The original Gothic released in 2001 and became an icon of Western RPGs with its gritty setting and unforgivable combat. Now, TWENTY FIVE YEARS later, we are finally getting a remake. Did Spanish developer Alkimia do justice to the classic game? I think they absolutely did; while not perfect, the remake hits all the right nostalgia nerves whilst improving much of the incredibly clunky and outdated gameplay.

Once again, you are thrown into the prison colony, locked in by a magical barrier that makes escape completely impossible. Here, the strong make the rules and at the start of the game, you are anything but. Winning a fight against some "easy" monsters takes grit and liberal use of the quicksave button. Gradually building yourself up and being able to hold your own against enemies that were completely and utterly impossible to defeat earlier on is a corner stone of the Gothic experience. That, and the plethora of shifty characters trying to mess with you. There's also still no character creation - the protagonist is the nameless hero, because no one in the colony cares about his name or past.

The Remake improves combat and magic, making both systems more intuitive and responsive without sacrificing difficulty. The difference between untrained and trained melee fighting is still night-and-day and resource management remains a big factor - since you do not heal or regenerate mana passively for the most part. Also, there is no fast travel early on, so being strategic about the order in which you do your quests is necessary. While the map is larger than the original, the main routes between the main camps still remain short enough to where you don't mind going on foot, especially since there's lots to discover along the road - and exploration is typically rewarded with some decent loot.

There are a few entirely new areas that expand on the mine colony's lore, as well as a bunch of new quests. The main story remains the same, of course, as do many of the original quests that stay faithful to how you were meant to solve them way back when.

There was concern over the look and feel of the colony when early footage was revealed. I can absolutely say that this was unfounded, as the mine valley looks great in Unreal Engine. The incredible rendering distance really makes you pause whenever you get to a vantage point - not least because there's also no mini map or quest markers, only a somewhat basic drawn map with main roads and the occasional pencil markings for specific quests. When you're being told about "an old castle on a hill, East of here", you'll actually need to do some basic navigation.

Not all that glitters is gold, however - or maybe not all that glows blue is magical ore..? Yeah, never mind. My point is that there's some issues with the game, too. Performance is decent enough, but I noticed a few hiccups here and there. I only had one hard crash in my, as time of writing, 33 hours of playtime. Enemies can sometimes feel inconsistently balanced, mostly down to their attack patterns. There's absolutely no "only one bad guy can attack you" mechanic here, which is true to the Gothic formula, but the limited dodge mechanic and long attack windups sometimes turn larger group fights into a more frustrating than challenging experience.
Another point of note: The voice acting. The English VA is very solid and should be the to-go choice for most. For the German dub, they got a bunch of the original cast to revise their roles, which is great in theory, but one voice unfortunately disappoints - the protagonist's.
Christian Wewerka returns as the nameless hero, but for some reason all of his lines sound detached from their context, especially when the NPCs, for the most part, have excellent voice acting. I don't know if this is down to bad sound direction or the actor (who is 64 years-old, to be fair) phoning it in. As a die-hard fan of the original with original dub though, I still advise everyone to go with the English VO.

And that about wraps it up - needless to say the Remake has my full recommendation, at least for fans of the old game who would like to see their childhood memories reimagined by developers who set out to create an ode to the OG game rather than trying to undo or rewrite it.
People who have not played Gothic before (especially G1 & 2) may want to consider if they're happy playing a game that does not hold your hands, requires a lot of trial-and-error and will likely make you quick load very often.

I will close this review with my genuine wish to see a Gothic 2 Remake (+ Night of the Raven) by the same studio in the near future.