Gothic 3 - C4G Retrospective / Analysis 

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16 years later and I still get the chills when I hear the menu theme

NPCs dynamic level progression is the dumbest thing in RPGs. Leveling up and finding better gear becomes useless. The static one though like in Gothic and Rysen is the best implementation.

they should remake all gothic series in one big game, don't change the storyline, the dialogues, just the graphics and the animations and i will die happy

Gothic 2 will always be the best Gothic game ever made, in my opinion.

Seeing that the Gothic community still exists just warms my heart ❤️ I finished Gothic 1 -3 every possible way, it was my favourite childhood franchise besides Halo on xbox. Love y’all ❤️

About lagging, the game engine has a problem with loading locations. Since there is no loading screen, the game loads along the way. But despite the coolness of your hardware, lags were inevitable due to problems in the game engine itself. But after many years our community was able to find a cure for this disease. More than six months ago (I do not remember when exactly), the fan community was able to find a way to fix the engine, now lags mostly gone. Enough to install the patch for the engine, it can be found on the sites, next to the community patch mentioned in the video. Writing in case anyone is inspired and wants to play this, not dare the word, a masterpiece RPG game

In Gothic II they simply told you to find a way back to the colony and oh boy first time playing was a magical experience. You had to gain support from influential people in order to achieve your goal but it was like there was no linear god dictating your path in doing so. Even describing the paths available to you would take hours! The freedom of approach in Gothic 2 is unparalleled as of today. To gain the Paladin's influence you had to first become a respected member of the city which meant being a productive member of said city, GETTING A JOB! You could either become a blacksmith's apprentice, a hunter or an alchemist. Now you had to get all of the masters approval in order to be accepted in order to prove your allegiance truly is a lawfull one since you just kinda stumbled into town one day. Signing on with one of the masters was such a realistic experience, the hunter actively demanded you sign up with him since few had the balls to actually hunt the beasts that preyed around the city, the blacksmith didn't really give a fuck since he had an apprentice already but was overburdened with work because of the increased demands of the paladins and the alchemist needed to be impressed by you since he did not want for an apprentice because his character seemed to think everybody around him was kinda stupid and useless. After you chose who your employer would be only then as a functioning member of society you would get permision to join the town guard that had the most fun sidequests such as clearing the surrounding fields of man eating pests or investigating the traffic of narcotics in your town. Not to get into to much detail but even the narcotic sidequest has the option of letting you side with the drug dealers for some profit. Oh but you could skip the entire thing if you used your friends influence to vouch for you... Time to reinstall Gothic II, too bad I fucking know every nook and cranny in that map already. Guess I'll just waste time in Khorinis again for hours on end.

Aah the most amazing soundtrack with an early access game attached to it.

Gothic 3 had some areas of incredibly dense foliage that I had never seen in a game before. It wasn't everywhere, but a couple of areas away from any major city or road felt like you were right in the wilderness.

Gothic 1 and 2 are some of my fondest gaming memories.

Nameless hero: "Look, i brought back all the fire chalices. The were scattered all over the lands. Took me a while to get them, had to fight countless beasts, you know?" Milten:"Cool story bro." *lights up some swampweed*

Gothic 1 was my first Gothic game, then 2, and then 3. And sure, Gothic 3 was an entirely different type of game compared to its predecessors. But to this day still, listening to the incredible music by Kai Rosenkranz while walking around the forests and coasts of Myrtana has to be one of my favourite video game experiences ever. I mean, have you heard that music?!

I still have PTSD from those god damn machinegun wolves! (explanation: in release and early versions of the game wolves had extremely fast attack speed, combined with the fact that they practically always move in packs and can easily stagger you - these were most dangerous enemies in the game for a very long time) Also the obnoxious friendly fire for thee but not for the groups of enemies was "fun" - orc warriors would just go "spin to win" while you could easily kill allies by accident... Fortunately, both wolves and friendly fire were fixed in later versions but manually updating the game introduced another amusing bug/exploit - after the update your armor is removed from the character and placed into the inventory, but the stats of whatever armor you were wearing stayed permanently :D Also-also absolutely hilarious models - most of characters are bald because either devs or the engine itself is bad with hair.

