We are still gluttons for punishment, it seems. A mere week after the launch of Gothic Remake, the RPG has already hit the 500k sales milestone, and Steam user reviews make it clear that we still love some eurojank.
Gothic is currently sitting at a Very Positive rating from 3,369 user reviews. Which is surprising! Not because Gothic isn’t good—I’m quite a bit more fond of it than Jody, who gave it 60% in our Gothic Remake review—but I did expect it to be a little more divisive.
Despite its modern makeover, this is still classic Gothic. Wolves will murder you in two seconds, you’ll be knocked out and mugged for being sarcastic, you don’t get a map unless you purchase one—and it ain’t cheap or very good—and there are a lot of quests that make hardly any sense without a guide.
But that’s also part of the appeal. It’s tough and uncompromising and, yes, pretty janky. While trying to rob people blind, I discovered that loading a save wakes sleeping NPCs up. They were not happy to see me snooping around. Then there are the NPCs who vanish, as well as the terrible DLSS and frame generation implementation.
It looks like most people knew what they were in for, though, and don’t mind the incredibly rough edges. And I’m right there with them. Gothic has annoyed me a lot, but I would much rather have a slightly messy RPG that still takes massive swings than something with absolutely no friction.
In 2001, Gothic really epitomised what made PC gaming special. Console gamers expected more polish, but we wanted the weird shit, even if it meant bugs and crashes galore. I don’t think much has changed. Sure, beloved eurojank games like Gothic and Stalker can now be enjoyed on consoles, but these are still PC games through and through.
Mind you, I wouldn’t say no to some fixes and improvements. So it’s a good thing that developer Alkimia Interactive isn’t done mucking around with it. Patches are coming, it says, and it might even tweak the terrible lockpicking system.
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