Every gaming genre has that one title that once determined the main course of the entire genre’s future development. And for the third-person RPGs, among other impressive titles it is the Gothic trilogy. Originally released back in 2001, the series earned its place in game industry history and players’ hearts, and it happened for a reason.
A quarter of a century ago, the first chapter of the franchise appeared as a realistic survival RPG, challenging players to use not only their skills, but their wits as well. While it’s hard to talk about revolutionary gameplay or graphics of that time, the game certainly brought to life the feeling of the true immersive experience. However, the original Gothic still had many issues and didn’t age too well.
The original game can hardly be appealing to the wide audience now. The animations, graphics and old game design decisions look too outdated compared to the more recent titles. Yet the series had and still has many fans, and some of them united to create a remake the legendary game, using Unreal Engine 5 and other advanced solutions.
As the first game of the Gothic series celebrates its 25th anniversary, Alkimia Interactive and THQ Nordic prepared a great gift for the fans. Gothic 1 Remake reached the final stage after many years of development, opening a new page in the franchise’s history. With renewed visuals and promises of improved gameplay, the game once again invites players to the Valley of Mines.
However, the legacy behind the series and anticipation of the fans bring special attention to this remake, and can, and probably will, cause many discussions and arguments. Personally, I’ve waited for this remake with cautious optimism, as long ago Gothic became my first ever RPG, where I’ve spent hundreds of hours. With that said, let’s sort out what the Remake version did well and what problems it has faced.
World and Narrative
For every remake, preserving the main story and the world lore is a primary goal, no matter what challenges the team faces. With the Gothic series, the core narrative is its main force, which made the game so popular in the first place. And on this account I won’t keep the mystery – Alkimia Interactive did a great job at transferring the main and side quests to the new engine. While some minor changes still exist, the original story and the world are fully preserved.
The events of the game occur in the Valley of Mines, a prison surrounded by a magical barrier. No living being can cross the sparkling obstacle from the inside. The dome exists to protect the magical ore, and every prisoner of the colony is doomed to work for the king Rhobar II, supplying his army with strategic resources. However, every prison has its rules, and while the colony has no overseer, the inmates set their own rules, turning the Valley of Mines into a world ruled by power and fear.
As it were in the original game decades ago, players take on the role of a Nameless Hero, thrown to the colony for unnamed crimes. However, he also carried an important mission of delivering the letter for the Fire Mages, which becomes the main goal for the first chapter of the main story quest. For this, our Hero has to find his way through the colony and learn the rules, while both wildlife and inmates are eager to take his life.
The main quest line and quest system in general remained much the same as before. The player has to discover everything on their own, making decisions and completing various missions. By the classic line, the Old Camp is the first place the Hero steps into, invited there by the first friendly NPC Diego. As comes from the name, this place is the oldest settlement in the colony, led by the Gomez, a man who rules with a strong hand and even stronger fear.
The Old Camp becomes the first relatively safe place where player can buy supplies, get a house to sleep in and meet NPCs to learn new skills from. However, even inside these tall walls the Hero can lose his life or goods if he doesn’t play by the rules and tries to be cocky. This settlement becomes the first lesson in the school of colony survival. But, most importantly, the mages the hero needs to deliver the message to are located precisely in Old Camp. Still, no one will let a newblood into the heart of the castle.
Probably every new players to the Gothic world immediately starts the quest line of initiation to the Old Camp. And it’s likely how the original game was designed for the first walkthrough. Trying to earn the trust of the inmates, the Hero has to complete series of quests, some easy, others complicated, before being seen as a trustworthy person. Through the quest line, the other camps, the New Camp and the Swamp Camp, are being introduced at the same time. Players get a first important choice to make – which union is more appealing, as it can slightly change the course of events and NPC reaction to the main character.
However, the story remains pretty linear. While joining one fraction requests betrayal of the other, after the initiation the players won’t lose access to any ‘hostile’ camps, getting access to the Mages regardless, just under different excuse. The entire quest system exists only for a roleplay element, giving the player a sense of a choice while changing only little details in general.
The main world lore and colony layout was preserved by the team just as thoughtfully. While there is an NPC that can sell a map, every player who still remembers the directions and routes can find their way across the Valley of Mines without one. Despite the new visuals, every place preserved original spirit and recognizable features, turning the exploration into a true homecoming experience.
Though the game map feels bigger than the old one, maybe twice the original size. In general, everything feels a bit bigger than it was before. The Old Camp Walls, the Swamp Camp trees – they are now more monumental, just like the orcish tombs and Old Mine shaft. The game map also gained some expansions, which mostly affected the caves and underground tombs and tunnels.
Sadly, with world expansions, the territory remained mostly empty. Exploration won’t be really rewarding, as every path leads either to empty dead ends or piles of bones with insignificant loot. Wandering around the map turns into a survival experience with no reward, especially during the first chapter, as players don’t have access to the better armor or can’t learn proper skills yet.
To be fair, it’s mostly the same as it was back in the original game, but as I remember there was more useful loot and elements within these caves and ruins.
Gameplay
When it comes to gameplay, the Remake preserved the spirit of the original. The game doesn’t hold the player’s hand and throws them straight into the action. They have a choice to interact with the NPC and listen to their advice or just YOLO their way through the world, figuring everything out along the way. However, the remake made a significant addition to the user experience – adding glossary and convenient quest journal.
The main changes in terms of gameplay are tied to the battle system, which remained a pain for the developers for many years. Back in the Demo (Nyras Prologue) it still felt clunky, unresponsive and unsatisfying. And it still has some space for improvement. From the very start, every fight feels just like it appeared from the year of 2001. Despite some changes and twists, the main experience remained the same, with really low response and control.
