The cult Ruhrpott role-playing game Gothic, developed at the time by Piranha Bytes Studios in Essen, was released on March 15, 2001 and thus celebrated its 20th anniversary the day before yesterday. In keeping with the occasion, the Spanish developers Alkimia Interactive and publisher THQ Nordic die Steam product page set up for remake.
The Barcelona-based studio unexpectedly released a prototype demo of the Gothic Remake in December 2019 to explore interest in such a project and the brand. At the end of playable teasers At that time there was a survey that asked about the interest and criticism of the reinterpretation and which should be decisive for the production. At the time, many voices criticized the richness and saturation of colors in the game world, which did not really match the dark and dirty mood of the original. Alkimia Interactive has apparently accepted the criticism: The screenshots that have now been published seem much darker than in the demo back then. The color saturation was also noticeably reduced.
"Faithful and complete remake of Gothic 1"
Even more: While the Gothic 1 remake was originally supposed to be more of a reinterpretation of the well-known material, which wanted to creatively extend the lore or develop it, the whole thing should now stick much more closely to the original and depict a "true to the original and complete remake of Gothic 1" . Business and Product Development Director at THQ Nordic, Reinhard Pollice, emphasized that the dialogues remained completely untouched. Even the original speakers are to be retained in this context.
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On the other hand, the very dusty combat system is to be modernized. Even here, however, the developers want to take up the principles of the original system and force them into a modernized form. The Gothic 1 Remake is being developed for PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X | S.
The Gothic 1 remake is described as follows:
"The kingdom of Myrtana has been invaded by an insatiable horde of orcs. King Rhobar II requires large quantities of magical ore to forge powerful weapons, so he mines all available prisoners in Khorinis. To prevent these prisoners from escaping, the monarch has his best mages summon a magical barrier. But something goes wrong. Magic spirals out of control and a mutiny turns the valley of mines into a lawless territory ruled by the most brutal of prisoners. The king must now negotiate with the new owners, while tensions between the different factions in the valley of mines itself boils. But what nobody expects is that the arrival of a nameless prisoner will change everything.”
