Gothic Video Game Series

A brief history of the Gothic series

Work on the first installment of the series began in 1996, even before the official opening of Piranha Bytes studio. The game's production, which lasted nearly five years, ended in 2001, when Gothic was released on PC, arousing considerable enthusiasm among gamers. Its sequel, Gothic II, was released just 1.5 years later, and its official expansion, titled Gothic II: Night of the Raven, was released in August 2003.

Fans had to wait until 2006 for the third part of the series. Gothic 3 turned out to be the last game in the series developed by the Piranha Bytes. The expansion, Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods, was developed by Trine Game, while the development of the fourth part of the series, Arcania: Gothic 4 released in 2011, was entrusted to Spellbound Entertainment. Arcania was also the first installment of the series to be released not only on PC, but also on consoles. In 2012, the same developers have also released a stand alone expansion called Arcania: Fall of Setarrif.

For more news about the Gothic franchise we had to wait until 2019, when THQ Nordic announced that a new development studio, which in time turned out to be Alkimia Interactive, would prepare a remake of the first game. It got a playable prototype thanks to which the fans were able to express their opinions on it, thus helping the developers to take it in the right direction.

In the meantime, The Chronicles of Myrtana Team from Poland has prepared an extremely extensive modification to Gothic II: Night of the Raven - Gothic II: Chronicles of Myrtana - Archolos - which debuted in 2021 and received an overwhelmingly warm reception from players and industry media. Meanwhile, the first two installments of the series were released on the Nintendo Switch console in 2023.

The plot of the Gothic series

The plot of the games from the Gothic series takes place in the fantastic kingdom of Myrtana, torn by conflict between humans and orcs. In the first three parts of the series, the player takes on the role of the so-called Nameless One, a hero who, despite the fact that he began his adventure as one of the convicts in the penal colony called Mining Valley, makes a lasting mark on the fate of the entire land.

The fourth part told the story of another nameless hero, while the protagonist of Chronicles of Myrtana was Marvin, who ended up on the island of Archolos and became part of its intrigues.

Gameplay in the Gothic series

In the Gothic games the action is presented from a third-person perspective (TPP). During gameplay, we traverse open worlds, complete quests related to the story as well as side missions, and fight enemies, making use of a wide range of melee and ranged weapons and magic. As we progress, we develop our character, allowing us to face increasingly more difficult challenges.

One of the characteristics of most of the games from this series is the need to find teachers to develop particular skills or workshops and other objects (such as hearths) to use the crafting system. In addition, most games from the Gothic series are characterized by a fairly high level of difficulty.

Graphics in the Gothic series

The first two Gothic games run on ZenGin technology, which was replaced by the Genome engine in the third game. The fourth game uses the Trinigy engine. Gothic Remake uses Unreal Engine 5.