip to step 7, but I can't guarantee this will work. Install libraries: POLInstallcorefonts POLInstalld3dx9 POLInstallgdiplus POLInstallphysx POLInstallvcrun6 5.
Browse for file to setup, and select the exe file you downloaded earlier. Go through all dialog boxes and just say yes to everything. Nobody reads that anyway. You might get some errors, that's fine. After installed, click the game and hit configure and go to display. Make these changes.
Direct draw renderer: opengl video memory size: (your memory size. 'dmesg grep VRAM' will show you your memory). Offscreen rendering mode: fbo. And it should work! Again just follow the guide for better explanation / more pictures but hopefully you can get it working. Computer specs: Ubuntu 16.04 ntel® Core™ i7 CPU 860 @ 2.80GHz × 8 ATI Radeon HD 5770 Game is kind of playable but there is huge amounts of delay on all commands that aren't using the mouse.
Resin For Micarta
I'm not sure if that's just the game or because I'm using older hardware to emulate the game, but it doesn't help that the game is already pretty hard.