Gothic (Windows)

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Description

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.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Alternate Titles

• "救世英豪" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
• "哥特帝国" -- Chinese spelling (simplified)
• "Готика" -- Russian spelling
• "Orpheus" -- working title
• "Gotika" -- Russian title

Part of the Following Groups

• Covermount: Level (Romania)
• Fantasy Creatures: Orcs
• Gameplay feature: Alchemy
• Gameplay feature: Character development - Skill distribution
• Gameplay feature: Character development - Training
• Gameplay feature: Day / Night cycle
• Gameplay feature: Goldsmithing
• Gameplay feature: Hunting
• Gameplay feature: Survival cooking
• Games made into comics
• Gothic series
• Software Pyramide releases
• Sound engine: AIL/Miles Sound System

User Reviews

A new RPG style is born	Unicorn Lynx (181446)
A CRPG to praise for all of the eternity	Herzalot . (309)
To take or to be lunch, that is the question	micnictic (391)
A well-executed RPG with a great atmosphere	SharkD (440)
My best RPG experience so far	Cabeza2000 (811)
Sadly unknown, but fantastic for those who found it	Mattias Kreku (439)
A good RPG, worth the twenty dollar purchase.	Aaron Jones (16)
Great story, fun to play, highly addictive!	Maja Bommel (2)

Critic Reviews

Withingames	Jun 04, 2001	5 out of 5	100
PC Action (Germany)	Mar 21, 2001	90 out of 100	90
Gildia Gier Komputerowych	Jun 20, 2005	9 out of 10	90
GameStar (Germany)	Mar, 2001	88 out of 100	88
PC Player (Germany)	Mar, 2001	87 out of 100	87
IGN	Jan 15, 2002	8.6 out of 10	86
PC Gamer UK	Feb, 2002	74 out of 100	74
Gry OnLine	Jun 21, 2002	72 out of 100	72
Absolute Games (AG.ru)	Dec 07, 2001	70 out of 99	71
Legendra	Nov 01, 2010		70

Forums

Topic	# Posts	Last Post
German title?	2	Terok Nor (32102) Jan 09, 2009

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 Web 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)