It’s a hell of a deal to unveil a remake a few weeks after the original game’s creators were locked out. In early July, Gothic developer Piranha Bytes was reportedly shut down as part of Embracer Group’s mad scramble to cut costs, following a decade-long acquisition spree. Watching THQ Nordic’s recent Gothic Remake trailer, below, is a bit like watching a vivisectionist parade around in someone else’s shoes. Still, the remake’s creators, Alkimia Interactive, aren’t to blame for Embracer’s missteps, and I’m selfishly cheerful that Gothic is returning as an Unreal Engine 5 title—even if I didn’t play the original back in 2001.
Sin he did play the original game, and in its 2016 retrospective, it paints an absorbing picture of a dim, fantastical “micro-society” in which each community “has a reason to exist, a way to provide for itself, social order, and a long-term purpose.” It’s a setup that reminds me of my beloved Roadwarden, even when the sight of grumpy lizards scurrying through the undergrowth makes me mouth “fus roh dah.”
Gothic is set in a magically quarantined penal colony where human convicts mine ore for weapons to fight the losing war against the orcs. However, shortly before you appear on the scene, the wizard-overseers mess up their calculations, imprisoned in a valley. The prisoners then take control of the mines and form a rebellious nation consisting of three factions. One group is cheerful with the recent status quo, trading ore with the king in exchange for the luxuries of the wider world. The second group plots an escape from the magical barrier, using the ore as a catalyst. And the third, a swamp-dwelling “brotherhood,” worships a mysterious god called the Sleeper. You are an accidental prisoner tasked with delivering a message to one of the factions, and things begin to escalate.
The main goal of Alkimia in the remake is to overlay elements of the Gothic life simulation, where humanoid NPCs and wild animals have distinct routines and habits, governed by the day and night cycle. As you wander this diminutive, wild and desert open world, you’ll see people rising early in the morning to mend sidewalk boards, toiling in the warmth of the forge, swinging pans over campfires after dim, and honing their arcane knowledge in the library.
The remake aims to build on the original’s diverse behaviors and create “a complex life simulation on a scale almost never seen in a video game before”—so mobile that “it feels like it exists without the player,” to quote the trailer’s narrator. It’s demanding to convey something this elaborate in a condensed gameplay presentation, of course. As far as I can tell, the guy with the frying pan is at it 24/7, his gaze riveted to the creaking fat, even as you secretly blackjack his entourage. But it sounds engrossing, and the immense expanses of city and dungeon, crammed into forested mountains beneath a tropical membrane of enchantment, are very enticing. The original game’s patchy, torchlit landscape has its own atmosphere, shaped by the technology of the time. It feels more like a lost pocket of Skyrim, perhaps an undiscovered part of the Markath region.
You’ll be able to explore, quest, fight, and fraternize in any direction you want from the get-go, cultivating the loyalty of individuals or groups by completing tasks for them. The user interface is “minimalist,” in keeping with the first game’s treatment of maps as actual inventory items. Like Morrowind, you’ll often navigate using NPC clues, and like Morrowind, you can get lost. While details are once again meager, the recent creators expand on some of the original game’s lore and add a few of their own. There will also be a few recent areas to explore and other secrets, perhaps accessible via a recent climbing system (which I haven’t seen), but the general direction of the story and setting is the same.
Speaking of pushing, it’s a third-person action RPG built around the familiar trifecta of melee, ranged, and magic. Weapons include bows for shooting goblins’ heads and two-handed axes that knock targets over. Spells include an annoying foot stomp to send up a wave of icicles. Enemies include herds of Tolkien-esque velociraptors, giant spiders, and gobbos dressed in leather and horn. It seems like they’re trying to address one of Sin’s complaints about the original – melee is a more effective playstyle, most of the time. Mentioned, but not shown, during the presentation: “more complex crafting” and “more satisfying character development.”
I think it all sounds great, although that’s mainly because the original Gothic (which is currently £9 on GOG) sounds great. Many RPGs feel generic in that their setting doesn’t reflect any particular story or dramatic stakes, just a brutal compulsion to “build the world” by checking boxes like “Orc,” “Human,” and “Wizard.” The setup of Gothic’s prison valley gives it a point and character that gives substance to its systematic reenactment of the everyday. Or at least that’s my impression as a newcomer. I’d love to play it. As for indigent senior Piranha Bytes – let me end with a shout-out to Pitheada recent studio co-founded by former Piranha creators Jennifer and Björn Pankratz to create “dense and dark action-adventures with deep storytelling, horror and RPG elements.” Let’s hope they ignore the tiresome influence of Embracer and keep making games with a gothic status for years to come.
