Description
At the end of
Gothic the nameless hero destroyed the Avatar of the god Beliar known as the Sleeper. But although his body was gone, the Sleeper wasn't ready to give up and chose an undead dragon as his new form on the world. So in
Gothic II the goal was to defeat his four minions, which he left behind in the mine-valley, and the sleeper himself with the power of the Eye of Innos.
In Gothic 3 you've now reached the kingdom of Myrtana and despite the efforts of the mining colony on Khorinis, the orcs won the war and enslaved the humans that wouldn't acknowledge their rule. There are now three main factions on Myrtana: The rebels who are still loyal to King Rhobar and want to defeat the orcs, the orcs themselves and the mysterious assassin-guild of which no one really knows for whom they work. During the game you need to choose which side you are on and help them to fulfill their goal.
To make things even more difficult, all rune-magic has disappeared from the land. Only the magic of the ancients still works but for that you need to find the magic scrolls well hidden across the land. Your goal is now to find out what happened on Myrtana and find Xardas as there are rumors which say that he's the one who helped the orcs win the war and some even say that he is the one behind the disappearance of the rune-magic.
To do so, you're free to roam the world from the start (even so it's not wise since many animals will eat you for breakfast). You begin your travel in a small town in Mittelreich which you just helped defend against the orcs, in the north you can find the icy region of Nordmar and in the south there's the desert of Varant, where the assassins chose to live.
The game is much like its predecessors. So you still have to level up your hero, learn new skills and talents with the learning points (and much gold) you get at each level-up or invest them in current skills so that you can e.g. fight better with a one-hand sword.
Since in
Gothic 2 you defeated everything from a Bloodfly to a Undead Dragon on the island of Khorinis, in Gothic 3 you start your life already as a full grown hero and a good weapon called Orcslayer. But, you're still far away from really beating the hell out of anyone in Myrtana. So on your way through the main storyline, you can also complete many side-quests for even more experience, gold and better items.
Besides the whole new graphics-engine, the main difference to Gothic II is the new fighting system. You've now many more combos available and it is fully controlled by two mouse-buttons instead of the old, keyboard-control-system. But if you preferred the old system, you can easily remap your layout. For the first time in the Gothic-series you can now also use shields for better blocking. Additionally there are way more talents to learn for which you need to increase your basic skill in that area. For example if you want to learn the "Pick heavy lock"-talent you need a thief-skill of at least 30.
Alternate Titles
- "救世英豪 3" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
- "哥特王朝3" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
- "Готика 3" -- Russian spelling
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
The Press Says
| Eurogamer.de |
Oct 11, 2006 |
9 out of 10 |
90 |
| GamesFire |
Oct 20, 2006 |
86 out of 100 |
86 |
| Playfuls |
Oct 24, 2006 |
8.6 out of 10 |
86 |
| GameStar (Germany) |
Nov, 2006 |
86 out of 100 |
86 |
| Computer and Video Games (CVG) |
Oct 12, 2006 |
8.5 out of 10 |
85 |
| PC Powerplay |
Feb, 2007 |
79 out of 100 |
79 |
| Absolute Games (AG.ru) |
Nov 05, 2006 |
79 out of 100 |
79 |
| GameSpot |
Dec 04, 2006 |
7.6 out of 10 |
76 |
| GameSpot (Belgium/Netherlands) |
Dec 23, 2006 |
76 out of 100 |
76 |
| Gameslave UK |
Oct 25, 2006 |
7 out of 10 |
70 |
Forums
Trivia
Bugs
At release,
Gothic 3 still contained a lot of bugs. Even three official updates did not solve all problems. A community member from the official
Gothic 3 board of the publisher's forum,
Hans Trapp, made the first unofficial (fan-made) bug fix. His so called "Fire Chalice Bugfix" fixes an unresolvable main quest. It was released on June 7, 2007 and started a huge wave of fan-made bug fixes, which ended in the semi-official "Community Patch" which was supported by publisher
JoWooD Productions Software AG.
The previous
Gothic 3 gold master was called back because of the amount of bugs that were still present. On Sept. 26, 2006, JoWooD Productions Software AG let the public know that the new gold master for
Gothic 3 was officially finished and in production:
Liezen, Österreich, 26th of September 2006; Thousands of fans have been shocked after the message: “Gothic 3 is not gold anymore”. Rumours about delays, current situation of development and quality problems circulated trough the community and fans became much more nervous each day. JoWooD Productions, Deep Silver and Piranha Bytes attach great importance to on a very good quality which suits the expectations of the fans. Due to this reason the version has been optimized till the last second. Now it’s done: Gothic 3 is ready and in production. The game will be released on the 13th of October.
Game engine
The graphics engine used in the game is called GENOME and was developed by
Piranha Bytes.
Gothic 3 is the first game to use this engine.
PC Powerplay
The German magazine PC Powerplay gave the game an unenthusiastic review of 67%, mostly because of the bugs, and used the headline "Why Gothic 3 is a huge disappointment" on their cover. According to their own account in issue 12/2006, they received an angry phone call by JoWooD's marketing director (shortly before the magazine's distribution) in which he threatened to withdraw all advertisements and to convince all other companies of the gaming industry to do the same. Later JoWooD's lawyer threatened to take out a restraining order to stop the distribution of the magazine unless they blacken out the headlines of the cover. Later the threats were driven back to a compensation lawsuit. The German online magazine 4players.de, which awarded 68%, reported of a similar reaction after their review.
References to the game
The game was parodied in two episodes of
Die Redaktion (The Editorial Team), a monthly comedy video produced by the German gaming magazine GameStar. They were published on the DVD of issue 12/2006 and 01/2007 respectively. The first one is an indirect parody about the many bugs in the game.
Awards
- GameStar (Germany)
- February 01, 2007 - Best PC Game in 2006 (Readers' Vote)
- February 01, 2007 - Best German PC Game in 2006 (Readers' Vote)
- February 01, 2007 - Best PC RPG in 2006 (Readers' Vote)
Information also contributed by AHO and Sicarius.This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by
Sicarius 
(61059) on Oct 13, 2006.
