Gothic 1

great classic, i always replay it once ever few years

long time fan gothic saga love 1 and 2 notr

bro went from coughing baby to atomic bomb

Молодая гвардия, прошёл эту часть впервые только сейчас, эмоции незабываемые. Очень атмосферная, вайбовая игра, прикольная прокачка и задания, а диалоги и задания с нашим переводом просто бомба. Время прохождения моего сейва составило почти 16 часов. На первый раз отыграл Мечником и Магом, вступив на первый раз в Старый лагерь. Советую, в любом случае буду перепроходить игру.

I’m not going to sing this game praises. Because you’ll be hearing a lot about Gothic in the near future. If for whatever reason you are not prepared for infinite yellow pen pusher cohorts whose first substantial RPG at best was Oblivion yelling at you from every roof how innovative and unique Gothic was upon release (“but let’s face it: the combat system was abysmally clunky and in a desperate need for an upgrade” or something), better run naked into the desert, because the moneybags at THQ Nordic are financing a remake.

Now, when it comes to remakes, there are three types of old games.

Those that don’t need a remake.
These get a ton of remakes and remasters.

Those that don’t need a remake because they were good, but modern audiences won’t touch them on account of: unfamiliar control scheme/mandatory manual/unusual interface/old graphics.
These only get a remaster once in a blue moon.

And those that had an interesting groundwork going for them, but failed to reach their full potential usually due to development time restrictions, and are thus heavily in need of a new refinement to be the full game they were meant to be.
These are avoided by the remake culture like the plague and can only hope for a chance dedicated modder to lay down their life for them.

Guess where out of the three categories Gothic falls?

This simulationist Escape from New York-inspired ARPG plays issueless today. A patch for bugs+compatibility and another one for graphics if you’re feeling hedonistic.

Sure, there are things that could be more pronounced. The final stretch of the original is barebones and could use some better content than glorified fetch-questing.

The faux-lovecraftian elements are possibly going to become substantially more vivid due to Nicolas Lietzau of Enderal fame taking the lead writer’s seat. Where a man strongly sentimentalist in writing style (talented as he may be) is going to take the stern laconic broad-stroke original plot, I do not know.

Even the visuals are not a direct upgrade because the original took a great advantage of the blockiness pertaining to Y2K graphics.

I’m not skeptical of the remake. I’ll probably even play it.
The issue is, Gothic has already been remade. Seven times.

Gothic 2
Gothic 3
Risen
Risen 2
Risen 3
Elex
Elex 2

Oh, what’s that you’re saying? Gothic 2 was superior? I agree. It was better at everything.
Except for the atmosphere.
And the style.
And the thematic consistency.
And the originality.
A stronger bigger vision of a confident growing studio iterating on a good concept, broadening the appeal.
Surely, this path shall take them to greatness.

First one looked forward.
Subsequent ones looked back.

It's a cult classic here, where I live, mostly to the dub, but I enjoyed the game. The story is great and you can play with whatever playstyle you want, although you have to get used to the uncomfortable and often faulty controls. I had to reload a save numerous times during fights with Human NPCs due to Bezi/Nameless often failing to swing the sword. Otherwise, I highly recommend grabbing the game, although on sale, due to publisher's recent, ludicrous price hike.

No comments

PB revolutionized the meaning of "immersive adventure RPG" with this game. From Gothic to Elex 1 the world building and overall immersion factor towers over any other game in the genre. Sure theres alot of Euro-jank, but no game series have nailed exploration the way PB have time and time again. From Gothic to Elex after 100s of hours im still finding new nooks and crannies filled with beautiful sights and treasures.
The attention to detail was way ahead of its time. The way the characters were actually written to *GASP* be living and breathing people????? Should be the standard.
Alot of people complain about the combat, well they are hyper casual and obviously have a learning impairment. Sure, its clunky and takes a bit of practice, but its really not that bad. Its quite rewarding once you get the hang of it and put in some skill points correctly.
When the Gothic Remake drops i will not be moving from this spot until I pass out.

