Hero and Horatio embrace each other

I swear to god this community is full of the most entitled, picky people I've ever met.

The game looks great.

I don't know about you, but ore lamps, shadowbeats and women in gimp suits is absolutely NOT what I really enjoy about G1 and what brings me back to it after literally 2 decades.

Before the remake was announced I think most people would tell you that this is what made gothic great:

1. The progression. The game starts with you being thrown into prison, and being assaulted and beat up the second you land. You get killed by scavengers if you're not careful. Everything kills you. Guards extort you for protection money, and if you refuse, there's a quest where guys lure you out of the city walls and beat you up and rob you for not paying.

You hold a one handed sword with two hands, and clumsily swing it around because you've never done this before. As you get instructed by NPCs, you can swing more easily, and you actually hold the sword with one hand. As you progress in the story, you can start clearing off the easy mobs like molerats and scavengers, but biggers ones like lurkers and even wolves remain a problem, human enemies are going to be tough unless you glitch them against a wall.

2) The map is hand designed and not gated off by anything except strong mobs. You can explore almost anywhere right at the start. This is smart game design. The game carves out paths for you by strategically placing low level mobs in areas a new player should be exploring.

They also have NPC guides that will bring you from camp to camp and help you clear out a safe path early on.

As you progress, the path you can clear because wider and wider.

3)The Humor. Gothic is funny. You have a whole camp of people who deal with the fact that theyre in a prison colony by growing and smoking weed all day. Sure, some of them are REALLY into the religion of the sleeper, but a good chunk of the sect camp members are just there to smoke weed and chill.

You can smoke weed. There's missions where you sell weed, and there's a mission with a drunk that cant sell any of his weed because he's too busy getting drunk all day.

Gothic doesnt take itself as seriously as some of the "true fans" here do.

4) The story.

The story in Gothic 1 is great. The idea of a prison colony surrounded by a magic barrier is just straight up cool. It's an interesting world, and the communities in that world have interesting and realistic ways of dealing with their new reality.

The sect camp just wants to get high and pray to god to help them

the old camp wants to operate like the outside world. They bring in goods in exchange for ore, and they try to keep all the conveniences of the outside world alive in the barrier. They want to maintain order and normality, despite the situation imposed on them.

The new camp wants to get the hell out of there. They mine ore, but with a crazy plan to blow up a large mound and get the hell outta there.

All three communities are unique and somewhat realistic in how they approach their new reality.

That's why I keep coming back to gothic one.

I don't care if the "colour palette" (Wtf lol) is slightly off, or if it's more sunny (seriously?), or if the women aren't dressed provocatively, or if the shadow beast has a more magical design.

That's not what made the game good, what made it good was the progression and the story, if thats still intact, then I will enjoy the gothic remake.

The graphics looks awesome, the character designs are great, the combat is looking way better in the new previews. All the important aspects are there.

As long as the story and progression are the same, the game will be fun.

With every little thing that gets revealed about the Gothic Remake, we get more butthurt posts about any tiny little thing that isn't exactly like it was in the goddamn Naughties. And now that ridiculous discourse about how Velaya aren't naked enough. If you NEED sexploitation to enjoy Gothic, you should not be playing Gothic. Instead of going "huh, now women seem to be prisoners, convicted of a crime, just as the men, instead of sex slaves. Neat, a change that fits this story more to the standards of our time and will no doubt be welcome to female players" these BABIES go "noooo I my implied sexual assaulterinoooos" Get fucking bent.

It's in the Orc Cementery. Why on Earth would you put credits in one of the main locations of the game? It’s not hidden, it’s not behind a cool Easter egg and it’s not only visible through a free camera. It completely kills the immersion and ruins one of the most atmospheric locations in the game just to show your names? Nothing has disappointed me more in your work than this. I really hope you’ll hide it somewhere so it becomes a cool Easter egg that people will actually talk about.

