I didn't play this game until 2012. It wasn't my first video game, and it wasn't my first RPG. So I am not speaking from nostalgia. This game is a computer roleplaying masterpiece. But no one ever talks about it, not in the USA at least. It has a very niche and loyal following here. I am under the impression it is far more popular in its home country of Germany. Here, people usually put games like Morrowind on the computer roleplaying masterpiece throne. Now I'm not saying that Morrowind doesn't deserve its praise (it does), but I think Gothic deserves a place there too alongside it. There was something that these two RPGs did that made the worlds feel real and believable. It's really hard to put your finger on it, but if you've played either game, then you know what I'm talking about. The refusal to hold the player's hand, the dangerous early game, the mundane yet realistic and believable quests, the soundtrack, the slow exploration and discovery of the game's landscape. Your rise from a feeble nobody to a powerful godslayer. These games just had a sensibility to them that's been lost in recent years to games like Skyrim and Fallout 4 that seem to just want to give the player a shallow power fantasy with instant gratification for everything. Why can't we go back to the days of Gothic and Morrowind? Morrowind is a well-beloved game with a lot of respect, and I wish for Gothic and the Piranha Bytes team to have that same exposure and love.