GREEDY THQ DECIDED TO RAISE THE PRICE OF THIS MASTERPIECE BY 100% IN JANUARY OF 2025, ♥♥♥♥ YOU THQ YOU GREEDY SKUNKS I'M NOT GOING TO BUY YOUR GOTHIC 1 REMAKE ANYMORE
PURCHASE NOT RECOMMENDED JUST PIRATE IT INSTEAD OF GIVING THESE GREEDY FUCKS MONEY

A classic indeed. The temple part reminds me of the old Tomb Raider games, meaning the same wonderful art style.

I was Impressed by the magic and how I can change spells or from melee to magic and vice versa mid combat.

Lastly my favourite locations being the Old Camp and Mountain Fort, fascinating architecture

The unwarranted price increase makes me puke and reevaluate whether or not I'll buy the remake. Richtige Sauerei.

I recommend this game!

Gameplay:

The first thing you'll notice when you start the game is the terrible combat system. Up until now, I've been doing average with a sword, and I've just finished the game. The plot is great, though, and some of the creators' tricks are masterpieces. Interestingly, you can save the game during combat, even though the music changes when you start the fight, so the game detects it.

Liquidity:

Let's start with the fact that I had to reinstall the game every time I played it, because otherwise it wouldn't work properly. Additionally, some cutscenes freeze when, for example, a character can't go through a door, which forced me to manually close the game and start it again (of course, in my case I also had to reinstall it). It happened that the main character would suddenly fly out of the air while jumping like from a catapult, which killed him on the spot (it shouldn't be like that). The final missions are very bugged, but the one I laughed at the most was Search for the ULU-MULU. Every single activity in this mission is broken and completing it is quite a challenge.

Graphics:

Edgy, but original because of that.

Sound effects:

The sound effects are great. I love that when an opponent stops chasing you, they make a distinctive sound, and you can avoid a lot of fights by just listening carefully. I played the Polish version, so I can only say that the actor of the Nameless hero is something wonderful and gives a very interesting, downright bizarre tone to the game.

Opinion:

At the very beginning I had no idea what to do with myself. The first 20h spent in this game were spent running between camps (trying not to get killed) before I decided which camp to join. But it was worth it, because later on the plot is very engaging. My only regret is that at the very end of the game there is no summary conversation with Xardas, but maybe there is in the second part. I don't know yet, but I'm so addicted to it that after writing this review I'm immediately going to play the second part.
PS. I love standing one centimeter in front of Lester's face and asking "Pokaż mi jak dojść" - but only Polish players will understand this joke

Fantastic game now published by total ******s.
Game with it's climate 10/10.
Publisher with his greed: -10/10
Sentiment adds a point so sadly it's 1/10 for now.

Buy only on insane sale then it's 9/10 easy.

Use to play this in 2002, since I was a kid I'd always just start a new game every day and use cheats & mess around. Today I finished the game properly.
I DIDNT DO IT FOR ME, I DID IT FOR HIM 👨‍👦
10/10 game tho

Played Gothic 1 for the first time in 2025. It is an old game and initially difficult to get into (difficult controls etc) but strongly recommend that you hang in there as the game is really a great game and you very quickly get used to the difficult controls etc

I tried.. I really did try to like this game...

I have older friends that love this game and played it in their childhood (they have nostalgia glasses) and I get its appeal. I understand it was really innovating back in the day.
It has an interesting world and a progression system that feels satisfying IF YOU KNOW IN WHAT TO INVEST YOUR MONEY AND EXPERIENCE BEFOREHAND AND KNOW ALREADY HOW TO COMPLETE QUESTS.

I personally hate playing games that require guides and I refused to use one, so I ended up following a bad build and wasted hours of gathered experience.
Play this game only if you're willing to constantly look up a guide. For me, that ruins the whole point of a story in an RPG.
And don't expect to just play the game for the combat system because there almost isn't one.
Not only does the little combat mechanics feel janky, but SIMPLY WALKING AROUND the map feels floaty and buggy. You often get stuck in geometry and you walk SO DAMN SLOOOOWW. And there's a lot of walking... I spent most of my time walking through the 3 camps, constantly searching for NPCs that will advance my quests.

I can somewhat overlook the janky UI and the old graphics don't bother me.
But only thing it has going for are the progression system and the story. But for a new player, the only way to progress and progress properly is to constantly look up what the hell you're supposed to do next.