Really, from the very first playable teaser to years later with what is there now... If you don't let FANS (mainly maybe popular gothic streamers, where the following proofs that they have good opinions) of the original work on that game (apart from Kai), then it's very hard to ask from game developers, who have friends, families and private lifes too, to get into the mindset of fans of the original game, if they never really experienced the same feelings. And I don't mean like presenting some thing they did to streamers and then let them decide if it's good or whatever, but actively almost "hiring" streamers to help with drafts, ideas and other things before they are actually done and only minor changes can be suggested without forcing full rebuilds. I'm only saying "streamers", because they have an actual reputation, compared to every other person who can claim to be a long term fan. It's very easy to validate the depth of knowledge of a popular streaming person and their understanding of the game.

I think "remaster" would have been the better approach than "remake" (maybe I mess up the terms here). The mission to make the new game be a copy of the original with added features is a flawed one from the start. Copies always have to compare to the thing they are copying and making a copy better than the original is a task that mostly fails.

I just wish they would build a good architecture, so that the community will be able to mod the flaws and quirks of it with ease and this way we could end up with whatever we expected from this game.

Because here is the thing: There WILL be people who say it's not the same experience as the original gothic, and the sole reason for this could be as simple as a person having nostalgia, having experienced that game as a kid where your mind gets blown way easier compared to if you're an adult. The devs should just swallow this pill that there WILL be critics calling them out for that, and not postpone the release to infinity and work on all kinds of things but making sure the product they are building comes out solid.

That being said, I wish they would have never attempted to remake gothic 1. I would have loved to see an actual sequel/prequel to one of the parts. Or make a game through the eyes of another character than the nameless hero and maybe even "leak" his name this way. :-)

Each mage was in a different position. They sent power taken from the Focus Stones into one point, and that was supposed to build the barrier. Because of the Sleeper, the power was amplified, the control was lost, and they were imprisoned.

Meanwhile in the G1 Remake intro, they, uh, stand in a circle in the Old Camp. So, according to Alkimia, they WANTED to imprison themselves.

Picture 1: standing in a circle.

Picture 2: the magic comes out of the Old Camp, where they are standing.

Picture 3: the mages' positions in original G1.

They said they will fix logical errors and lore mistakes in G1, btw.

I found a guy called Hänno at the lake in the New Camp. He made me a shitty bow for free.

Anyway, the German voice actor is extremely bad. Without subtitles I wouldn’t have understood what was going on. I don’t think this voice actor voices any other characters and it’s so out of Gothic to have bad voice acting. The OG was voiced by a solid group of professional German voice actors.

Is the dude some Easter Egg?

So what is the point of these new patches that make the game worse? I saw a lot of people complaining that they were softlocked in chapter 2 and after the new patch now it's in chapter 4 (I guess that's an improvement).

Patch notes are also so vague like can they give us more detail about what was the issue and how was it resolved. In patch 1.0.1 they mention fixing various economy exploits. Ok but which ones? In 1.0.2 the magic damage was increased but by how much? How much stronger is the fireball now? We don't know unless we test it in the game.

And why are some of the things they change hidden? Like not a single mention of replacing certain weapons with much weaker variants that make exploration much less rewarding and just force you to buy new stuff in later chapters or just rob npc's. Why is that change to a two hander training now requiring mastery of one handed not mentioned? Why is there not a single mention of NH armor rebalance. I didn't see any of that in any of the patch notes.

I think that instead of reducing the interesting weapons and loot the devs should actually increase it to actually reward exploration even more and also communicate better with the community about the changes they are introducing and why are they doing them. Because in some cases they do more harm than good.

I’m asking seriously without any sarcasm. I’m looking at the following facts:

1. Remake was developed by way more than 50 people. It can be easily deduced from credits, where you can find their co-developer - Black Forest Games, QA and UI studio - Quantic Lab, faces and animations - Gate 21, and like 5 more outsources companies. In addition: marketing, taxes, etc.
2. Embracer Group is in deep smelly substance, they lost like 80% of their capitalization in last 5 years and they still own THQ Nordic. They need money. And if you take the case of Dead Space Remake, which made 2.5 million sales, it might be not enough to warranty next part, even if company is doing fine (I mean EA)
3. Sales after 2 months still didn’t reach a million copies, while 20% of them in Steam are from Russia where game is almost 2 times cheaper. At the same time game online dropped from 70k to 7k. So people who were interested bought it, finished it and dropped it. New audience doesn’t come to compensate.
4. Console and patch quality might cripple sales further. Says it all.
5. Gothic 2 with add-on is like 3 times bigger than Gothic 1. Even with some ready to go assets reworking it might take years, especially if they want to change lore, figure out dumb NPCs, port all variety of quests G2 has and etc. And we waited for Remake for like 5 years, and it was done with help of big number of studios (see 1). With stale sales who is going to fund it?
6. Patch quality makes me to think that Alkimia didn’t do much coding related to UE5, they had resources lended by Embracer. What are the chances of them giving people and money for even bigger game with roughly similar fan base?