Superb analysis! I have somewhat of a similar experience to yours when it comes to Gothic 3. Having an overwhelming nostalgia for this game as it was my first, not only Gothic game, but the first true open world RPG. I remember playing it back in 2007 when i was only 7 years old and being blown away that video games can actually create this amazing experience of both immersion and athmosphere. The background as to how i got to play it is a bit longer story, but i'll try to keep it short. Prior to Gothic 3, i only really had an experience of playing simple 2D games and puzzles. It wasn't until my father recieved a hard copy of Gothic 3 from his friend as a birthday present in early 2007. I remember being so excited about watching him play it. Obviously as i didn't know English very well back then, when i tried to play it later on that year, i was mostly going off by intuition and what i memorized from my father's playthrough. I used to call him for translation when i got stuck, like not knowing what i'm soppoused to be doing and especially when i noticed there was a choice in a dialogue because the button "End" would suddenly disappear. As i already mentioned just how mind blowing this was to me back then, so much so, that it actually inspired me to learn English quicker just so i can play it on my own. I kept coming back to it almost every year, strating from the beginning, and seeing how far can i make it. Eventually i managed to beat the game in 2010-11 (if i recall correctly). Only later on i discovered Gothic 1 and 2. At first i was a bit skeptical when i saw these games, but after doing some research i still remember what people were saying and how they were grading this trilogy back in 2013: Gothic 1 - 9/10, Gothic 2 NotR - 9.5/10 and Gothic 3 (with Community Patch v1.75) - 6.5/10. I was really hyped up about Gothic 1 and 2 suddenly. I won't descibe my entire experiences with these two games, but frankly after i played them i realised they were objectivly better designed than Gothic 3 and are probably one of the best RPGs made in their respective time frames. Even after acknowledging this i can't help it but to put Gothic 3 as my favourite and most influential game ever. The feeling of nostalgia about this game that you've briefly talked about in the video really reminded me of all this, so i couldn't help but share my story. As far as your analysis goes, in my opinion, you really hit the spot for almost every topic. And i might have some further insights: - Marked rebel camps in the quest log map was a must because of how they designed reputaion/quest log system. Without them i don't see how they could've displayed quests and reputation in these camps. Surely a better alternative would be to ditch the quest log tab completly and bring back the old notebook-like quest log that the nameless hero had in previous games and somehow implement reputation system in it. But that's a whole another story. - I can appreciete the developers for atleast trying to make a good crime system, but i always hated how stealing works. Basically even if you manage to steal something without anyone noticing (which is not hard in G3 btw) NPCs will still be aware of it, so it ends up being kind of immersion breaking. And i can understand why they did it, but i think it's just a cheap way of stopping you from getting rich early, instead of maybe making it harder to steal unnoticed (that would be much harder to design i guess). So i usually never find myself investing in thieving skills past the mandatory difficult locks skill. - I could talk about the melee combat system for days, since it's a topic of personal interest to me, but all i'm gonna say about G3 melee combat system is that it had a great potentional for expanding on previous games when it comes to combos. Just imagine how many interesting combos you could implement with 4 'basic' moves. I'd like to believe that they wanted to do just that, but the game got rushed and we ended up with an unfinished version. All though they could've still saved the character progression when it comes to combat skills by locking some of the existing moves behind better fighting skills, just so the feeling of learning them isn't simply the ability to wield better weapons. For example, the player could start with 2 basic moves (regular attack and quick attack) instead of 4, and then be introduced to the other 2 (3 for large weapons and staves) after learning the according fighting skills. But it's just a thought. - I highly advocate for static enemy levels in games, since it's way more fun and immersive, but it does take a lot of skill to implement without any issues unfortunately. And i'm always amazed to see how close Piranha Bytes came to perfecting this system in Gothic 1 and 2. Ultimately i'm really happy that gothic community is still going strong and i sincerely hope that the new Gothic remake will be a hit. Thank you for reading and making this video. Be sure to keep making these kind of videos! Pozdrav! :)

music still gives me shivers...

