So, I tried the Arcania: Gothic 4 PC Demo on my aging rig: P4 single-core 3.2 Ghz HT; GF 8800 GT; 2 GB RAM; Win XP Home.

Running on 1024x768 here. I have most stuff turned down to Low; a few things on Medium; and some stuff off; 25% on the drawing distance. My framerates in town are around 15 frames, normally. Throw me into an open area w/ enemies or indoors - mid-20's to like 32 (max).

So far, everything is very-well presented - decent to good on the voice-acting; UI is absolutely excellent (UI = User Interface); graphics in dialogue cut-scene stylized sequences look great; and the story b/t "Shepherd" and Ivy so far is interesting.

The thing is - Gothic's lost some of its identity. I really already miss the PB Gothic time-schedule stuff. You know, people huddling together around fires; sitting together; sometimes you show-up while people are in mid-conversation; etc. It just seems like here in Arcania, characters either like to walk around or stand-still, all the time - eh.

Arcania feels more streamlined w/out the trainers concept: you basically just level-up your skills, as you hit a new level - like most other RPG's already on the market. One thing I liked about PB's Gothic games (Gothic 1, G2 + expansion, G3), was how you leveled-up your skills. What you did was you went around the gameworld; found trainers wherever (on the road, in towns, etc); and the trainers taught you skills. That element was different and very cool, if you ask me - and gave Gothic its very own identity.

Arcania is the best combat's ever felt like in a Gothic game period - whether dealing out spells, in melee combat, or ranged bow-and-arrow combat. Everything feels right and on-the-money. Pretty much, melee is much more refined than ever. Left mouse button attack; right mouse blocks; holding block while moving does a combat roll in a certain direction. All of it works really well and feels right.

Now, ranged combat - you get an aiming-reticule (crosshair) on-screen when you equip a ranged combat move - magic or bow/arrow. When using a bow and arrow, the longer you hold the attack button down while aiming, the screen will charge up to how many extra blocks of damage it can do - once you let go, arrow flies.

So far, I like the Demo. It's a MUCH more polished and refined Gothic experience in many regards, despite unfortunately losing a little bit of the identity that PB made Gothic series famous for.

I've noticed that so many of these non-UK European games focus much more on immersion in the game world than other Western games, but you're right that Arcania seems to step aside from that a bit. It's a shame as I do love that stuff and wonder why American games in particular are so eager to toss that immersion aside.

While it's not a super-big deal, since most RPG's don't do what the PB Gothic games did - this Arcania here is being branded as a Gothic game, even if it's in just the sub-title only. It's like the first thing I noticed, right off the bat in Arcania - where's the NPC schedules? It's probably the first thing I noticed about the PB Gothic games - the NPC's doing things on their own time-schedule.

PB Gothic games were known for their timed-scheduled NPC's; doing things in the gameworld; sitting at campfires together at night; sleeping at night; having conversations; roasting food at campfires; having conversations w/ each other; and other things that made it feel like a living, breathing world.

If there's an Arcania sequel, they'd be smart to drop the sub-title Gothic from the game - since I'll bet it'll become more of its own thing, by the time an expansion or Arcania sequel rides around.

Despite some of the few steps backwards in Arcania, there's a good deal of steps forward - the graphics, UI, and combat have greatly improved.

That's a good point; the only time I noticed anything resembling a schedule was when the NPC's mother goes to bed and sleeps. To be fair the village doesn't have a tavern or other places suitable for more complex NPC scheduling, so maybe things will be more complex in other areas, but it's not looking good.

Now that I think about it I don't remember hearing any NPC chatter/gossip, another thing Piranha Bytes does that I really liked. All the Arcania NPCs work non-stop like ants, eventually going to bed or just sitting down on the ground somewhere.

Some fans (myself included) believe that Jowood is trying to exploit the Gothic brand name to launch Arcania as its own IP so they can have a successful RPG series they have complete control over. Piranha Bytes still has some rights to the Gothic series; most of this remains undisclosed, but one of the examples given was the right of first option to develop an expansion for Gothic 4. Arcania already takes place in a new region with mostly new characters, so it would be very easy for the sequel to drop the remaining Gothic references. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a new series was launched in such a manner.

It wouldn't surprise me if Jowood is using the "Gothic 4" sub-title as a way to rope Gothic series gamers into a spin-off "Arcania" series of games. The thing is - I wonder how many NEW gamers they can pick-up, who have never played any of the previous PB Gothic games and Forsaken Gods.