Just play Morrowind if you wanna see an old RPG that holds up well.

I like this game because of its athmosphere, the leveling, the skills, the hero, the story. I dislike the bugs. After all these years it is still enjoyable and I have played it many times.

You get used to the bad graphics and controls after a while. The story is worth it!

I love series, I love old Gothic, thx for this to Piranha Bytes.

Now, best part, after increasing price almost 2x, go F yourself THQ with your community manager who responded on the price increase 'you had 20 years to buy it'.

Holy moly doubling price of 20 year old game. Very sad example of corporate greed. There is no "update" or anything that justify it.

Awesome game. It reminds me my childhood when I was small and I was playing it.

Welp, Gothic was a long time coming for an avid RPG player like myself, and I finally tried it more than 20 years from it's original release.

First of all, concerning the graphics, I don't think they should affect your enjoyment of the game. They sure didn't affect mine, because, if we're being realistic, you dont need 8k Ultra HD 8 billion polygons models to have a good looking game. While yes, lack of proper facial animation and dated lighting engine show the games age, the models are fine, textures are full of detail, and the overall design of practically every element of the world compensates for lack of polygons. The only downside is that forests have a very weird range rendering thingy.

The game has a really strong sense of progression, at the start you have no armor, good weapons, or even understanding of how the combat works. The combat is kind of a mix of good and dynamic plus jank and old, but in the end, it is rewarding for you to study how each enemy works, their attack and aggro patterns, even if it takes a bit of save-reload. It also intertwines with exploration.

Exploration is one of the best things here, even if you can explore the entire map in chapter 1. It's not a big world at all, but sure is handcrafted, and you can actually get quite a lot of good weapons through it, and even decent armor if you explore far enough, evading enemies that are too strong. And I also would like to mention the lack of markers, quest labels, and all the stuff that makes the navigation a breeze, even to get access to the map you need to buy it from a cartographer, and even then it shows nothing but your location in a drawing of a colony. You will return to some locations you've already cleared in the next chapters of the story, which is a bit annoying.

Speaking of the story, it's kind of a mixed bag. A lot of it involves just running back and forth through places you've been in (at least for me) as previously mentioned, but the main narrative is overall captivating, with a lot of twists and turns. Dialogue though is a thing that in my opinion didn't age so well, it's mostly functional with just a little bit of characterisation, which it at least gets right for the leaders of Old and New camps, and your "friend group" for all friends, but even they feel kind of lacking. Also there aren't many side quests (which makes sense with the scale of the map overall) outside of chapter 1's recruitment challenges, but you don't need them to enjoy the game. The final boss and the ending felt rushed though, with the ending showing practically nothing of what happened when the boss died, but that was followed up with Gothic 2 just a year later.

The soundtrack on this is a bit weird, it's quite memorable but at the same time not, it does a great job of setting the atmosphere of the camps and overall tone of the world, using a great sounding selection of instruments, but is less distinct when you compare it to Oblivion, Witcher, Witcher 2, and those are only the examples of games I personally played. But Valley Of Mines will forever be ingrained in my memory, and dont forget the surprise that awaits you in chapter 2 near the old camp castle gate :)

Overall, after playing this game, I get where the love is coming from, I had a great time, and I am definetely looking forward to playing Gothic 2, as it seems like it's even more beloved.

8/10

a true cult classic Rpg and for great reason , had a blast playing this gem in 2025 and beating it for the first time . I strongly recommend it due to its second to none immersion and unique open world filled with dark fantasy elements . Also necromancer outfit is my personal favorite so you better play a mage .

Hey JoWood what the heck, are you again doing this?

How much for 24y/o wooden game? xD

Corporate Greed, dont buy this guys, there's no point to having this game!
Game itself isn't even so great right now.

They inflated price artificaly.
Corporate greed is killing our society.

Big L from THQ Nordic trying to put the price higher now that the remake is in making , they think people are idiots and will buy it now for over double price. REALLY GREEDY MOVE THQ

YOU CAN BUY THIS GAME MUCH CHEAPER!!!
THQ ARE THIEFS!

Publishers decided to put price 100-140% higher.

40 PLN to 92 PLN
10 euro to 20 euro

It's really not worth because you can buy trylogy (yes, 3 games) for less than 2 euros.