Just one little mistake: You don't have to install the community patch yourself on the steam version. It is available as a beta within steam.

This video played for me right after I watched your video on Grim Dawn and I didn't even feel the time pass at all. Very enjoyable to watch / listen to and definitely looking for more content like this. Thanks for this video!

All of the Gothic games were ahead of their time. The issue was that the gaming market was not as developed as it is today and the dev company had a hard time finding a publisher for the games. I was so dissapointed by Gothic 3 as it should have been the last game in an epic story. Sadly they focused more on the world instead of the gameplay and the story. I still play all 3 games now and then for nostalgia. These are one of the best RPG games I played, together with elder scrols and Diablo series

Both Gothic 1 and Gothic 2 are worth playing more than Gothic 3, however, Gothic 3 has one of the best soundtracks (and not just in gaming), plus it can still be a fun game with the community patches and whatnot. I gotta repost this comment when I watch the whole video though. :D

Gothic 3 was my childhood game ! I sunk alot of hours in it. And it was such a joy to discover the game, since it was my first rpg game ever so i was lost from the start. I really liked there was no hand holding and when you figure things out its such an achievement at least for me felt back then. Not what EA considers "achievement" . The game has its limitations but i loved it regardless.

If this game came out with the right development time, today we would have an masterpiece in our hands, it have so many ideas, the atmosphere, music, the progression, way ahead of its time.

I played this for 90 hours and had lots of fun in the process! Best wishes from Portugal! :)

dude, first time i actually watch 1 hour review of anything and its all the time interesting! i love it! the way you explain is so deep and entertaining, that i cant stop! i didnt notice it was one hour video untill somewhere @ 45 min when i told myself, hey i think this video is actually long, but how much! i will try the game for sure! keep up!

I've been a Gothic addict for six, perhaps seven years. And (in hindsight) I absolutely love the first sold version of Gothic 3 - BECAUSE of all the bugs: I love exploring, and going where I'm not supposed to go. Once, trying to walk along the cliff towards the magic dome, searching for levelling-up-monsters to kill (and to avoid the bigger ones) - I came on a badly fitted-triangle and fell through the landscape, and it was an incredible epic drop: my computer ran hot on reconing how the Nameless fell into nothingness, the landscape above him getting smaller and smaller. I kept it running, because it was so fascinating. The second epic part was the one they said beforehand, that it wasn't finished but would be fixed with the first patch. So I went actively looking for world's end, killing all the reptiles, just to find the mountain where the world ended, I came there punctually at sundown and it was the most glorious view, with golden light and the glowing nothingness below the ridge. I'm still sorry, I didn't take a screenshot (because bluntly: I didn't know how to do gaming screenshots, then) then came the patch and the edge of the world was gone. One of my first ever gaming screenshots was after getting the Nameless killed on a replay while hunting for the shy deers - I thought: ok, when we're at it, let's shoot the wolves at the tower, too, but then came another wolf and two scavengers from behind... - I walked off frustrated to fetch me a drink, and when I returned to the computer a rabbit had hoppled up to the fallen Nameless - only a hare to mourn. I don't know why I haven't finished it ever after I played the dark-magic mod, but whenever I restart it, I do the orc-battle in the first village, and then usually get lost in wandering about and looking at the landscape (and usually get the Nameless killed during the first day, without having saved any progress.)

Ah yes, Gothic III. My first Gothic game. I can see where players and fans were frustrated with it, but I became captivated by it, in spite of its clunky combat and bugs. Even after playing Gothic II, Gothic III remains my favorite. There was something about the variable and unpredictable gameplay that drew me in and kept me engaged. Thinking about other open world action RPGs that got its hooks into me, Dragons Dogma comes to mind.

Wow... Such a great video of such a great game. You brought me some nostalgia and now I'm going to install and play through this game this entire weekend. Ty!!!!