So, wait - PB actually has the rights to do an Arcania expansion? :O Given that Deep Silver quickly is endorsing Risen 2, why would PB want to do a Arcania expansion? I'd probably want nothing to do w/ Jowood, if I was tPB, after everything that went down over the Gothic IP, thanks to the disaster that was the overambitious-in-scope, underdeveloped, Beta-in-a-box, and horribly performing Gothic 3.

BTW - thanks to all the G3: Community Patches that fixed the damn game - if only someone would fix the damn load times for me!

Did Forsaken Gods ever get a Community Patch? I have FG - but never installed it, due to I'm still here and there at work on G3, when it ain't aggravating me.

I'd wonder if Jowood is in such deep financial trouble, maybe they'll eventually just sell the Gothic name-brand to Deep Silver and/or PB, in due time? It'd make sense - if they plan to take Arcania series eventually AWAY from Gothic's roots...

This contractual right possibly dates back before the messy divorce, at which point Piranha Bytes was Jowood's obvious first choice anyway. They also have some rights over the Gothic 5 base game in a similar manner.

The wording indicates that Jowood has to offer these projects to Piranha Bytes before any other developer but they are not obligated to take them on. I would be very surprised if they would waste their time returning to the tainted Gothic series instead of pushing ahead with Risen.

The Gothic 3 Community Patch Team has made hints about the possibility of a Forsaken Gods patch in the future, but I don't think they have confirmed anything yet.

Haha, that must be awkward for Jowood and hilarious for PB.

Yep, clean slate.

What? PB has rights to do a Gothic 5?
Oh, that's crazy...

If PB does say want to take Gothic IP back - why don't Deep Silver and/or PB just buy the rights back from JoWood?

You know, I would NOT be surprised if say JoWood drops the Gothic sub-title from Arcania and makes sure Arcania is its own game and IP, so they don't have to option Gothic 5 to PB in any shape or form - and they just let Gothic IP sit there and rot.

But, honestly - after Risen's success, does Deep Silver and PB really need Gothic IP back? I doubt that - Risen 2 is already on its own.

Only thing would be...if say PB wanted to somehow marry-up Gothic and Risen brands and characters and stories altogether in one brand...

I imagine the rights to the Gothic name just aren't worth all that much to PB and Deep Silver. Although people who played Gothic 1&2 remember the name fondly, many are also probably familiar with the PB and JoWood story, so the Gothic name isn't likely to bring in a whole bunch of customers from that category. And for people who were only more recently introduced to the Gothic series with G3 and Forsaken Gods the Gothic name might actually be a bit toxic, given the reception of those two games. And on the other side, JoWood probably aren't willing to part with the name without being paid far more than it's worth, as at the moment the Gothic name seems to be about the only thing they have going for their forays into the RPG genre.

They basically already did as much even if they didn't use specific names. There were several mentions of the actions of a dark mage, plus it was pretty much blindingly obvious that a certain "Gregorius" from Risen was the same person as a certain pirate captain from G2. Basically the world of Risen has already been shown to be the same world as Gothic, even if PB have to make a token effort at not using the exact same names for characters and locations.

I liked that as well but for me never really seemed to be end of the world though.

Well Risen didn't really take advantage of that, but hopefully Risen 2 will.

Majora's Mask is a great game for that. :)

Ive been playing Gothic 4 demo non stop and can attest that its amazing.... if the level of fun and combat holds steady to the demo then im so extremly happy...

this may require a release date purchase.... i haven't done that for over 5 years... And now i see it'll drop on the ps3 awesomeness abounds!

Played the demo, found it frankly terrible before I quit in disgust. Maybe something is lost in translation, but the dialogue is so bad it's incredible. Combat leaves a lot to be desired as well, and if the demo's plot is any indication of the quality of the main plot, it's not going to be pretty.


Skipping in favor of Risen 2, unless the demo turns out to be an astoundingly poor representation of the full game.

this is horrendous, not just the fact that certain lines and subtitles arent even the same (being told i'd been asleep for 2 days when the voice said two hours, the quest being for 6 mushrooms when the voice said 5) and the voicework is appalling

i was slightly amused the at the ridiculousness of the "do you?" line when asking Ivy if she wanted to marry him, he practically shouted it at her