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Gothic

aka: Gotika, Orpheus

Description official descriptions

With the orc hordes invading, the king needs a lot of magical ore to create enough weapons for his army. All the criminals are now sentenced to work in the ore mines till the end of their days. To prevent them from escaping, the king has a group of powerful wizards create a magical, impassable barrier. But the barrier grows out of control, capturing a large chunk of terrain within itself, and the wizards become imprisoned inside. In the confusion that follows, the prisoners kill the guards and take over the whole area within the barrier.

Many years later, the prisoner community has been divided into three camps: the Old Camp, where miners dig up ore and sell it to the king in exchange for goods from the outer world; the New Camp, where anarchy rules, and where the miners dig up ore in hope of blowing up the barrier with its magical power; and the Brotherhood, whose members worship a mysterious god called the Sleeper, hoping that he will release them. A new convict has been recently dropped into the prison, trying to find his place within the community, and knowing nothing about the pivotal role he will soon play in earth-shaking events.

Gothic is a third-person perspective 3D action role-playing game. The game is set within the Colony, the large area of land within the barrier. The player is free to explore most of the Colony from the beginning, though it may prove difficult, as the protagonist is initially very weak and most wildlife can kill him with one attack. Combat with melee weapons requires the player to input combinations of keys to execute various types of attack.

The player character must train to increase his attributes - Strength, Dexterity and Mana. As he vanquishes creatures and completes quests, he receives experience; with enough experience, he will gain a level, which not only increases his number of hit points (and thus lengthens his lifespan), but also gives him skill points. If the hero meets someone who is eager to teach him, the player will be able to spend skill points to increase attributes or learn completely new skills.

Skills include: the increasing ability to fight with various types of weapons; the ability to pick pockets and locks; and the ability to jump further and sneak. The protagonist can also learn to harvest furs, claws and other things from the animals he kills, and then sell them for money. Collecting plants and getting meat from defeated creatures can be very useful, since eating food heals the main character, or restores mana lost when casting spells. The game features a day and night cycle, character schedules, and interactivity with the game world: for example, the player can find a pan or a stove and roast raw meet to raise its healing qualities.

The player can choose to join any of the three camps, which influences most of the quests in the first part of the game. By focusing on particular skill sets, the player can turn the main character into a specialized melee fighter, archer, or mage. However, it is also possible to learn skills belonging to other classes at any time. Even if the player doesn't want the protagonist to learn mage skills, he can still find or buy scrolls and runes which allow the hero to cast various magic spells, e.g. toss fireballs at the enemies, teleport, turn himself into other creatures, and many more.

Spellings

  • Готика - Russian spelling
  • 哥特帝国 - Chinese spelling (simplified)
  • 救世英豪 - Chinese spelling (traditional)

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Windows version)

115 People (113 developers, 2 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Discussion

Subject User Date
German title? SharkD (434) 2009-01-09 07:15:47

Trivia

Comic book

A comic book based on the game's lore was published in 2000, prior to the game's release. Titled simply Gothic, it depicts events in the prison colony shortly before the game protagonist's arrival. The comic is written by Thorsten Felden.

Development

Gothic was developed without an option for mouse control -- everything was keyboard-only. When editors of gaming mags were shown an early build, they complained about the cumbersome handling and sluggish controls. So the developer, Piranha Bytes, put in mouse control -- in the last month before going gold

Multiplayer

A multiplayer mode was in the works, but was cancelled in June 2000. The net code was already finished, but other problems (for example balanced quest rewards) were too big.

Music

In the beginning of chapter 2, the band In Extremo (a German band that mixes medieval music with elements of rock) gives a virtual performance in the old camp. Due to licensing issues, the performance is cut in some non-German versions and re-releases.

References

In the swamp camp the player can meet an insane NPC named "Baal Netbek". He is named and modelled after Joachim Nettelbeck who was a reviewer for the German magazine PC Player at the time. He even lent his voice to the character.

Version differences

The German and the US-American versions of Gothic are both censored but they are censored in different ways: In the German version there's less blood and in the US-American version there's no nudity.

Awards

  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 02/2002 - Best RPG in 2001
    • Issue 02/2002 - Best Game World in 2001

Information also contributed by Kaliban, Monkeyhead, Mobygamesisreanimated, JudgeDeadd, and Patrick Bregger

Related Games

Gothic 3
Released 2006 on Windows
Gothic II
Released 2002 on Windows
Martian Gothic: Unification
Released 2000 on Windows, 2001 on PlayStation
ArcaniA: Gothic 4 (Collector's Edition)
Released 2010 on Windows, Xbox 360
Gothic II: Gold Edition
Released 2004 on Windows
Healing Spree
Released 2021 on Windows
Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods
Released 2008 on Windows
ArcaniA: Gothic 4
Released 2010 on Windows, Xbox 360
Valorant
Released 2020 on Windows

Related Sites +

  • Gothic I - Español
    This Language Pack is based on the Spanish Gothic I release by Egmont Interactive (1.08j). It contains the menu scripts, game scripts, subtitles, fonts, and three videos in Spanish.
  • [email protected]
    Comprehensive Gothic Site for Gothic 1 and 2 including news, commentaries, designer diaries, screenshots and forums

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 3785

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Alexander Schaefer.

Additional contributors: Kaliban, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, JudgeDeadd, Nico Bendlin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Evolyzer.

Last modified February 22nd, 2023.