However, to be completely fair, the speed, dodges and damage to the character are tied to the main stats a lot. Improving strength and learning several levels of sword mastery can provide a more satisfying experience in the battle. Pushing the dexterity further and learning the acrobatics makes dodging easier, while bows become more useful with the corresponding skills. Better armor can even give immune to attacks of certain creatures. Yet just like a quarter of a century ago, the battle will require more wits above skills if the player wants to survive, especially in the early game. Sadly, it’s not about the challenge of the great game design or smart enemy AI, it is the best response to same old mechanics the game carries from its past.
Additionally, it must be noted that the monsters and NPC behavior sometimes creates possibility of ‘cheating’. Tied to the certain areas, monsters sometimes can’t follow players for too long, like undead orcs can cross the tomb threshold which makes them an easy target. Different entities often attack each other if led to one place. However, NPCs sometimes start to attack the Hero if the approaching monsters trigger their aggressive mode.
In the other aspects, gameplay mostly remained the same, with some minor tweaks. The developers did a great job at preserving the original core of the game. The NPC responses to the crimes, the sleep mechanics, lock picking and even cooking – all remained at the level of the original, without ruining the game experience. Yet the UI changes made it feel more satisying, smoother. Some minor issues can be easily ignored, as the team succeeded at the major mechanics pile.
Visuals and Performance
This side of the Gothic 1 remake is probably the most tough one to share the honest opinion about. On one hand, the developers team used everything Unreal Engine 5 has to offer. The game looks nearly stunning with every effect turned on. It will be a realistic living world, with winds, rains, falling leaves and everything one could imagine. However, there is a catch.
Unreal Engine 5 is known for many great features, but also for problems it brings when given to amateurs. Gothic 1 Remake has a really significant system requirements for the game of such size. Let’s be honest here, it can’t match many acclaimed modern titles neither by the map size, nor by gameplay and not even by the RPG elements. Yet it tries to look like an AAA game, which need to be run on the high-end systems, including NMVe.
Right from the loading screen with the developers and publisher introduction, it loads the processor to the cap, asking all it can offer. In the game itself, even a strong system can suffer from lags and stuttering, as too many things start to render at real time, including particle systems, light, shadows and other post-processing effects. Meanwhile, the optimization leaves much to be desired.
While the good-looking graphics in and of itself isn’t bad, in the Remake it feels overdone to the enormous level. As a huge expensive car serves a distraction from other defects, the visuals here seem to serve the same purpose. It’s great that the Old Camp walls became bigger, that the Swamp Camp is covered in thick fog, but it doesn’t make the game better at all, all the while narrowing the number of players who can run it.
Moreover, half of the terrain and objects in the map look overscaled compare to the character. Maybe it’s just a level design decision, but it still leaves the aftertaste of the attempt to fill the space up with something for it to not appear empty. For the same purpose devs scattered random objects from rocks to logs and other trash all around the map. But at some point the amount of it goes beyond realistic level, especially when some random props look wyt less detailed than the surroundings.
When it comes to prop the game has some other issue with textures, which will pop out as soon as half of the post-processing features are lowered to middle, though they probably will be seen even in the legendary settings. Many objects and creatures have problems with roughness maps, glittering on the sun as oil polished steel. One of the good examples would be any house wall in the New Camp, where concrete seems to be covered with nice layer of polish.
Of course, it can be just the problem of trying out the lower settings (probably not), as developers did everything with a recommended set-up or higher. But, as an indie developer myself, I believe that the game should be made with players in mind and how they will experience things on the minimal system requirements too.
However, lowering the particles systems and other post-processing while leaving high texture resolution provides very good visuals regardless. It resolves the FPS drops and makes experience smooth with minor loses on the overall graphics. That’s said, with the given options the players can decide how they want to play and what they need to be toggled, but still the game could use more optimization.
And it’s not just about looks. Sometimes phantoms of the beasts can appear in view, as they seem to exist somewhere but remain invisible. Environment light render sometimes struggles at some points like the exits from the caves or mines, when light exposure seems to work wrong. Not to mention occasional white textures on planks, which seems to strangely react on sunlight.
Compare to the old game, the animations certainly had some improvements but overall they remain at very low level. the way character walks, swims or even drinks painfully reminds the stiff old movements from 2001. The models probably got more rig bones, but the actions still look like some generic royalty free animation sets. Just like many years ago, the farmers drink their water pressing the bottle edge far away from the mouth, which looks just comical with all this flashy shadows, realistic lights and effects.
Bugs and Issues
Oveall, the state of the game appears to be on the great level for the release version. However, as I’ve mentioned above, it still has some bugs and issues, tied to NPC behavior and visuals. There are many places where character can get stuck with no way to escape, there are many spots to pass through the objects, as they seem to miss colliders. The NPCs can randomly attack the character. But, more importantly, the game is prone to crashes.
Hopefully, the main issues are known and the developers team will address them in day onne patch or the following hotfixes. But I still would recommend everyone to save more often, not only because of dangers, but because of accidental game closing. Especially when you are using magic or traveling with the mage, as the problem seems to be tied either to magic mechanic or to the effects it uses.
Conclusion
Alkimia Interactive did a great job recreating beloved and long-lived classic. Gothic 1 Remake manages to revive the spirit and atmosphere of the original, faithfully following the predecessor’s guideline. While the game has its own problems and issues, it still worth playing. Either you are a veteran and know your way through the colony, or a newbie who doesn’t know the prison rules, you will receive a satisfying experience.
This is a game for those who don’t look for easy ways and ready for the challenge. However, the outdated gameplay won’t appeal to those who love more responsive and dynamic combat. Grab this game if you want to experience the rough RPG of old times, when the players were not yet spoiled and used to hand-holding.
