Malevolent bears and online co-op found in Sacred 2

I spent a short amount of time dicing goblins on the back of a giant evil bear-like creature in the Xbox 360 version of Sacred 2. Like Fable you can choose light or shadow and you’re rewarded with a mount related to your alignment. The player to my right had a giant tiger. I was happy riding an armored beast. The build I tried also had multiplayer with a notably choppy framerate. One of the developers explained the Xbox 360 developer’s unit was from Europe and running on a transformer. Supposedly this was the crux of the problem. Later he mentioned they are adding a persistent online multiplayer system where guest characters can pop in and retain all items / experience gained from traveling into a friend’s world. Sounds like a neat feature, but it’s something that may face fierce competition from Fable 2 if it includes online multiplayer.