It pains me to my very core to leave review like this, becouse Gothic series is one of the best RPGs on PC I ever played, but rising the price of ths game and other in the series so much for no reason except maybe to get more revenue when the Remake hits the market is just a very low, dirty blow.

If there would be a massive update to the game coming with the price change I kinda could understand that. But nothing really changed and the best patches and expansions were already made for free by the modders anyway.

The response of the sibling parented """""""community manager""""""""" for charging 20 fucking euros for a TWENTY FOUR year old fucking game is "yOu HaD 20 yEaRs To BuY tHe GaMe". Yeah guess what, wanna know something funny? You r3t4rded jews had 24 years to fucking charge 20 euros for your piece of fucking garbage, until the remake came out XD. Imagine not realizing that your own dumbass fucking logic can be used against yourself, and be used to make you look like a single-digit number IQ brainless hypocrite. DO NOT buy this sack of sh!t for TWENTY euros, and DO NOT buy the ""remake"", especially directly from them, and for that price. Vote with your wallet on this one and set a firm line in the sand that these diseased mutts will not get away with fucking over LITERALLY the hands that feed them, and put a roof over their undeserved, maldeveloped heads.

130% price increase is crazy. don't buy, unless on great discount.

Price increased
40 PLN to 92 PLN
10 euro to 20 euro
ITS NOT POLISHED, price in euro is lower than PLN
good job THQ

As I stated in G2 review, absolute dick move from THQ to increase the cost twice because of upcoming Remake (Hell, charging that much for Switch versions was already absurdly weird) Game's fine, don't get me wrong but this is really an unacceptable, SONY-like move that should be hated, this is a 20+ years old game for fuck sake, it SURELY shouldn't cost 20 euro. Truly disappointed in THQ for that dickass move

A Challenging and Atmospheric RPG That Defined a Genre

Gothic is a cult classic that delivers an unparalleled sense of immersion and challenge. Set in a harsh and gritty world where you're thrown into a prison colony ruled by factions and danger at every turn, the game thrives on atmosphere and player agency.

The combat system is unique and takes time to master, rewarding patience and skill. The world feels alive, with NPCs following daily routines and reacting to your actions. The story is engaging, and the freedom to choose your alliances and approach makes every playthrough different.

Sure, the controls and graphics show their age, but the attention to detail and captivating world-building make up for it. If you're willing to embrace its quirks, Gothic is a must-play for any RPG fan.

I tried to enter the drug trade to get into the local despot's castle and ended up joined a new age weed cult. 10/10

Very fun immersive little simulated world... for the first 15 hours. By that point I was too strong and rich to need to engage with any of it, and only had main quests to do, which were largely "go from point A to B, kill things, return". And lets not talk about that final boss, lol. I actually wish they kept me poorer and weaker for longer so I had to do more to scrape by. Still, I enjoyed my time, except for those final chapters.

rough classic in the RPG genre. Score: 8/10

The game Gothic is a masterpiece of gaming! You need time to play it and to fully live the experience and the virtual world! Indeed, Gothic is considered by many to be a masterpiece of video games! Its vast world, captivating story, and immersive gameplay have made this game highly appreciated by fans. It is an excellent example of how a game can offer an unforgettable experience and transport players to another universe.

Ich habe das Spiel mit ein paar Mods gespielt (D3D11, reloaded Texturen, Autosave, 4GB Patch, Mana Regeneration, Ninja). Alles über Spine konfiguriert.

Man bemerkt erst nach guten zwanzig Jahren, dass die Welt zwar recht klein ist und wenig Nebenquests hat, aber gestört hat es mich auch nicht.

Es waren angenehme Stunden; lediglich der Schläfertempel ist weiterhin recht nervig.

Da ich über Spine das Spiel gestartet habe, sieht man hier auch nichts von meiner Spielzeit. (Ca. 18 Stunden)

An all time great game.
Sadly Piranha bytes is no more. I played and enjoyed all of their games.

They should put this as mandatory position to play, the same way as they make mandatory books on literature classes.

Finished it, pretty ok for me had almost 50 hours in it with a 2nd retry to refresh.