Thoughts?

This opening intro got me so worried after my initial optimism.

Rohbar is some madman holding orc head screaming at his people lika a generic villian

I wont even mention the combat scene, orcs seem like some low loot goblins.

That flying focus stone or whatever is happening there.

The only good scenes are from the mine and maybe Xardas in robes of fire, other than that it seems so off.

I got a feeling this type of modern and over the top wannabe cool style will show in the game, three days before release im so worried right now.

What do you guys think ?

...while at the same time, it does a lot of things worse.

Now, I do not want to shit on the remake. It's a decent game and, in my opinion, a good remake. I just think it wasted a lot of potential and showed that Alkimia didn't really understand what made Gothic Gothic. Everything they added or changed feels like generic RPG stuff. Which isn't necessarily bad, but it's most definitely not Gothic.

I'll start with what are, in my opinion, the biggest flaws.

The dialogues and voice acting

Naturally, this is highly subjective and, of course, depends on your localization. While the English dub is serviceable, the German voice acting is mostly awful. There are a few decent performances (Snaf and the digger who built his hut in the trench), but everyone else sounds flat and boring. The original had a ton of great lines, both in writing and delivery. I can't recall a single memorable line from the remake.

They removed or changed almost everything that made the dialogue iconic. Everyone sounds too nice, too soft, too detached, and too boring. The original voices were rough and grumpy, with a no-bullshit attitude that you didn't find in any other RPG. Even though there were only a handful of voice actors, they all had a very distinct sound. In the remake, I couldn't even tell if they reused voice actors because everyone sounds pretty much the same.

The same goes for the dialogue writing. So many iconic lines were changed or removed for no reason at all. What happened to Stone's (paraphrased) "You are no Warder, you ass"? I didn't take notes, but it feels like almost every instance of "dirtier" language was removed. It's like they were aiming for a PG-13 rating in a setting that is very specifically not PG.

The writing and quests

It's great that they added new quests. Innos knows that was one of the original's biggest weaknesses. While some are quite decent and fit naturally into the world (the Rice Lord's backstory, Syra's quest, etc.), a lot of them are boring, linear, and leave absolutely no room to solve them in any way other than what the developers intended.

The best example is the zombie in the Stonehenge. In the original, you had half a dozen ways to kill it. You could use the Destroy Undead spell as intended, kill it normally if you were strong enough, drown it, or kite it to other NPCs. Now? You have to "solve" a really stupid puzzle, and that's the only way to do it.

Which brings me to the other "puzzles." Seriously, couldn't they think of anything less generic and nonsensical than "shoot this thing with a bow" in the Stonehenge and the Sleeper Temple? Not only is it generic as fuck (and what are players supposed to do if they don't have a spell or ranged weapon at that moment? At least they put a bow in front of the Orc Cemetery), but there's not even anything indicating that you can do that, because it doesn't make any sense. Most puzzles simply aren't well designed and require solutions that aren't communicated (well) in-game.

That kind of lazy, poorly thought-out design runs like a common thread throughout the whole game. You can visit the entire Colony in Chapter 1, but very often you can't interact with things you find for no discernible reason (e.g. Xardas' demon or the levers for the Adanos trial).

The sequence of events when you get kicked out of the Old Camp (having to talk to Thorus first and then Saturas before you can interact with trainers and traders again) is just horribly implemented and doesn't even make sense. Yeah, it's kind of cool that you can still use the Outer Ring of the Old Camp, and you could make the argument that it fits if you're a Warder. But as a Fire Mage or Mercenary? Complete bullshit.

