Gothic 3 - Why was it way ahead of its Time? @ C4G

C4G looks back at Gothic 3:

This is Why Gothic 3 was Way Ahead of its Time!

A couple of strong reasons why Gothic 3 was ahead of its time.

More information.

Well…I know my opinion is very unpopular in these parts, but I don't like replaying the Gothic games. I don't hate the games they are just showing their age nowadays.

Probably the main reason why I'm interested in the remakes from THQ Nordic.

Gothic 3 was graphically superior to most RPGs at the time, especially if you edited the game's INI to make forests and vegetation much more dense. Art Direction was excellent: I frequently stopped to watch in awe packs of animals (wolves) running in the distance. It was more like a fantasy nature preserve simulator.
But I haven't finished the game, it just became dull & boring.

They are some of the best open-world games out there. I just really enjoy starting off so weak and then coming back to areas to get my revenge.

The first time I played Gothic 2 I almost quit after 30 minutes. Glad I stuck around. I can understand why the series is very polarizing though. Every time I replay one of the Gothics, I want to pull my hair out for the first 30 minutes. That's after installing all the mods.

The best part is the beginning when you have to fight a horde of orcs. That part made me want to uninstall it right away. Not counting the lone wolf that kills you later on.

Wonder why some of the best design decisions didn't carry over to more RPGs as well. As I love how you have to earn limited faction armor, and don't instantly master magic.

The only one I played in the series. I really enjoyed the freedom of gameplay, the absence of aids (pointers) and the design of the world, particularly the castles.

Incidently the only Gothic game that I finished. Absolutely huge and beautiful. The quest density might not appear the same as other Gothic games due to the size but all the ingrediants and components are there. The music sound track is just breath taking and unmatched (to this day in my opinion). Even the combat system became exciting after a while. Allows many different build varieties due to its size (played two-handed, ranger and summoning undead) and excellent high-level abilities. Factions are there and many endings as well.

Indeed ahead of its time (e.g. Oblivion, released around Gothic 3, just falls flat on its face compared to Gothic 3 in my opinion).

For me, it's the only Piranha Bytes game I haven't finished. I have played through most of it though.

Compared to Gothic 1&2, it's just lacking in so many ways. The exploration isn't nearly as satisfying, and the combat is janky even by PB standards.

It did look amazing for the time though. There's no denying that. The soundtrack is also among the best, even though I still prefer the music in the earlier games by a small margin.

I finished it once with the community patch, plus the different endings after the branching point near the end.

The early game sucked IMHO. Thank god it became much better when I left the coastal region behind. The magic was only there for maybe half the game. The desert region had the best atmosphere, but unfortunately too much walking. Cutting 20% of the map and the weakest 10% of the content could have improved the game quite a bit.

IMHO Gothic 3's only flaw (and a big one) was its combat system. It can easily consider it bad for its day and terrible according to today's standarts. Couple of weaks ago I watched a recently made video of the game with 4k resolution (from the Firstplays Youtube channel). Graphics are still look awesome, but the character was like butchering the air with his sword. If it had a combat system like From Software games (or even like Risen 1's), it could be a masterpiece that can still be playable today.

This video has made me want to start a new game. I loved G3, best scenery and music ever. Combat not so good but magic is decent.

I didn't enjoy three as much as I did the prior two, yet compared to similar games it was still quite fun, and one I've replayed a few times over the years.

On release, the game was in terrible state. Being huge fan and counting days till release I played and finished it nonetheless. Many aspects of the game were obviously cut and unfinished, including story and dialogues. Ending of the game was just a few lines of text, just like most dialogues. One of greatest disappointments of my gaming life.

Maybe community patching fixed this but it was so long ago, I don't recall if I had applied any of those - but there were some ridiculous collision bugs - and coincidentally - it was usually giant bug enemies that would break through a cave wall and potentially kill a named character. I agree about the graphics and music, and the aliveness of the world and its wildlife. On the opposite end of the bug complaint, it was a thrill to see a non essential character finding himself staving off a pack of roaming wolves. The game had too many empty settlements with only one character to interact with. Also there was something wrong visually with the horizon. I found the earliest ending I could take and "completed" it that way.

Gothic 3 was the start of the decline. Much worse writing than G1/2. Much worse world design. Worse /simplified combat system. Boring quests etc etc.

I think cutting 20% of the map would not be enough. It should of been 50% smaller with better quests and more interesting locales to visit/explore/find.

I still remember the first fight to this day. 10-20 orcs in a village and you can ONE hit most of them. From what I remember basically you just spam left click and the more you hit the more damage you do - kind of like a combo that does more damage per hit as the combo progresses. Either piss poor design or a bug - I don't know.

I have replayed Gothic 3 many times. It's perhaps Piranha Bytes' most flawed game, but it is also the most ambitious and interesting. I thought the writing was pretty awful, and the game had performance issues like nothing else I've played. I see some people complaining about Elex 2 dropping to 30 FPS here and there as if it makes the game unplayable…Gothic 3 would often drop to well below 1 FPS when I pulled out a torch or another light source.

And still, I did love it, and still do. The game world, with all its unique and interesting settlements and locations, is a joy to explore, and beautiful to look at. Character development is excellent, and I love how you are frequently rewarded with small stat boosts for doing relevant things. Melee combat, as has been pointed out, is pretty darn poor, but magic is okay, and archery is actually very good.

I have no problems understanding why some may not like Gothic 3, but for me, its qualities outweighed its flaws. And that's saying something, because there were some serious flaws.

I spend one week of my free time to find out how to run Gothic 3 with more RAM.
The solution we found out at World of Gothic was to flag the .exe and .dll files with the LARGEADDRESSAWARE bit.

Nice video, and while I do agree with his comments about the music and world design, any positive the game had was - at least in my opinion - wiped away by that god awful combat. I finished the game at its release, then again back a few years ago with that 1.75 community patch….and the combat is still horrible. They went from stun locks to the player now just being so good that you can wipe out entire orc armies with a sword and shield and a bout of frantic diablo-esque clicking of the left mouse button.

To me, that combat, which the guy in the video strangely fails to mention, kills the game. I know G1 and G2 weren't exactly master classes in how to do real time CRPG fighting, but at least it made sense and had an easily discernable rhythm. What Gothic 3 had was a spastic stun lock fest where whoever hit first would auto-win. That's not fun, imho.

I've started it 3 or 4 times, over 50 hours every time ) never finish it
My main quest bugged the first 2 times and the 3rd work intervened and I, for one, can't pick up an RPG after 3 weeks of not playing it, I must start it over.
Must say I've finished multiple time the rest of the games in the series…
Still, I can see the greatness that could be in this one… but at the time was a chore to run it and debug it.

Too bad no one tried to make games like this anymore, not even PB.

I remember really hating it. Don't remember why, though. Something about it being horribly buggy comes to mind, but I could be wrong here. Loved 1 & 2, also Elder Scrolls games, but somehow, Gothic 3 wasn't any good for me.