Gothic (2001)

Oh wow!! I somehow missed that Gothic 1 and 2 came to the Switch! Going to have to slot in a Gothic revisit into 2024. I adore the original game but I find it hard to revisit because of the dated control scheme, so this is something I've wanted for a long time. When I got my Steam Deck I tried checking it out there, but unfortunately getting it to run on the system was way too much effort.

Also looks like there is a physical release of the game in Europe (And the sequel too!), but not North America. Veeeeeerry tempted to import it anyhow...

On patching/modding Gothic in June 2022

So, I’m returning to Gothic after almost 2 years away; I played over 8 hours last time, before setting it aside. I’ve reinstalled it on my new laptop to try again.

The world of Gothic modding has moved on quite a lot in the (relatively) short time since I last set this up; I used this guide to help get me up to speed. I’ve installed the following mods and patches this time around:

• Union + SystemPack 2.0 (Player Kit + Resource Patch and Union 1.0l) via Resource Manager, including the nifty zGamePad plugin (superior to my old Steam controller config – especially with the cool addition of quick menus for magic and inventory)
• Ninja 2.7.12
• Gothic 1 Community Patch 1.2.0
• Texture Pack by Artemiano Fix
• Fixed Carnage Heads Models
• GD3D11 v17.8-dev4-ci

I’m not sure if the fancy shadows added by the DirectX 11 mod are necessary, but everything’s looking quite nice – and the mod helped find the right screen resolution automatically, which the patched game didn’t manage without it.

Maybe there's something I'm doing wrong, but simply navigating with my character in this game was an exercise in frustration - I did not make it very far. It's ludicrous that this game has reviews as high as it does.

All of the reviews I'm seeing are either based on how people felt when they first played the game or on highly modified versions of the game.

On patching/modding Gothic for modern systems

This is another ageing game about which it's worth reading up on the community patches/mods that help it run nicely on modern systems. (This is the most extensive patching/modding I've ever applied to a game!) As always, PCGamingWiki was a good place to start. I installed/added:

• an official patch, apparently necessary for the Steam version (Patch 1.08k);
• two playerkits (Playerkit v1.08k and PlayerKit 2.8);
• SystemPack v1.8 (more info here);
• 4GB Patch (not Gothic-specific but apparently helpful);
• In Extremo Mod (restores one piece of content);
• Gothic UnPatch 0.7 (I chose this older bugfix-only version);
• Textures Gothic Reloaded Mod by Artemiano (hi-res texture/model pack); and
• Fixed Carnage Heads Models (improves character head models).

There're a bunch of useful guides and threads from the Steam community about installing these patches/mods—I consulted this, this, this, this, and this. There's also a helpful tutorial at Sinitar Gaming's YouTube channel ('How to Completely Remaster Gothic 1 in 2018...'), and a handy list of downloads on The Gaming Den. A user posted a seemingly exhaustive 'Overview of Mods' on the World of Gothic forum.

I initially tried a DirectX 11 mod (GD3D11 by Kirides—more info here) but found that it was too much of a strain on my laptop—it was consistently running at less than 30fps. But I'm content with the patches/mods I'm using without the additional DX11 processing. The game still doesn't always run super-smoothly on my system (at least with the settings I've chosen), but the occasional drops in frame-rate aren't overly troublesome. (This Reddit post might help others experiencing frame-rate lags, but I haven't tried it.)

Going for RPGs I looked for some highly rated games that I haven't heard or played, this lead me to Gothic. When I first played I lasted 10 minutes thinking the control system was insane... an hour or 2 later I craved to play it further. If you've ever tried the game and fell off due to the controls, definitely give it more time once you become used to them they start to feel more natural than normal controls.

Mandalore has a pretty good video on it