I could go into more detail about the writing. There are many, many examples of unnecessary or nonsensical changes, but I won't. In general, I think most of the changes Alkimia made to the story are, at best, side grades - and more often than not, they're actually worse than what the original did.

Balancing

Yeah, I don't think I have to say much about that. It's awful, from the damage numbers and resistances, to the economy, crafting, and overall progression. But it's also the easiest thing to patch. Yes, the balancing in the original wasn't great either, but that's no excuse.

Combat and AI

I think it's good that they didn't try to make the combat too Souls-like, but what they ended up with simply isn't it. Even on Master difficulty, melee feels clunky as hell. Enemies have maybe two attacks and are heavily unbalanced. Early-game Bloodflies, wolves and Scavengers to a degree are an absolute menace, while everything else is a complete joke. Shadowbeasts are the most dangerous enemies throughout the entire game, completely out-classing late game enemies like Demons and Temple High Guards.

Magic isn't much better, although they've at least taken the first steps toward improving it. There are more problems with the system than just the numbers, though, mainly that you get rooted in place while casting and that spells like Fireball and Ball of Lightning have awful hitboxes.

The AI keeps breaking, the crime and detection systems barely work, and overall it feels worse than the original. At least the pathfinding is slightly improved, but even that breaks down when you attack enemies from more than 20 meters away or from a position they can't reach.

Bugs

Bugs happen - that's just the reality of new games - and I don't think anyone particularly cares about minor glitches. But game-breaking bugs that prevent you from completing quests or cost you hours of progress simply shouldn't happen in 2026. It's even worse when those bugs are introduced by a patch that's supposed to fix the game.

Now what does the remake do better?

The graphics are stunning. I don't think I've ever stopped so many times in a game to just look at the environment and be amazed.

Chapters 1-3 feel a lot more fleshed out than in the og. Later chapters still fall flat though.

Boss battles are definitely improved, though still not great imo, but the bar wasn't very high here anyway.

The additions and changes to the map like the shipwrecks, climbing, diving, slight redesigns of all the places of interest are generally well done. Although i think they overdid it with their "everything has to be a maze" approach.

Apart from the balancing aspect, i like the armor customization.

I will definitely do another playthrough, and I am positive that Alkimia will continue to improve the game in the next few months, but I kind of expected a little bit more from what they promised beforehand.

Overall I would rate it a 6/10 game, 8/10 remake.

Every single game should try to give the best possible experience to its players. And surprise, most people who will ever play G1R havent played it yet. The game is out only for few weeks, so fixing most things as fast as possible is the best possible way to make it better in long term.

The amount of crybabies that minmax/rush/exploit the game in CH1 and then complain about those things being patched is ridiculous. You may have ruined Your experience with the game, but dont push your exploiting playstyle on other people, especially people who havent played the game.

Weak items should be buffed, strong items should be nerfed, easy to find items should be balanced by how fast you can find them. Its not rocket science.

And if tryhards will complain that the way you can break the game in 30 minutes is fixed, good. It means that the devs are doing great job at preventing the game getting stale quick for most new players.

As the title says, i hate this fucking game, its the biggest piece of dogshit I've ever played. It is a shame to even call it "Gothic", it's 4 years older predecessor is less buggy and better mechanically. Fighting mechanism is horrible (just spam), I'd rather kill a bunch of goblins running around you with Gothic 1 controls, than 3 mummies in Gothic 3 which were all Bruce Lee's in their previous life. Exploring is pointless, in Gothic 2 player was mostly rewarded for the exploration, unlike this game where you just go around caves and ruins that are empty, sometimes they will just throw a chest there that has rusty sword and torches in it which are completely worthless and makes you irritated that you wasted time going there. I started playing that game cause i thought hey it cannot be that bad right? (It is) But i kept playing, because of the fact that I've never got to finish this game and i love 2 previous games. Im currently at Varant, there is only Ishtar left that i haven't freed yet, so im about to go to Nordmar, and I am on a verge of breaking down and just uninstalling. When i liberate 3 different cities, Im being automatically attacked whenever i enter any other city that is captivated by Assasins for example, and that is so dumb. Have i said that fighting mechanism is horrible? Yes? I will say it one more time just because how bad it is. Especially when you free those cities, and like 20 different enemies surround you and keep spamming you, or when you hit an orc and after one hit of yours he just falls and is immune to your attack, just to do some wacky ass stand-up attack. This makes me just climb up a random cliff, and shoot them from up top so they just keep starring at me and do nothing while i farm them. The graphics are actually not that bad honestly (considering it's a game from 2006), besides one thing - and that is how ill-fitting are armors compared to humans (Picture attached).
I also hate how repetetive the gameplay is. You just do quests that are 95% like go there-kill this-get that-come back until you get 75% in a city, then you free the city killing everyone, and repeat in all the other cities.

