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Big hits in Germany but busts beyond, the Gothic RPGs slipped under the radar Stateside. Sporting grizzled graphics and a lousy interface, the first two were tough-love treks for the dedicated and diehard alone. A complex low-fantasy story further disaffected RPGers weaned on operatic dragon-dungeon-missile-magic, though a select few recognized the game for what it did get right: pre-Oblivion (multiform, evolving) A.I., the deepest dynamic social hierarchies to grace an RPG, and not-mere-hype alternate play-styles and endings. With the third installment slated for delivery this year, we cornered German developer Piranha Bytes for a sitrep.
Topping Gothic 3's list of from-the-ground-ups is the new feature-stacked Genome engine. "Our engine is now 90 percent proprietary," says in-house composer and sound designer Kai Rosenkranz. "And while we're not using a physics system as a gameplay element where everything can be pushed or pulled, in some situations players can now make use of realistically calculated physics." Magical gravity guns are out, in other words, but Rosenkranz says that items (or bodies) can drop down a staircase and the collision detection works perfectly. "We've upped the detail level tenfold using a tool that churns out vast amounts of trees and bushes with minimal render time."
Don't confuse render with random, though. Every single polygon in Gothic 3 is 100 percent handmade. And the interface for interacting with the environment has been completely reworked, too. In the first and second games, everything save panning your view was a finger-gnarling key press, including combat. "Most experienced RPG players liked the keyboard interface," defends Rosenkranz, but he admits the team listened carefully to first-person control feedback to eliminate many of the old system's flaws. "Everything is drag-and-drop now, and combat can be controlled with nothing but the mouse."
Man of Myrtana
Capitalizing on its stock in trade, Gothic 3 spins the story of another nameless fellow who starts as a greenhorn and becomes a hero in the end. "Actually, we never planned any sequels," notes Rosenkranz. "But since everyone loved our protagonist from the original Gothic, he's been our mainstay for the follow-ups. And now he's off the island." About time. Finally hauling tail off said island (it was called Irdorath) and sailing for the mainland (three times the size of Gothic II's), Piranha Bytes intends to escalate the series' cliched humans-versus-orcs story in entirely untypical ways. "Essentially, the kingdom of Myrtana is shattered by the war against the orcs," explains Rosenkranz. "By the time the player arrives, the orcs are about to the deliver the death blow. They're basically enslaving the human race."
Common enough plot fodder, but that's too simple a reading. Like the earlier games, Gothic 3 gives you concrete antiplot options. Want to save humanity's sorry selfish butt? Go for it. But you can also side with the orcs or just tell both sides to get bent. In fact, even the alternate paths are now decidedly skewed. "In contrast to the previous Gothic games, we're not nailing you down in terms of how you achieve your goals," says Rosenkranz, highlighting new extensions to the series' already open-ended story system. "Once a quest is accepted, you can freely decide the best way to solve it. So, for example, the game continuously checks if you've done something related to a certain quest, i.e., finding an item, talking to a character about something, and so on. If a number of abstract conditions are fulfilled, the quest is considered finished." According to Rosenkranz, completing certain quests will synergistically activate further plot points and spin the story out in a very nonlinear way. "We've taken care to ensure you never feel overwhelmed by too many options, like dispatching someone who reminds you of the overall goal," explains Rosenkranz. "But the question then becomes, whom will you trust?"
Sounds like a certain other massively nonlinear RPG (read: The Elder Scrolls IV), but don't confuse Piranha Bytes' design approach with Bethesda's. While both toy with multiform freedom, Gothic 3's expansiveness is focused. That also means you're still not rolling a scratchboard character. "All Gothic games have one thing in common," says Rosenkranz. "They're RPGs without the character generation at start-up." From Gothic 3's outset, your "nameless self" already sports a list of talents. Thereafter, it's up to you to shape and personalize the character by expanding all the usual skills, plus a host of new ones. "In addition to the principal weapon and fighting talents, you'll now find a variety of small skills that work like perks," Rozenkranz continues. "That's brand new, like, for example, extra damage against orcs, two-weapon combat, or shields."
No discussion of a Gothic game would be complete without an A.I. drill-down. Peek in someone's house or draw your weapon in public in the prior games and you'd score a stern talking-to. Stubborn players got a sword in the gullet. "We gave our original A.I. a major overhaul," says Rosenkranz. "In addition to the human-to-human level, we've added two new layers: regional and global." Rosenkranz defines the regional layer as covering townwide attitudes and events for a specific region. "So whenever the hero manages to fall out of favor with the inhabitants of a town, this is being handled by the regional layer," he explains. "In time, the protagonist might use his persuasiveness to gain followers. If he wins over enough people in a city, he might trigger a revolution and expel or kill the occupying orcs." The global level, on the other hand, plies the huge, panoramic events that affect things like major plot checkpoints and war outcomes.
Comprising a cast of 1,000 unique characters and 75 kilometers of densely forested terrain, Gothic 3 has next-gen freeform play on the brain.and hopefully in the final product when it ships later this year.
