Gothic I is an absolute classic of early 2000s RPGs. The world of Khorinis feels alive, dangerous, and unpredictable — wandering the Valley of Mines or the Old Camp gives a real sense of freedom and immersion. The story is engaging, and your choices actually feel meaningful, shaping how NPCs react to you and which paths open up.

The combat can feel clunky by modern standards, but once you get the hang of it, it’s satisfying and forces you to really think about your attacks and positioning. The atmosphere is unmatched, with a gritty medieval world full of personality, memorable characters, and dangerous creatures.

Even after all these years, it’s still incredibly rewarding to explore every corner, find hidden treasures, and interact with the world. A must-play for anyone who loves classic RPGs.

Rating: 9/10

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Pros

✔ Immersive and alive world
✔ Meaningful choices and NPC interactions
✔ Memorable story and characters
✔ Challenging but rewarding combat
✔ Gritty, atmospheric medieval setting

Cons

✘ Combat feels clunky by today’s standards
✘ Graphics are dated (but charming)
✘ Some quests can be confusing without guidance

Is the original Gothic the greatest RPG of all time?
MEH.

PROS:
+ Exploring is one of Gothic's highlight. No babby exploration with markers, Gothic is all about finding your objective the hard way ala Morrowind; Just a journal and map of the land for an adventure without unneeded UI.
+ Combat is also one of the highlights of the game where you can literally play with one hand (no pr0n jokes here). Game uses simple keyboard controls to control your MC. At first, you'll probably think it's the jankiest piece of trash controls for an RPG but once you get used to it, you'll slay everyone where you will now dodge and attack effectively. I always thought that Gothic is akin to the Elder Scrolls games but no, it's more of a classic Dark Souls where the game is focused more on combat rather than player interactions.
+ I really liked the barter/trade system where the game subtly forces you to trade with other objects rather than sell with ore. At the start, you will actually feel really homeless lol.

HIT OR MISS:
(/) You can use a lot of game world objects without the game or UI telling you that you can (i.e. cooking, lighting the camp fire, opening chests, lighting standing torches)
(/) Side quests doesn't really mean anything since every side quest coincides with the main quests lol
(/) Potions got really abundant towards the end lol. Like REALLY abundant. Took out most of the difficulty when you know you have a hundred potions in your inventory.
(/) There is a very steep difficulty increase during the middle part of the game where you're forced to fight stronger enemies with weak gears but with my mention of the game being Dark Souls, enemies can be cheesed through.

CONS:
(-) Game is mostly linear. You get to choose a couple of main quest decisions that affect absolutely nothing at the end.
(-) Very bad voice acting, especially from the MC lol. I don't know about old RPGs but it was mostly like these for voiced MCs.
(-) Story started out great but I lost interest towards the end. I even rested for about 3 weeks because it really got boring at Chapter 4. For a game that doesn't have much NPC interactions, RPGs mostly rely on the main story but Gothic falls short.
(-) Ending "battle" sucked ass

A classic zero to hero RPG that tries something different with its control scheme and combat but was dragged down by it's lack luster story (that was really great at the start) and non existent roleplaying.
Buy on sale or not at all lol. It's really cheap at full price BUT it's really nothing special when compared to other RPGS released that year.
2/5

First of all:
- Install the 1.08k mod version
- Install Union, and Gothic 1 Community Patch, and use the mod manager launch option to fix bugs and some of the stability issues
- Do not expect a Bethesda -game where you are free to go anywhere at any time and the game's difficulty scales with you
- Read some basic guide on the controls, especially for inventory use

After those steps, you can have a great time with this old classic. I went from Elex through the Risen series to Gothic 1 and I was quite surprised how much I ended up enjoying it. Quite possibly the best of all of those I've tried. I also just completed Gothic 2 and 1 was significantly better than it as well.

These games really should be considered immersive sims in the sense that you can do pretty much anything, and the game adapts to it.

Highly recommended.