I got to play this and Gothic 2! Gothic 1 is one of my favorite RPGs and the genuine freedom has to be my favorite part of the game

Gothic is a vastly underrated videogame series. Gothic series had living and breathing worlds which many modern open world games don't have. Animals, creatures and NPC's had their own A.I routine. F.e wolf packs roam the wilderness together and hunt other animals(you actually see them eat their prey after they killed it)There was an ecosystem. Too bad Piranha Bytes could never got the attention that they deserved. In the early 20's they were as promising as Larian or CD Project Red

Bro I love gothic and I feel like you’re the first RU-vid who really understands, why Gothic is so special. It’s the feeling while playing it. And I watched this video from beginning to end and enjoyed every bit of it. The more, because there weren’t any spoilers. Great job, great video. More videos like this please 👍🏼

Amazing video to watch, it really took me back to the times I played the Gothic series...

Orks being automatically aggressive in Nordmar is intentional. Even if you are allied with orks and they let you pass into Nordmar, they will warn you about it. Nordmar is technically in war with orks and any human traversing it is considered an enemy. it could be that at some point PB planned to have an option to help orks in Nordmar, but the fact that there are voice acted lines where the orks warn you that you will be attacked up there in the north means that they must have abandoned the idea very early. If it existed.

23:34 that is not the only thing at the first warning even if you got a good relationship with orcs or rebels, there is a dialogue that is change on the npc's without chit chat, after you get warned, the dialogue change is "We're keeping an eyes on things" to "Don´t cause any trouble here"

You know you have an open world experience worth exploring when you don't even feel the need for a mini map. For me, that became the most immersive thing. Instead of focusing on the mini map, I could focus on the landscapes and the music...and OH Gawd the music was amazing! Great video, brought many memories back!

Love the content, big fan of thier games! So nice to see other people that enjoy it.

Love these longer videos!

I played this game at least 7 times over the years and I never knew that staves can block incoming spells.

Just fell in love with this game. It’s like an elder scrolls game but with actual freedom

What a good video, cheers dude, subbed

I can really appreciate these long form reviews and unpacking of games. Especially the lesser known rpg's. Was very enjoyable to watch. Please make more. Also subtitles are greatly appreciated.

I like this game (like all Piranha Bytes games) very much, but it can get monotonous with the constant "go to town -> raise reputation in town -> move on" system. Still, it's a great experience.

Ishtar-soundtrack as well as most other Varant themes are from Borislav Slavov (D:OS2, Baldurs Gate 3), with whom Kai Rosenkranz worked closely. They also did the Risen 1 soundtracks together.

Thank you for this great video. I became super nostalgic.

As soon as I heard you say 'reputation' I knew you were a balcan guy xD Bravo za video! Gothic 3 mi je jedna od najdražih igrica ikada. Nostalgija me pukla gledajući ovo.

one of the best 10 games ever created

Muy buena reseña. La saga de Gothic es simplemente genial

Love your Gotic/Elex videos, take care buddy!

I can't wait to play this one,I finished Elex which i loved and led me to play Gothic 1 which was rough now I am playing 2 much better than the first,after that I'll play this of course.

still my favorite game of all time , nostalgia is big with this one , great video !

For me its the greatest rpg ever with fallout new vegas. I know thats not a popular opinion but besides the bugs the world and quest design, the story and the immersion was absolutely mindblowing for a 12 year old boy

The footage in this video is amazing!

Well done and very informative. I went gravitated to Gothic after playing Morrowind for almost 13 yrs. I like all of their series. I know that some hate on G3, but I don't really compare it to the previous versions. All are great on their own. One thing that hasn't been mentioned in any of the Gothics is "Mountain Climbing". It's one of the few things that I really loved about G1, G2, & G3. You could litereally fall off the world if you went too far, but you could get to that point. In G3, there were chests and beasts in some of the remotest locations on Mountain Tops and the view from these areas were spectacular. I loved it. Many games are set to a followed path that you can't deviate from. Go here, do this, that, and no variation or exploration.

This is true definition of the love letter

I remember trying G3 on my old PC when it did come out. I've played like 15 hours on 10-15 fps. Haven't touched it since.

