Arcania is officially called Gothic 4, but was developed by a different studio than the first three parts. You can find out what to expect in the following practical tip.
Arcania and the Gothic series
Many years ago, “Gothic” was created, a German single-player role-playing game developed by JoWood and Piranha Bytes. This game was a huge success for the developers and was given two sequels (Gothic 2 and Gothic 3). Then Piranha Bytes dropped out and JoWood continued with the equally well-known studio Spellbound. The series continued with Arcania: Gothic 4.
- While parts 1 and 2 went down in video game history as classics, Gothic 3 suffered from many errors. It was simply too big and ambitious for the time. However, the bugs and performance problems were subsequently fixed through community patches.
- The original Gothic trilogy always thrived on the living world, the interaction with the characters, a day-night rhythm and the many Easter eggs and gimmicks. A special feature: you had to learn skills from people who were experts in them and you couldn't just randomly pick up skills.
- Piranha Bytes was able to transfer exactly these virtues into their new series “Risen”. This is considered the unofficial successor to the Gothic series. Spellbound, on the other hand, remained only partially true to the popular game concept in Arcania.
- The result is a game that is ambitious, but also has many errors. In addition, the game world is much more controlled and no longer as open as it was in Gothic. While in Gothic and Risen you could walk around for a long time and explore different environments, this is no longer possible in Arcania.
- The world of Arcania is criticized by fans as being “too big”, especially because there is so little to discover.
- Although the game world is beautifully designed, it does have stumbling blocks such as low walls that you can't jump over or invisible obstacles that you get stuck on.
- On the other hand, it was received positively that you no longer have to look for trainers and develop your skills, spells and weapon abilities in the game.
- In the meantime, a remake of Gothic has been announced, which is now being realized by the developer studio Alkimia Interactive.
Did you know that you can play Gothic 1 on Windows 10?