A good look at the world, story and gameplay of the Gothic Remake has been shared during this THQ Nordic Summer Showcase, exploring the ways that this is both faithful to and an improvement upon the cult classic 2001 RPG.
Featuring clips of gameplay and other in-game shots, there’s a good four minutes of footage in the trailer, as THQ and developer Alkimia Interactive explore the various facets of the game that they are rebuilding from the ground up.
Set in a medieval fantasy where the Kingdom of Myrtana is fighting a war against Orcs, the king has made a desperate move to send any and all criminals to the Valley of Mines to extract magical ore that can be used to construct powerful weapons. Trying to seal the valley with a magical dome, the spell goes wrong, permanently sealing the valley, giving the convicts a chance to rapidly take control. Now there are three camps and ways of thinking, the Old Camp, New Camp and the Sleeper (who worship a mysterious new swamp deity), and you’ll have to decide which team to side with.
The world is key to the RPG with daily cycles for its inhabitants, while you’re given the freedom to explore and tackle the unfolding story as you see fit, taking on quests to earn respect, but then having freedom to complete them how you see fit. The combat remains slow and methodical, with melee, bow and arrow, and arcana all available to you.
As a remake of such a beloved title, Alkimia is retaining everything that was there in the original, but expanding on the world to tell new stories and grow existing ones. More diverse NPC routines and actions will be built into the setting, and there’s new places to explore, thanks in part to swimming, diving and the new climbing ability improving how you can get around.
Combat controls have been modernised, while still aiming to be tactical and slow paced, while there’s also more complex crafting and character progression systems. The UI is generally kept to a minimum to keep players immersed in the world.
Gothic has been in the works for quite some time. It was greenlit off the back of some canny marketing by THQ Nordic, first commissioning a playable teaser that was made and released in 2019 to show what a Gothic remake might be able to offer, and then gathering what ended up being “unambiguous feedback” from fans. Off the back of this, they founded Alkimia Interactive in Barcelona specifically for the remake, and they’ve been plugging away at it ever since.
There’s obviously some real progress being made, but there’s still no sign of a release date, so I expect we’ll be back here again at THQ Nordic’s summer showcase in 2025?