Great video about a great game! Superb summary, and more than that: I played this game through several times but did not notice all the details, like thinking about WHY they made the quest design the way it is, and I think you are absolutely right about that. Your video opened my eyes a bit to that. I always loved the game, but this maybe describes why. As all piranha bytes: The original language (german) voice actors are handpicked by the developers and truly awesome, so if you understand any german, I highly recommend switching to original language (as it is the case for most games in general).

Thank u for this damn good video, mate. I played it 2006 and 2007 first time

the first time i heard that you can kill EVERY NPC i was like "yeeeaaaahhh suuurreee you can, dont BS me!" but you freaking can!

I immediately subscribed because of the 1h+ content about gothic series!

I started Gothic III today, previous games was my all time classic, I played them about 10 times or something. Now time to Gothic III, it's my second start. I am so excited.

amazing channel, sir

Did you ever truly master the combat in Gothic 2? It is, imho, by far one of the most satisfying combat implementation I have experienced in RPG's. The fact that if you are good enough at level 1 you can kill a level 30 orc is rewarding (though it would take a while and orc would one shot you).

For me Gothic 1 was best experience it felt so perfectly hand crafted with all those hidden places and fun spells. Gothic 2 kinda simplified spells variety but added more of the world. While Gothic 3 was unplayable after I purchased it until some fixes came out. But after that I liked it and finished every possible quest, maxed reps, stats etc. I think i liked it more than piranha's pirates. When I look at it now it was pretty good game even if unfinished.

Gothic 3 had so many good design choices. The world, the freedom, impact of choices, the beautiful and detailed scenery, the music, the great immersion in general, etc... Even with all its bugs, flaws and unpolished gameplay, it still holds on today and is one of the greatest imo. No game released so far captures the same atmosphere and feeling, truly a unique experience. If there was a remake with a modern engine and a implementation of some other modern perks, it would be as big of a deal as Skyrim when it was released.

Great Video. The Gothic series is my favorite RPG Series. I hope the Remake will be good. The Series needs more recognition by players.

Gothic 3 was so great back then. Coming home from school, playing gothic 3 and watching giga on tv.

This is fantastic in depth video about one of the greatest games of all time. Thanky you!

This was my first open world RPG as I recall and I remember having my mind being completely blown. The music especially got to me.

Awesome video man. Really, pleasure to watch!

I re-played the whole series (Gothic 1-3) two months ago during and around Christmas and with the unofficial patch Gothic 3 is a nice open world game. But it does not have the fun factor and atmosphere of the first two games. It is also too big for a Gothic game and thus much more generic. The quests are the same in every city. You always have to work yourself up in every city by repeating the same quests, all the cities work like independed entities. There are no inter-city quests and actually even a minimum amount of reference to other cities. The game world is beautifuly created, sunsets, nights with clear sky and moon in desert for example and so on, but it just lacks the feeling of previous games. The characters from previous games also don't really hold any gameplay or story value and it feels like they were put in just so that players could relate to the previous Gothic games. There are many more things that I did not really like too much. As a game on it's own it's a fun open world RPG but in my opinion not good enough for a Gothic game. It went the wrong direction.

The Voice actin in the original Language (German) is so good, love it (i am german tho) :D

i really like watching analysis video like this, keep it up man.

Love the Gothic game series. The second is probably my most favorite one. The first has the best story in my opinion. But the third is pretty decent and offers a new take on the world established with the previous games. Thanks for the video, I have been looking for playing those games again and after this video, I will have to install it and play the whole series again. Can't wait!

Someones doing an actual analysis of Gothic 3 in 2021? You just got a new friend. I'm in my 4th playthrough of G1 right now lol

A Game from 2006 that was only playable 2012 with the communitypatch :D

Gothic 3 is a great rpg game! It may not be better than the two originals but it is still a fun, and enjoyable game to play, the mechanics are great. The soundtrack in this game, blows my mind away.

I always enjoy the games you recommend. Keep up the great work man.

