Gothic (computer game)
Encyclopedia
Gothic is a single-player action role-playing
video game for Windows
developed by the German
company Piranha Bytes
. It was first released in Germany on March 15, 2001, followed by the English North American release eight months later on November 23, 2001, and the Polish release on March 28, 2002.
Gothic has been well received by critics, scoring an average of 80% and 81/100 on Game Rankings' and Metacritic's aggregates, respectively. Reviewers credited the game for its story, complex interaction with other in-game characters, and graphics, but criticized it for the difficult control scheme and high system requirements.
The game places a special focus on the interactivity of the environment. For example, while anyone hunting wild animals can gather raw meat (an item that heals damage and can be sold) from them, this can be turned into grilled meat (a much more effective curative) by making use of a stove or frying pan. Similarly, most of the activities other characters can be seen doing (playing musical instruments, stirring soup pots, urinating etc.) can be done by the main character as well (although with the exception of forging weapons these activities have little bearing on the game).
The player can choose which camp to join but the quests get increasingly linear and the distinctions between the different factions wane in the latter parts of the game. The major difference is that Swamp Camp members cannot become mages, because they are limited to 4 magic circles (out of 6). However, they gain access to magic earlier.
s, a humanoid race. In order to fight back, the king needs to extract magical ore from mines, which can be used to forge more powerful weapons. Therefore he decides to send every man who has committed a crime to the ore mines.
To prevent the convicts from escaping he orders his 12 most powerful magicians to erect a magical dome over the mining colony. However, the Barrier goes out of control and grows large enough to cover the entire valley, trapping the magicians inside, and giving the convicts a chance to kill the distracted guards and take control over the colony. The king is thus forced to come to an agreement with the prisoners, trading goods for ore.
Soon after, the convicts separate into three different groups: the Old Camp which controls trading with the king, the New Camp which refuses to trade the ore they mine, and instead plan to use its magical power to explode the Barrier, and the Brotherhood, whose members believe in a god called the Sleeper which will help them escape from the colony. The magicians that created the Barrier also divided; they formed the Fire Mages, who joined the Old Camp, and the Water Mages, who joined the New Camp.
After joining one of the three camps, the protagonist ends up aiding the Sect Camp prepare the invocation of their god, the Sleeper, which they believe will show them the way to escape the colony. During the ritual the members have a vague vision and Y'Berion, the leader of the Brotherhood who performed the ritual, collapses after getting in contact with the Sleeper. In the vision, the sect members are shown the way to an old Orc cemetery. A guru and a few templars, together with the hero, set off towards the indicated place. Once there, however, the templars die fighting the Orcs they meet, and only the guru and the protagonist survive. After searching the entire underground complex the two fail to find anything. The guru then goes insane and starts accusing the hero that it is because of him that the Sleeper refuses to reveal himself, and attempts kill the protagonist.
After defeating the mad guru, the hero returns to the camp of the Brotherhood where he finds Y'Berion still weakened after the ritual. Despite efforts to help him recover, Y'Berion soon dies. Before dying, however, he warns the rest of the camp about the true, evil, nature of the god they thought was leading them on the path to freedom, and places his hopes on the escape plan of the Water Mages from the New Camp to blow up the Barrier using the power of the magical ore.
Bearing important information about the recent events in the Sect Camp, the player is given permission to see the Water Mages, who ask for help with their escape plan. After the hero acquires all the needed artifacts with the help of four convicts he has befriended, the Water Mages now need the help of the Fire Mages to channel the magical energy. However, the protagonist finds out the Old Camp's gates have been closed after their ore mine collapsed. Fearful that this incident might deprive him of his power, the leader of the Old Camp sent his men to take control of the New Camp's mine and killed the Fire Mages who were protesting against his action; only Milten, the youngest of the magicians, managed to escape.
Having no other option left, the Water Mages send the hero to ask for Xardas, the magician who deserted the Fire Mages, to help them. However, Xardas refuses to help the Magicians of Water and thinks that their plan will not succeed. He instead tells the protagonist that during his studies he learned that the Sleeper was summoned by the Orcs in order to help them against their enemies and that the demon is in a temple deep underneath the Orc city. With the help of Xardas, the player manages to enter the Sleeper's temple. Upon defeating the demon, the Barrier collapses and sets the prisoners of the colony free.
. These are the only games to use this engine.
The Engine's Codename is ZenGin, because of the *.zen file technology.
In February 2006 an international re-release was announced to prepare for Gothic 3
– which received much more attention from international media than the previous games.