The game shows promise in the beginning and the longer the story goes it got more interesting but the gameplay really drags, a lot of the quest having you go from point A to B and the traversal is SLOW til you get some teleportation runes mid game.
The combat and the controls really is outdated and pretty bad, relies on you just tanking things thru. It does have a sidestep move but you better off just not use it cuz it has no i-frames at all. Holstering/switching between weapons and magics sucks cuz it takes ages to change in combat, really discourage you to change playstyle mid combat.
The graphics are beautiful and charming, for it's time it was an amazing open world albeit a bit empty and not much to do and exploration cuz the loot you get mostly not worth your time especially mid to late game unless it's a main quest thing.
The characters are great and there's 3 different factions you can join early game. I picked the Brotherhood and it's cool but I heard it was the least developed camp compare to the others, not gonna play it again cuz of the slog traversal.
The game is better played with mods and theres way to do that online.

Pros:
- Amazing early graphics
- Great characters
- Voice acting
- Epic story telling

Cons
- Outdated controls and gameplay
- Slow movement
- Buggy
- Empty world

In summary it's an amazing epic stuck in a "bad game", I'd give it a 6.5/10 with mods.

interesting RPG of its times - instead of having markers show you everything to do, you figure everything yourself and by followign journal. at beginning, barely anything is explained because FUCK YOU! that's why. FIGURE EVERYTHING OUT YOURSELF! GAME DEV OF EARLY 2000S HELL YEAH!
at the beginning of a game (chapter 1) for beginners it may feel like lognest part - you are about to learn that the open world is actually small and there is grand total of like 3 or 4 camps that you must join as your first objective. by following one camps quests you may abandon your chance to get your way in others. kind of like how i messed up new camp because apparently doing mine quest for diego makes it impossible to get into new camp. why? because FUCK YOU you missed chance to get a single important quest for new camp of stealing sensitive information of mine and getting it into new camp first. AND NOTHING IN THE GAME TELLS YOU THIS!!!! YOU JUST HAVE TO FIGURE IT OUT OR GIVE UP MANUALLY
as a beginner you probably wouldn't figure out that in this game, you wouldn't really figure shit out because it's so confusing until you've been walking like a stupid zombie for 10 hours (without guide ofc)
as a beginner i didn't know that you TRADE instead of buy-sell, and when you do buy something, you do it for ore that you mainly get by TRADING!!!!!. and killing enemies seems to be IMPORTANT at the beginning of a game and LEVELING STRENGTH seems to be important at beginning too but nothing ever points it out, you figure it out and then start new playthrough. in my first playthrouguh i couldnt deal any damage to minecrawlers because my damage was too weak to deal their defense threshold, and i died fast because i didn't level up, and not a single guard followed me to help and if i ran towards them, it woulddn't work, i forgot why but it woulddn't
one other thing i hate about this game is that you dont unlock teleports until like chapter 4 and those are just spells to two places, so most of early gameplay is just stupid ass buggy running with random clipping into stratosphere because why the fuck not. and to top it off early quests really require you to walk a lot through one corner of map to opposite corner. also when you do get teleprots you still run around because you have very few poins to telport to

either way, once i got how it works, started new game, started killing all normal enemies, leveled strength... and still had to get good weapon and i got it from none other than rice king and with his weapon i killed.... pardon me, KNOCKED OUT his most powerful guard and got HIS weapon!!! i kept trying to get as much level as possible while leveling as much strength as possible and the game felt just like it was intended for me to level strength...although at late game there is a really shitty quest where you go to the free mine with a help of NPC, but that stupid NPC keeps getting stuck or disappearing, becomign useless. and that'd be fine, but that fucker randomly killed innocent miners and complained to me like i hit him, even though this stupid idiot deliberately felt from the high point

another thing i absolutely hate about this game. oh wait, its the thing i keep hating all time. THE BUGS!!!! i cant with the bug where i engage into interaction with NPC but npc does no response so i am locked into watchng the npc just stand or walk. ESC doesnt work, alt + f4 doesn't work, moving mouse doesnt work, because fuck me, why not...
and i think this game did haave some playtesters and im glad because otherwise that quest where i have to loot 5 different enemies across the world to get ulu-mulu would have possible softlock where you wouldn't have enemise to kill anymore if you killed everyone before this point. (it just spawns new ones just in case)