The First Risen is the Best game ever in my opinion, love that Game, Gothic is also great

Yes Gothic 2 is the best and my personal favorite, but Gothic 3 is great to. Loved the music, the game world,etc.. It was very buggy at launch and the character models annoy me but there is something so enjoyable about it. Also loved Risen 1 and enjoyed Elex a good deal to. Craving a new PB rpg :)

I bought all Gothic parts immediately after release and G3 was actually not playable. So not only full of bugs but actually unplayable. Of course as a big fan I was frustrated by this but I never blamed Piranha Bytes for it as it wasn't their fault. On the contrary, you really have to praise this mini studio for such an amazing performance. It's just amazing what they have created. After all the patches that were released relatively quickly, G3 was finally playable and I loved it. It was also the only game so far, aside from Assassin's Creed, where I got excited about a desert setting - I hate deserts in games, but the one in G3 was so nicely packed with variety that it actually ended up being nice to explore and play . Otherwise there wasn't much that bothered me about G3, for me it was a pleasure to play despite the bugs.

quick and easy answer: YES, GOTHIC3 is worth^^ way more than most other rpgs during the last 20 years

I absolutely loved this game. Thank you for bringing me back to it.

This brings so many memories. Great video man!

Also I like how you put Ishtar music in normal varant

Thank you for the video. Now I understand. You completely wiped the bad image forums casted on this game; for me at least. I can't wait to continue my adventure :x.

I still play gothic 3

I get back to this game not just because of gameplay and memories but mostly for music, pure masterpiece!

As for Gothic 3 I really like the world creation - we get 3 separate lands with completely different climate and no loading screens - how cool is that! And all of it mixed with immersing soundtrack by Kai Rosenkranz (i still listen to it sometimes after all these years) Other than that however... the game is just... not too good... bad... or despisable even (definite downgrade from Gothic 2). Gothic 1 and 2 on the other hand are solid by most means. The controls are insane, but if you can get used to it, the system actually leads to developing many interesting fighting techniques with different types of enemies - some attacks can be blocked, some dodged, some enemies can be outsmarted (it's not all that bad!). The AI is good considering it's an open world game. Show me one where the AI can't be broken... c'mon... Cheers from Poland! I will always remind this series warmly.

This dude is absolutely obsessed with Gothic series. Lol. I love it :)

the nordmar orcs being agressive is not a bug, I remember vaguely some npcs even talking about them that they are full on agressive mode, because nordmar is the place from which the orcs invaded Myrtana. So it makes sense, they conquered the place and acording to some npcs that are warning you they are just feral and agressive, you can also found like the biggest numbers of orcs in this zone and in my opinion they just dont share the same "social" status that was created in myrtana.

G3 has its good parts but really just go out and play G1 and 2.

Im a bit late, but you convinced me to buy the game, its only 3$ on steam, you have a sub from me buddy good job, you explained the game very well without any spoilers3 very good job man

Thanks for this video. I know this comment is late but I’ve been watching this video in segments. It’s been a very pleasant and endearing experience. I don’t know too much about the Gothic franchise but you share your intrigue and passion so well that it creates a captivating watch. I’d definitely appreciate videos of a similar nature in the future.

u tellin me gothic 3 has a better npc day schedule system than cyberpunk?

Gothic 1 and 2 where simply amazing. 3 was good, but as i started to play it in the beginning the bugs hold it back. also you could feel that pirania bytes hadnt had that much influence in the games creation.

Music and overall feel of Varant is just magical for me

Will Try Gothic 2 for sure

This game is my childhood i still play it today some times and gothic 2

Gothic 2 was my first! It was the DRAGON on the cover that caught my interest! But man did they f it up with Forsaken Gods & Arcania lol Great games , AWSOME community! G2 + DX11 mods - HOLY SWEET JESUS! XD

great job mate, RESPEKT! :)

I could not give two shits about Xardas! I had such good time exploring,hunting,blacksmithing,skinnying,extracting teeth and claws from animals,cooking,learing how to fight,alchemy,learning magic,acrobatics,making shit tone fo diffrent arrows,descovering all of Adanos artifacts,finding all the 12 fire challices,learning how to transform myself into animals,exploring the temples in the desert,tryin to enter Ishtar,killing the demon in Gotha,getting into Nordmar ,killing the ancestors of Nordmar,Liberating the mine of pure ore,Killing the king,and many many other things