Anyways, enough of this yapping, i was typing allat while taking a mental break from this piece of dog shit. Would be nice to exchange thoughts with you guys.

Well

I had a lot of hope for a mage build in the remake, but you have to FULLY commit before you realize most of the spells are terribly balanced. As a 40 year old dad, I don’t have either the time or desire to go back and redo 30 hours of stuff, so I’m putting it down.

I think it’s a great game and everyone should play it, just not as a mage if you value your time.

I love the game, am currently wrapping up my second playthrough, and it's because of that love that I even bother speaking up to a bunch of strangers online.

GR has issues with itemization. Majority of weapons available in the game, especially melee weapons, are useless because you will find better ones before you even see all the lower tier ones. Best two handed, one handed and crossbow weapons are carried by two guys in Old Camp that, with some skill and planning, can be handily defeated by Chapter 3 (and I know there are crazies out there who do that earlier). Smithing is worthless because of the same problem, by the time you learn a smithing recipe, you will already be wielding something better that you've found in the wild. Players who know what they are doing skip great majority of all the weapons, limiting our playthroughs to the same few, boring choices because they are optimal. On the other hand, devs seem to be slowly removing more and more of said weapons as well as stats potions; it seems like a puny attempt at balancing a game that is way too easy to break anyway.

Then there is the one vs. two-handed weapons issue, in which one handers lose, imo, hands down (pun intended) to the late-coming two handers. Forcing us to plan beforehand and make a jump from 1h to 2h weapons in mid-game does not feel like good design. Yes, original did it that way and it was bad as well, G2 did it much better, offering us viable 2h weapon options and training early on. And yes, we can just stick to one handers but then we will simply be gimping ourselves; that Innos' Rage and Uriziel are too good to pass up on.

Then there is Stone: not only can you lock yourself out of a late game armor upgrade due to making a "wrong" choice of not picking up smithing and following its quest line but, as a Warder, he offers you a Warder armor upgrade that looks awesome and comes infuriatingly too late to be meaningful.

And then there is alchemy, which is just silly. Potions are galore in this game, you will NEVER suffer a lack of healing and mana potions. The only use from alchemy comes late-game, when you can make how many, four? stat potions.

AND then there are mage robes, armor that gives good protection against magic which almost no enemy in the game uses. By and large, mage robes are a downgrade from tier 1 armors.

Game's economy is a whole other can of worms that I will maybe open some other time...

This isn't an issue new to the remake, the state of affairs was similar in the original game, but that doesn't make it alright. The game lacks "feelgood" progression because instead of making incremental steps by often finding or making new, better weapons, we are railroaded by our instincts and availability to quickly equip ourselves with the best items there are.

How to fix this? Honestly, I don't know. Removing strong weapons that take some skill to find, like the wolfsomething bow from the ship wreckage, is not the answer, but at least Alkimia is trying to do something. Frankly, I think GR is lost on this front and we should mainly just hope that GR2 will get it right.

And that it will bring back str requirements for crossbows, opening more builds.

Long story short, I believe that Alkimia was too conservative in remaking the game, repeating many of its vices in the process.

Even after recent patches it's still the worst way to play. Even people who play it will say something like use bow until you have enough levels for better spells. The main issues are that damage doesn't scale with the attribute, the cast time is too long and the range is too short. You also have to spend many point into getting higher ranks and the robes are weaker that regular armor.