Gothic - Possible Remake?

It's not bad actually. I just finished playing it for a couple of hours, and I think it has a lot of potential. It grew on me the longer I played it. I don't think you can get a legit impression from playing it less than an hour.

I like that it's not an exact 1:1 copy of the original. There would be no point in that.

These guys did a good job of replicating PB's style of exploration and item placement. The music is good too, though it's not as good as Kai Rosenkranz's work.

The dialogue system is crap though. It's the same shitty style as Fallout 4 where you're limited to a maximum of 4 choices at any given time and you choose by pressing left, right, down, or up. A very puzzling decision imo that I hope they change.

The voice acting is surprisingly good. I was put off at first by how often the Nameless Hero was talking, but his voice grew on me after awhile. They just need to add the ability to skip dialogue you've already read.

I wasn't impressed by the combat. To be fair, I don't know if it sucks or just takes a while to get used to. I definitely dislike how large and ugly the health bars are though.

Visually, I think it looks pretty good for the most part. The environments are well done except for the water and fog effects which are quite poor for some reason. For an early demo though, I was impressed. I think they did an admirable job of capturing the look and feel of Gothic considering how old the original game is.

Also, I'm pretty sure they're trying to bullshit people by claiming this is just a "possible" project. It's obvious a lot of work has already went into it. This thing is getting made. They're just fishing for fan feedback to find the best way to go about it.

My guess also given the amount of work done with that demo.

I mostly want to know who is developing the remake. As I sincerely hope it's not one of their cheap studios they opened up over the last few years to make these games.

Guess we'll see in the next few weeks.

Update:THQ Nordic Barcelona never heard of them.

Well just look at those mixed reviews on the Steam page. All because THQ wants to modernize and remake a twenty year old game to be different. God it's hilarious.:lol:

So to sum it up the complainers hate it's a modern BioWare style RPG. I mean how dare the new game have cut scenes, a voiced protagonist and other better features.

So where do I find this stupid sword??

A remake? Sure, but not like this please. This looks way too colourful and doesn't capture the original atmosphere at all. I wonder if the developers have even played the original or if they've just read a summery.

Dragonfly said:

A remake? Sure, but not like this please. This looks way too colourful and doesn't capture the original atmosphere at all. I wonder if the developers have even played the original or if they've just read a summery.

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It's obvious you haven't tried the demo. If you had, you wouldn't need to question if the developers have played the original because they talk about it on one of the intro screens when you start it up.

Alistair said:

So where do I find this stupid sword??

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JDR13 said:

Spoiler: Sword

It's the sword sticking out of the burnt corpse near where you started. Talk to Cayden.

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Oh god. I did talk to him but couldn't be bothered waiting for his ponderous lines to be delivered.

I hate a game that makes you listen to the dialog. I read about 1000 times faster than people talk. Let me read the dialog if there's going to be quite a bit and it's important.

Outside of that, I'm pretty cool with the idea of a remake. I never played through Gothic 1. The lack of a mage skill until the game was half over was a deal breaker. Maybe a remake would fix that kuf-up.

Hmm, I have Risen 3 but no Gothic remake…well installing it fixed that. I installed Risen 3 and then Gothic was in the library.

Played for a little bit but until they make dialog skip-able I just have to pass. I don't have 20 minutes for Diego to say his 15 lines of dialog.

You been hangin' `round dem New Yoewk City folks @crpgnut;? We are from dah heart land where

anything worth sayin'

is worth taken'

a long time

tah say!

Interested about this ,although combat feels a bit easy ,and the graphics pallette on the colourful side.

It is all about the atmosphere if they get it right.

Not sure i get the "too colorful" its no more colorful than Gothic 3 or Skyrim. It looks like a modern 3D game.

I liked it for the most part, yes, combat and certain other things could be tweaked for sure.. Faces looks a bit wooden. No biggie. I really don't like having tons of FMV sequences that i can't skip thrown at me all the time, it was getting ridiculous after a while.

I don't know what's up everyone's bum, i think it's great news. Sure, they could have done a Gothic 4 (a proper one) but a modern G1, hell yes, i'll play. They do seem to get most things right, e.g item placement and level layout.. just hope they don't forget that NPC's has to have duties and go to sleep etc.. it should have almost sim qualities to it.