In the course of the re-release an English demo version was made available at the official website. The Demo contains a part of the first chapter of the game.
In Germany and some other countries, Gothic is also available in a Collector's Edition, bundled with Gothic II and Gothic II – The Night of The Raven, and Gothic - Fan Edition, including the official map of the Colony as well as a variety of extras.
. IGN
concluded that "Gothic is a solid role-playing experience" and Eurogamer
said that it is a game that "developers should look to as an example of how a role-playing adventure should be done". GameSpot
gave the game a slightly more negative review saying that despite Gothics achievements in terms of story and dialog, players might still be disappointed by its shallow character development and poor combat mechanics.
Action role-playing game
Action role-playing games form a loosely defined sub-genre of role-playing video games that incorporate elements of action or action-adventure games, emphasizing real-time action where the player has direct control over characters, instead of turn-based or menu-based combat...
video game for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
developed by the German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
company Piranha Bytes
Piranha Bytes
Piranha Bytes is a German computer game developer known for their Gothic computer role-playing game series.-History:On 12 October 1997, as part of the development of the computer game Gothic, the Piranha Bytes Software GmbH founded the company in Greenwood out by Alex Brueggemann, Mike Hoge, Stefan...
. It was first released in Germany on March 15, 2001, followed by the English North American release eight months later on November 23, 2001, and the Polish release on March 28, 2002.
Gothic has been well received by critics, scoring an average of 80% and 81/100 on Game Rankings' and Metacritic's aggregates, respectively. Reviewers credited the game for its story, complex interaction with other in-game characters, and graphics, but criticized it for the difficult control scheme and high system requirements.
Gameplay
The main character must complete quests and slay wild animals and monsters to earn skill points, which are used to increase basic attributes, improve skills, and learn trades. They are spent by finding the appropriate teacher. Several skills have only one "level" (Sneaking, Acrobatics), while the fighting skills (one-handed weapons, two-handed weapons, bows and crossbows) have two proficiency levels. If the Hero chooses to be a Mage (or joins the Swamp Camp), he will be able to learn Circles of Magic; there are 6 of them. The main attributes are increased in 1 or 5 point increments, up to 100 (they start at 10). However, the limit can be surpassed with the use of potions.The game places a special focus on the interactivity of the environment. For example, while anyone hunting wild animals can gather raw meat (an item that heals damage and can be sold) from them, this can be turned into grilled meat (a much more effective curative) by making use of a stove or frying pan. Similarly, most of the activities other characters can be seen doing (playing musical instruments, stirring soup pots, urinating etc.) can be done by the main character as well (although with the exception of forging weapons these activities have little bearing on the game).
The player can choose which camp to join but the quests get increasingly linear and the distinctions between the different factions wane in the latter parts of the game. The major difference is that Swamp Camp members cannot become mages, because they are limited to 4 magic circles (out of 6). However, they gain access to magic earlier.
Setting
The game takes place in a medieval fantasy realm in which humans are fighting a losing war against the OrcOrc
An orc is one of a race of mythical human-like creatures, generally described as fierce and combative, with grotesque features and often black, grey or greenish skin. This mythology has its origins in the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien....
s, a humanoid race. In order to fight back, the king needs to extract magical ore from mines, which can be used to forge more powerful weapons. Therefore he decides to send every man who has committed a crime to the ore mines.
To prevent the convicts from escaping he orders his 12 most powerful magicians to erect a magical dome over the mining colony. However, the Barrier goes out of control and grows large enough to cover the entire valley, trapping the magicians inside, and giving the convicts a chance to kill the distracted guards and take control over the colony. The king is thus forced to come to an agreement with the prisoners, trading goods for ore.
Soon after, the convicts separate into three different groups: the Old Camp which controls trading with the king, the New Camp which refuses to trade the ore they mine, and instead plan to use its magical power to explode the Barrier, and the Brotherhood, whose members believe in a god called the Sleeper which will help them escape from the colony. The magicians that created the Barrier also divided; they formed the Fire Mages, who joined the Old Camp, and the Water Mages, who joined the New Camp.
