Gothic's Remake is Happening! But Don't Hold Your Breath Yet
The prayers of thousands of players have been answered – the Gothic remake becomes a reality! But which deity has granted these prayers? Judging by the quality of the demo, I'm afraid it's the work of Beliar, rather than Innos.
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Gothic reactivated? Not yet
I realize that part (hopefully – most) of my objections concerning the new Gothic are premature. After all, the demo barely includes five or six characters, and a tiny slice of the world that doesn't include the Old Camp. There are also many mechanics and systems missing, of which the most conspicuous is character development. There is the character tab, and it's identical as in the original, which is nice, but there's no way to expand any skills. Maybe you are scoring experience, but the system is just a mock-up. It sometimes looses XP, or resets them after reloading the game.
There's also no day-night cycle, so it's impossible to tell whether the NPCs will have any routines dependant on the time of the day, whether there are any scripts in motion that would allow them to adjust to various situations (which was another element defining the first Gothic!). I can only express my concern based on observations of independent characters who, in the demo, don't move from their seats, furnished with a single, looping animation sequence. At least you can kill them... in some cases.
WHAT WE'RE EVALUATING IS NOT YET A GAME
So why am I laying into it? It basically is an interactive survey that asks us "what do we want from the remake of Gothic?" The reason for my harsh criticism is that a demo should exist to present the players with the core mechanics and foundations of such a remake. And I don't like that foundation. It's a house built on wooden stilts that are already rotting and threatening to collapse. I just feel obliged to cry foul.
Maybe you feel that I'm not objective, trying to find fault with the demo. If that was the case, I would focus on the technical aspects of the game – the glitches and optimization. And boy, I'd have a field day criticizing those – because here, things are even worse. Don't be surprised if your PC starts giving smoke; my GTX 1060 barely pulled 30 fps at high settings... Sounds like a hastily prepared prototype? But these matters are quite obvious and I don't think there's any need to ponder over them.
Arcania bis
Don't get me wrong. The demo version from THQ Nordic shows a potential for a good game. The locations can look really good, the combat system has great potential, and the soundtrack is pretty atmospheric. But this are merely the makings of a good game from Spiders studio – or another European developer specializing in "traditional," AA-class, (action) RPGs – but not a worthy heir to Gothic.
"I was here” – Hideo Kojima.
Of course, I applaud the idea of resurrecting the legend. I'm glad someone has finally seen the potential in this brand and wants to bring it back to shine. I expect, however, that this someone will approach the task with due respect, without binning the elements that made the game the classic it is just to sell more copies. If that's how the series is supposed to be reborn, maybe we should just leave it as it is. JoWooD had taken a similar approach ten years ago when they created Arcania... and we all remember how that ended. We'd be better off waiting for another Elex, or any other project that Piranha Bytes is brewing up in secret, as it will, presumably, have more in common with Gothic than whatever THQ Nordic is trying to push today.
But I won't be sad if my current concerns prove premature in the end. If the publisher's intent really is to listen to the players and revamp the project in accordance with their feedback. I heartily wish it to be true.
DISCLAIMER
We were able to access the demo thanks to the courtesy of THQ Nordic.