Edit: I'm not sure everyone will like the graphics style, how would a proper translation to a modern game engine even look like? More cartoon-like or more realistic? The old graphics of that time has a certain style that doesn't really translate well. I guess Gothic 3 is what they should look at - its more grim and gloomy than e.g Elex or Risen, but they do seem to be going for that (G3) look i think..

One thing they do not get right here is the fog. I hope they can get the greyish fog that
the original game has, not the blinding white type of fog which we typically see in this engine.

danutz_plusplus said:

That's what's confusing me about this project. They say they want to pay homage to the original Gothic. But in what way? Which of the great elements of Gothic 1 do they plan to try and recreate or make a spiritual successor to? Because I'm not seeing it.

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Pretty much this.

I am sure it's somehow possible to transfer the soul of Gothic to a more modern game, but it's obvious that they don't really want to. I mean, there's a character called Diego (who has a totally different personality than the one from G1), and you're somehow in a colony (but there doesn't seem to be a magical barrier in the sky?), but this is where it ends for me.

They should have a look at ELEX, which has its downsides too, but feels much more like Gothic than this one.

JDR13 said:

Also, I'm pretty sure they're trying to bullshit people by claiming this is just a "possible" project. It's obvious a lot of work has already went into it. This thing is getting made. They're just fishing for fan feedback to find the best way to go about it.

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And getting the hype train rolling.

Tchoo tchoo!

This feels more like Gothic 3 than e.g ELEX.. ELEX is not gloomy enough to feel like Gothic. I really don't care too much if they give characters and story a somewhat other take.

The thing with remakes is that it will rarely satisfy a super-hardcore fan i think, its just not possible because the feel will never be the same. Just a tiny thing such as changing the music or even fog type or a voice - it won't feel like playing the original.

This is why remakes might not always be a great idea, they end up pissing people off. It's the same with movies of course, or a musical piece. It's very rare it ends up pleasing someone who's been a total fan of the original (and in all honesty should stick to playing that if he/she is still totally happy with doing that).

Hindukönig said:

I am sure it's somehow possible to transfer the soul of Gothic to a more modern game, but it's obvious that they don't really want to. I mean, there's a character called Diego (who has a totally different personality than the one from G1), and you're somehow in a colony (but there doesn't seem to be a magical barrier in the sky?), but this is where it ends for me.

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Gothic is 20 years old. You're not going to get a game with the exact same soul. Not even from Piranha Bytes.

Did you even try the demo?

I haven't tried it yet, but I am skeptical. Part of the reason why Gothic 1 is held in such high regard is the atmosphere, and to get that right, they'd need to re-use a lot of assets, such as the music by KaiRo and some of the voice overs (I think Crispin Freeman was the main character).

crpgnut said:

I hate a game that makes you listen to the dialog. I read about 1000 times faster than people talk. Let me read the dialog if there's going to be quite a bit and it's important.

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I'm the same, but I get more out of it when the game is voice acted. For example, I just finished Witcher 2 and know the names of all the major characters, places and enemies and know exactly what is going on, but for a text only game I could not tell you the names of people mentioned in the dialogue I just read. It's mainly names and I guess hearing them makes them more memorable than reading them.

Regarding this remake, I'm in. Gothic 1 is a great game, but it is 20 years old and it shows. It is clunky in some areas and, while you get used to them, they always feel like a chore. Combat, basic interaction, inventory management, etc. they were all better done in subsequent PB games. From what I've seen of this, I have mixed feelings, but considering this is in early stages of production, I 'm very optimistic.

Game being more colorful is a plus for me. I really didn't like the yellow filter on the original game. It's like swimming in the sea of piss. Combat could be better, but I'd have to play it to get a feel of it. Animations feel as clunky as ever, but that can be ironed out.

I'll postpone my Gothic playthrough until we get more news about this, but if it ends up being bad, I can always play the original.

As THQ bought PB, it is logical they start looking how the ip can be useful. A gothic 1 remake makes sense but I doubt it is aimed at the older fans. They probably want to make a modern version to reach a bigger audience and increase visibility of the franchise.