Originally Posted by DArtagnan 
The key being "sounds like".
You couldn't go back to previous chapters in Gothic 1/2 either, so there's still nothing definite about this implementation that we know about.
That's not what Dhruin is talking about though.
I have the same fear, I don't want a game where a new chapter also moves you to a different geographical region, with no ability to return to a previous one.