since its just a game made in 2001 and i actually enjoyed it at some parts and it doesnt have very groundbreaking bugs, and its quite cheap on sale, i recommend you to try it. it has interesting story (i rarely ever focus on dialogues in RPGs but gothic 1 made me focused on it and engaged into story) and interesting flexibility that would leave you curious - "what if i did this", "what if i did that" - there is 3 camps to join and so far i joiend only one
and you CAN do any intrusive ideas because this game has save-load feature
the gameplay is also very nice in a way you can play it with keyboard only

oh, and combat. combat is ass, i don't understand it but with leveling it's easy. you can cheese some enemeis with parrying and praying for luck, and you can do a funny little useless backstep and actually strafe left and right only when in combat mode (in a non combat mode for some reason you just do a funny little useless step), but it seems useless to me because combat feels so slow and not flexible... you can also just forget about getting good, get powerful weapon, level up as high as you can with easy enemies, get alot of strength, and just one shot everything in your way. one of guides even recommended me to kill every guard in old camp to make my future easier. i didn't listen to the guide. my future was still easy, i just didnt know how to get inside the camp since it was closed now, and i had NPCs not so far from guards, they are invincible and thank god - it would really suck to lose important characters to somethig stu... oh, this game doesn't even have game over screen, doesnt it....

i rage quitted the game just recently because well, its not like i sucked and died or anything, no, the game decided to glitch out the NPC interaction so theo nly way out was to kill the gothic 1 process
i sure hope the remaster will be good, unfortunately though, my PC won't be able to run it, or will it? i will learn soon when i try playable teaser

edit: german voice in this game is amazing

also the game unexpectly quickly turns you from a nobody to basically a hero, and i don't like trope of chosen hero main character in fictions

This is a goofy game but its really fun! there's a good progression system and great world and a charm that's hard to find. I beat it and don't regret a moment of it (all tho it ends very abruptly!!) if you wanna a good single player game to get invested it gothic 1 is a great choice!

Класіка, гуляць у якую было прыемна нават у 2024. Спачатку крыху спатыкаўся аб маральна састарэлую баёўку, але хутка прызвычаіўся і пачаў атрымліваць асалоду.

Запускаючы трэба падрыхтавацца да таго, што ніхто не будзе вадзіць за руку: ніякіх маркераў і метак, адзіны памочнік - скупы журнал, запісы ў якім з'яўляюцца пасля таго, як даведаешся пра нешта з дыялогу ці дзякуючы ўласным вачам. Не інструкцыі, што іменна рабіць, а менавіта заметкі, проста каб не забыць пра што квэст. Зараз так мала хто робіць, таму зноў жа трэба прывыкнуць. Але калонія невялікая, цікавая і хутка захапляе, што падсілкоўвае жаданне даследаваць мясцовы гульнявы свет і дапамагае пераадолець парог уваходу. Карацей, палец уверх. Вельмі чакаю рымейка, каб параўнаць.

In order to rid of jankiness, crashes and to increase graphical fidelity, use OpenGothic which offers Vulkan renderer on Linux, Metal renderer on macOS and Vulkan&DX12 renderer on Windows.

https://github.com/Try/OpenGothic?tab=readme-ov-file#opengothic

a Classic
I love this game so much. The story is so beautiful and the gameplay is fun. When you play gothic for the first time, its hard to not play it again. You will really enjoy your time playing it, since the old RPG Games give such beautiful experience.

Also :
https://youtu.be/aIG4fxuoE2Q

This video contain all the main files that you need to download. You can ignore the mods and other things if you want to play with the original graphics, which I highly rocommand.

Have fun playing :3

One of the greatest RPGs ever made

this game is what defined the RPG genere, and this game will forever have a special place in my heart (just went through my yearly christmas routine and played 1-3)
The graphics may be outdated to be fair but still worth playing and with some enhancements though mods it looks quite good for what it is in my opinion.
not to mention that one coukd say this game layed the brick of the "Souls Games" genere because it is damn hard and there is no help in the story apart from ingame info (what your told and what you read and such)

10/10 would recommend everyone to play it!

back then, the game was absolutely amazing