THQ Nordic launches a playable teaser for a potential Gothic remake

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In context: If you're a long-time RPG fan, there's a very good chance you've heard of or even played the original Gothic, first released back in 2001. Though a bit rough around the edges (even for its time), the game was charming, difficult, and complex to master; all things gamers came to appreciate. The title did well enough to justify several sequels.

These sequels vary quite a bit in terms of quality, but there's a reason this style of game continues to persist in the form of Elex or the ongoing Risen franchise -- they have a certain undeniable charm that few other RPGs do. This has led the titles to gain a sizable cult following over the years.

It may come as no surprise, then, to learn that THQ Nordic is looking to remake the original Gothic with a modern interface, visuals, and a reworked combat system (among other things). However, unlike many other games that get a teaser trailer or even just a written press release for an announcement, THQ Nordic has opted to let players in on the development process in a much more hands-on way.

As of writing, many of our readers will likely find something called the "Gothic Playable Teaser" in their Steam libraries. If you're wondering where that came from, it's a free (and seemingly mandatory) extra for anyone who owns an existing Piranha Bytes title. The teaser is short, clocking in at around two hours of gameplay, but it seeks to introduce players to THQ Nordic's overall vision for its Gothic remake.

I've tried the teaser myself, and my opinions -- as well as that of many other testers -- are quite mixed. Everything from the story to the combat system (which is very similar to For Honor's) is wildly different from the original Gothic (and its sequels), and not necessarily for the better.

However, this isn't a review, and we'll leave it up to our readers to decide whether or not the remake is their cup of tea. If you want to try it for yourself, feel free to do so -- so long as you own any game in the Gothic saga or any game developed by Piranha Bytes, the teaser is yours to play as much as (or as little) as you wish.

With that said, a warning: it is not well optimized at the moment. It's running on Unreal Engine 4, and it brought my system -- which is powered by an i7 8700K and a 2080 Ti -- to its knees at 1080p, knocking the FPS down to around 40 for most of the experience. That's hardly unplayable, but I suspect those with more modest rigs will have a very tough time getting through the intro alone.

If you get your hands on the Playable Teaser, let us know what you think in the comments below.

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I am honestly going to say the original 3 were buggy but yet still amazing experiences, TBH they are long overdo for an actual reboot of sorts and should be refined for the modern era.
In this era I seriously don't think you would have dark souls like games without gothic and it's for the time hard style of combat that people complained about. Although it was clucky at the time slower reaction based combat was shunted as clunky rather than celebrated for the challenge.
 
I am honestly going to say the original 3 were buggy but yet still amazing experiences, TBH they are long overdo for an actual reboot of sorts and should be refined for the modern era.
In this era I seriously don't think you would have dark souls like games without gothic and it's for the time hard style of combat that people complained about. Although it was clucky at the time slower reaction based combat was shunted as clunky rather than celebrated for the challenge.

I think people at the time were more concerned with the game's gliches and performance. Then again it was one of the first open world RPGs where you could literally kill anything and do anything. You didn't even have to follow the quests, you could liberate entire towns simply by killing all the guards.
 
Though a bit rough around the edges (even for its time)
A bit rough? It's one of the few games that I remember the demo being very unstable back in the day. Had sooo many crashes (and it wasn't even the full game) lol

Mind you, it was also enjoyable enough to then boot it back up and continue on...
 
I think I still have my Gothic game boxes in storage. Definitely wasn't a riveting combat experience but it had it's charm. Once Deep Silver dug their claws into the franchise it went downhill quickly.
 
I never played Gothic but I did play Risen. It wasn't until maybe half way through my second playthrough that I started getting a good feel for the combat. It was one of my favourite games for a long time because of how difficult the combat was and for how open it was - you could go anywhere at Level 1 and get annihilated by a Level 18 enemy. Heck, even a Level 1 wolf could kill you easily.
But if all their games are so buggy, I think we shouldn't expect anything better in a new release.
 
Graphics are certainly nice and I noticed no problems (2600X and 2070S), but that combat is a bit weird for those that prefer the keyboard/mouse combo. Probably no issues for those who game with a controller, but seriously - how hard is it to enable custom key bindings these days - even if it is just for a playable demo.

If they were serious about getting feedback - then how about a better user UI experience than one that's forced... or maybe that is the whole point?

I actually enjoyed Gothic 1-3 and Risen 1-3. Nothing challenging, just simple fun - so die-hard RPG gamers should probably stay away. Just started Gothic 4/Arcania, and I get why the reviews are bad - but at least I can customize my controls and again - simple fun.
 
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