Gothic II

Moby ID: 7866
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Description official descriptions

The demon known as The Sleeper has been banished and the magical barrier around the prison mining colony on the isle of Khorinis destroyed. The nameless hero who accomplished this, however, had to pay a high price: he lies buried under a pile of rocks.

Shortly afterwards he is revived by the renegade mage Xardas. A new threat is rising: evil armies, led by dragons, are gathering in the old mine valley. Someone has to take the news to the people of Khorinis and help them in defeating this menace. But the people have their own problems: the war against the orcs is still raging on the mainland, and the king has sent his paladins to Khorinis to make sure that the mining of the magical ore continues, now that the prisoners have fled the mine. Many of the former prisoners have now become mercenaries, hired by the farmers on the island, who refuse to obey the king and his minions any longer. Violent conflict seems inevitable.

Gothic II is a 3D action role-playing game that uses a refined version of the previous game's engine and controls. The world is many times larger than in the first game: the mine valley (which has changed a lot in the meantime) is still accessible, but is only a relatively small part of the game now. As in the original game, the player can join one of three different factions, with the choice influencing the player character's abilities, opening up different quests and changing the details of the story. The available factions are the city militia, the mercenaries and the fire mages.

Aside from significantly expanding the environments and adding many new weapons, armor, and monster types, the sequel plays very similarly to the preceding installment. Combat and magic are action-based; melee fights are based on combinations of attack moves and directional arrows. Non-playable characters follow a daily schedule, and many objects are usable.

Spellings

  • Готика II - Russian spelling
  • 哥特王朝II - Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • 救世英豪 II - Chinese spelling (traditional)

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Credits (Windows version)

221 People (178 developers, 43 thanks) · View all

Project Manager / Lead Game Design
Project Supervisor
Managing Director
Lead Programmer
Original Game Engine
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Additional Engine Programming
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Lead Artist
3D Artists & World Design
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[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 83% (based on 36 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 102 ratings with 7 reviews)

Ruined by superficiality

The Good
Graphics are really nice, especially if you can afford to set viewing distance to 300%. This setting is actually necessary if there's any atmosphere and sense of realism to be found during your wanderings. It's still never superior than the earlier released Morrowind but at least it's equal which is something.

Music, though repetitive, is quite enchanting; in particular, the track you hear during the countryside scenes is good enough to add a feeling of unreality to your travels. But again, even this track is pretty short and keeps repeating itself.

The Bad
All the audiovisual sorcery this game offers comes off as unworthy when you realize how utterly lame the ingame dialogs are -- by the point you reach Khorinis, the first town.

Granted, I'm the old school RPG fan, seemingly unlike the previous reviewers of this game. When playing a role-playing game, I still look for conversations that are actually worth reading because they are colorful, realistic and makes the NPCs feel closer to the player. Think Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld, Bloodnet etc. What I get in Gothic 2 instead are simplistic, superficial and uninspired one-liners, two-liners, three-liners (complete with mostly horrible, overacted voiceovers); reading and/or listening to these you can picture their writer yawning about while making them up.

The Bottom Line
What a shame. Could have been an overall classic if only their creators were either inspired or gifted enough to add conversation texts that are not an insult to the players' intelligence/attention span/imagination.

Windows · by András Gregorik (59) · 2004

Who could have thought they would top Gothic?

The Good
I absolutely loved Gothic. I played that game from beginning to end three times, only to be able to see all three camps. When I was done with it, I was sure it couldn't be surpassed by any other new game. Well, it has. Gothic 2 took everything that Gothic had and tripled it! The game world is now much larger, there are more guilds to choose from, more professions, more people, more quests (believe me, this game has hundreds of quests!), more enemies & monsters, and more equipment. And it all adds up to more fun! The graphics has gotten even better and the viewing distance is still unbelievably long (compared to Morrowind..). The story is even better than in Gothic and this time around the game didn't run out of funds halfway through production. It even contains the entire world from Gothic, but remade in such a brilliant way that you only want to see more of it and never feel like you're treading in the same footmarks all over again.

And, of course, this time around they have women. All sorts of women. Lovely!

The Bad
The voice acting is a bit repetitive at times and there are still a few bugs in the game, although Atari will have them sorted out before the game is released in North America.

The Bottom Line
One of the few games out there that combines great graphics, fantastic surroundings, gorgeous landscapes, well written stories and quest and an open ended gameplay. Add some actoin elements and adult material to that and you've got Gothic 2. A true soon-to-be classic.

Windows · by Mattias Kreku (413) · 2003

Excellent sequel

The Good
All the good things from Gothic 1 are still present: a tight storyline with many optional side quests, an (almost) realistic world to explore with many unique characters to interact and challenging enemies to fight.

The Bad
Although Gothic 2 looks exactly like Gothic 1 and the same graphics engine was used I had to upgrade my 3D-Adapter and RAM (512 MB is a must!) to get it running with acceptable performance - and even then some areas are reduced to slide shows. Some magazine reviews claim the game's world to be three times as large as in Gothic 1. I only found a part of the original playground and one new area of the same size, so twice as large would be more fitting. The last chapter of the game is a bit disappointing: a rather small and hastily designed dungeon with a quite weak final enemy and undeveloped storyline.

The Bottom Line
If You liked Gothic 1 You would love the sequel as well. The mechanics and environment are almost 1:1 with some enhancements. The Gothic series offers a unique type of role playing and virtual world.

Windows · by Wimp (65) · 2003

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2002– #2 Best PC Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
    • 2002– Best PC Role-Playing Game of the Year (Readers' Vote)
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • February 13, 2003 - Best RPG in 2002 (Readers' Vote)
  • Steam Awards
    • 2017 — The 'No Apologies' Award — Nominated

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Felix Knoke.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Monkeyhead, Havoc Crow, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger.

Game added December 3, 2002. Last modified March 7, 2024.