Wait a minute. Gothic II? What happened to the first one? Well apparently THQ Nordic had completely blindsided me by announcing Gothic 1 Classic for Nintendo Switch back in early August which subsequently released just a couple days ago.
Gothic 1 in my eyes might not be the “best” game in the Gothic franchise, considering how the 2003 sequel expands upon the original about tenfold, but in my mind my preferred choice will always be the first.
Gothic Classic on Nintendo Switch provides several modernized enhancements of the original, notably in the UI aspect, mimicking that of Gothic 2’s inventory system and expanding upon that greatly to allow for ease of inventory navigation and ease of equipment better suited towards the nature of the handheld system, I actually hope that these changes make their way onto the PC release even.
The font has also been changed to one that is of much higher definition, but unlike a Square Enix HD rerelease, Gothic Classic’s new font was picked specifically for the purpose of retaining the aesthetic and design of the original game.
Because if you’re Square Enix and simply want to shovel a shitty modern HD font over your old and famous game titles, you might as well use Comic Sans because they sure as shit don’t consider the preferences of dedicated fans of whom they’re trying to peddle nostalgia towards, because they don’t want to play through decade old games with contemporary high definition fonts.
The fonts are actually readable now, the inventory is easier to navigate, nothing has been cut or abruptly censored or altered, you’re still the same nameless weakling trying to find their footing inside the colony, Gothic Classic also allows you to hot swap between various magic spells and runes at the press of a button, alongside being able to bind items to the Switch’s d-pad allowing easy toggling between mana / health potions, food and torches to traverse the darkness from within the confinement of the barrier.
Obviously, one of the main gripes people have with Gothic is its barbaric and complicated control scheme, that has been redefined for the Nintendo Switch release with the games control scheme effectively being remade to suit the modern layout of the Nintendo Switch, even allowing for motion controls with the joycon.
It genuinely pains me that Gothic 1 Classic was not only announced by THQ Nordic for the Nintendo Switch but it also managed to release under my thumb without so much as a hint or notice from usual mainstream media outlets, probably because the Gothic franchise is immensely difficult when starting out, so it’s highly possible that it has filtered most journalists by being too hard and too realistic.
But if you’re looking for a graphically enhanced re-release, look elsewhere because nothing has really changed, playing the original titles on PC with texture mods and the GD3D11 renderer still provide the most polished rendition of graphical fidelity to Gothic.
If you’ve never experienced the original game before, now is definitely the time to do so, while THQ Nordic / Embracer is a company you’d probably wish to keep away from your wallet, you can either pick up Gothic for dirt cheap on a CD Key store or just pirate the game entirely for either PC or Switch emulation.
I don’t really care what you do or how you do it personally, I just want you to play this game, if you’re a fan of true RPGs you will not regret it because Gothic isn’t just a game. It’s a spiritual journey through immersion and unforgiving cruel realism.
Because Gothic, released originally in 2001 was immensely ahead of its time in terms of immersion but its overall scale of the world and atmosphere, parts of the world will be completely off limits in terms of ruthless difficulty until you eventually level up and make progress naturally, there is a sense of accomplishment in being able to defeat enemies that would utterly dominate you with minimal effort just a short time ago.
Never mind the story progression of the three faction system offering replayability and alignment with the camp that suits your personal beliefs and ideology, I will always remain loyal to the sect camp, as the swamp camp is merely packed with monks who pray to a false god and get high.
Now then, Gothic 1 Classic seemingly came out of left field being announced only a month ago for the Nintendo Switch, so it’s natural that THQ Nordic would do the exact same with Gothic 2.
Currently available for pre-order on THQ Nordic’s official website, it hasn’t been showcased what sort of revised modernizations outside of the revamped inventory system, control scheme and HD UI will be present for Gothic 2 Classic, the only thing that we actually do know is that it’ll launch on November 29th.
Though the biggest question for avid fans of the Gothic franchise will be in regards to whether the difficulty will mimic that of the original Gothic 2 release or the increased difficulty scaling found with the Night of The Raven expansion pack, which will be present inside of the Switch release, I can’t imagine that modern Switch audiences would be able to handle the sheer difficulty that the Gothic franchise is renowned for outside of those wishing to revisit the games out of nostalgia.
We already know that THQ Nordic are bastardizing the original Gothic game with a faithless remake, not developed by Piranha Bytes but rather “Alkimia Interactive” a new Spanish outlet that has made absolutely nothing prior to the Gothic Remake, which will essentially turn the Valley of Mines into Britain.
However, these two Switch releases are not worthless remakes, they are more like recycled cash grabs that actually improve upon the original games they are based on which is quite rare in today’s gaming landscape.
If Gothic 1 Classic and Gothic 2 Classic are well received and financially successful, it could potentially motivate THQ Nordic to release a modernized version of Gothic 3 that runs smoothly and reliably on modern hardware. The 2006 version of Gothic 3 was widely criticized for being highly disappointing, completely broken, and unfinished, with stability issues even on modern PCs nearly two decades later.