Plot
The player takes control of an unnamed prisoner who has just been thrown inside the mining colony. Before being sent in, the player receives a letter which he is tasked to deliver to the Fire Mages of the Old Camp. After getting the chance to talk with the magicians, the protagonist learns that Xardas, the head of the Fire Mages who is supposed to receive the letter, deserted in order to study black magic.After joining one of the three camps, the protagonist ends up aiding the Sect Camp prepare the invocation of their god, the Sleeper, which they believe will show them the way to escape the colony. During the ritual the members have a vague vision and Y'Berion, the leader of the Brotherhood who performed the ritual, collapses after getting in contact with the Sleeper. In the vision, the sect members are shown the way to an old Orc cemetery. A guru and a few templars, together with the hero, set off towards the indicated place. Once there, however, the templars die fighting the Orcs they meet, and only the guru and the protagonist survive. After searching the entire underground complex the two fail to find anything. The guru then goes insane and starts accusing the hero that it is because of him that the Sleeper refuses to reveal himself, and attempts kill the protagonist.
After defeating the mad guru, the hero returns to the camp of the Brotherhood where he finds Y'Berion still weakened after the ritual. Despite efforts to help him recover, Y'Berion soon dies. Before dying, however, he warns the rest of the camp about the true, evil, nature of the god they thought was leading them on the path to freedom, and places his hopes on the escape plan of the Water Mages from the New Camp to blow up the Barrier using the power of the magical ore.
Bearing important information about the recent events in the Sect Camp, the player is given permission to see the Water Mages, who ask for help with their escape plan. After the hero acquires all the needed artifacts with the help of four convicts he has befriended, the Water Mages now need the help of the Fire Mages to channel the magical energy. However, the protagonist finds out the Old Camp's gates have been closed after their ore mine collapsed. Fearful that this incident might deprive him of his power, the leader of the Old Camp sent his men to take control of the New Camp's mine and killed the Fire Mages who were protesting against his action; only Milten, the youngest of the magicians, managed to escape.
Having no other option left, the Water Mages send the hero to ask for Xardas, the magician who deserted the Fire Mages, to help them. However, Xardas refuses to help the Magicians of Water and thinks that their plan will not succeed. He instead tells the protagonist that during his studies he learned that the Sleeper was summoned by the Orcs in order to help them against their enemies and that the demon is in a temple deep underneath the Orc city. With the help of Xardas, the player manages to enter the Sleeper's temple. Upon defeating the demon, the Barrier collapses and sets the prisoners of the colony free.
Engine
Piranha Bytes worked more than 4 years on the development of Gothics technology. The engine was created completely in-house, with a modified version later used for Gothic IIGothic II
Gothic II is a computer role-playing game and the sequel to Gothic, by the German developer Piranha Bytes. It was first released on November 29, 2002 in Germany, with North America following almost one year later on October 28, 2003...
. These are the only games to use this engine.
The Engine's Codename is ZenGin, because of the *.zen file technology.
Release and distribution
Gothic was first released on March 15, 2001 in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, published by Egmont Interactive. The North American release by Xicat Interactive, Inc. followed more than half a year later on November 23, 2001.In February 2006 an international re-release was announced to prepare for Gothic 3
Gothic 3
Gothic 3 is a fantasy-themed role-playing game for Windows from the German game developer Piranha Bytes. It is the sequel to Gothic II. Although widely available in English, the native release of the game is German. The game was released throughout the European Union on October 13, 2006 and became...
– which received much more attention from international media than the previous games.
In the course of the re-release an English demo version was made available at the official website. The Demo contains a part of the first chapter of the game.
In Germany and some other countries, Gothic is also available in a Collector's Edition, bundled with Gothic II and Gothic II – The Night of The Raven, and Gothic - Fan Edition, including the official map of the Colony as well as a variety of extras.
Reception
The game has received generally positive reviews from game critics, scoring an average of 79.35% on GameRankings and 81/100 on MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
. IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
concluded that "Gothic is a solid role-playing experience" and Eurogamer
Eurogamer
Eurogamer is a Brighton-based website focused on video games news, reviews, previews and interviews. It is operated by Eurogamer Network Ltd., which was formed in 1999 by brothers Rupert and Nick Loman. Eurogamer has grown to become one of the most important European-based websites focused on...
said that it is a game that "developers should look to as an example of how a role-playing adventure should be done". GameSpot
GameSpot
GameSpot is a video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information. The site was launched in May 1, 1996 by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. It was purchased by ZDNet, a brand which was later purchased by CNET Networks. CBS Interactive, which...
gave the game a slightly more negative review saying that despite Gothics achievements in terms of story and dialog, players might still be disappointed by its shallow character development and poor combat mechanics.
External links
- Official website
- Gothic Almanach — Gothic series wikiWikiA wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used collaboratively by multiple users. Examples include...