Jay Krishnan of IndianNoob looks back at Gothic:

Retro Saturdays Episode 22 :: Gothic

The year was 2002 and The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind had taken the RPG market by storm. People were praising it left and right for pioneering the modern 3D RPG genre. Meanwhile in an another corner of the world, a 10 year old boy was enjoying the hell out of another 3D open world RPG. No, it wasn’t Bethtesda’s seminal title that went on to win countless awards. The game that had this little kid hooked was relatively unknown and was made by a small team of German developers who called themselves Piranha Bytes. The game was none another than Gothic, a game which is regarded as one of the best RPGs of all time in niche RPG circles, and one which does not hold much impact to the mainstream masses outside that circle. I’m hoping that those who are unfamiliar with Gothic will find this retrospective to be a bit informative, and those that are familiar with the cult classic will get a trip back to memory lane. Without further mumbo-jumbo, let’s take a look at Gothic, an RPG which was truly ahead of its time.

[...]

Gothic- The Legacy

Gothic, while a huge succes in Germany, didn’t get the appreciation it deserved outside the region at the time of release. It however garnered a huge cult following. Gothic was succeeded by Gothic II, which improved upon the game in almost every way imaginable. The map was made 10 times the size of Gothic. Hell, even the prison colony from the first game can be visited in Gothic II and that’s just a small portion of the map. An expansion called Night of the Raven was released for Gothic II. Gothic II and Night of the Raven now comes bundled as Gothic Gold. Gothic II was followed by Gothic 3, an ambitious game with a huge open world. Gothic 3 was ridddled with bugs and performance issues and was received poorly back when it came out. But nowadays Gothic 3 is made a pleasant experience thanks to a gigantic community patch. After making Gothic 3, Piranha Bytes lost the licence to JoWood and JoWood would go onto publish an expansion for Gothic 3 titled Forsaken Gods, and Arcania: Gothic 4, a sequel in name only. Both of these games were poorly received. Piranha Bytes then made the Risen series and Elex in the spirit of Gothic. Even though the Gothic licence is back in their hands, it doesn’t seem like Piranha Bytes is doing anything with it at the moment. Maybe we’ll see a remaster or a remake sometime in the future. In my opinion, Gothic is a modern masterpiece that should be played by fans of the RPG genre. It’s just a damn fine game man.