The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos is an open-world action-adventure role-playing game, based on the popular Gothic series, which was originally developed by Piranha Bytes in the early 2000s. As a total conversion mod for Gothic 2, created by fans and released near the very end of 2021, Archolos offers a full-length,
standalone experience with up to 100 hours or more of content in an
all-original map and story, plus tons of new mechanics and upgrades to
the existing Gothic formula. It's therefore worth stressing that this isn't just a mod for Gothic 2, but it's an entirely new game altogether, one so extensive and professional in quality that it could easily be confused for an official Gothic game. It is completely free to download and play,
so long as you have a copy of Gothic 2: Gold Edition on which to run
it. The mod was originally written in Polish and features professional Polish voice acting, but includes English subtitles as well as other language options for the interface and subtitles.
While you could conceivably play Archolos as your first introduction to the Gothic series, due to it occurring chronologically first and being a mostly separate adventure that requires no prior knowledge of the Gothic series to understand, it's an experience that's probably best enjoyed if you've already played Gothic 1 and 2 so that you can appreciate the extra refinement that it brings to the established formula, in addition to all the small references and Easter eggs that set up future events in the series.
The game takes place during a tipping point in the orc war against humanity, several years before the start of Gothic 1, as the orcs begin to seize the upper hand and as the war's effects begin to be felt among the common folk in the outer reaches of the kingdom. You play as a young man named Marvin, fleeing from your hometown with your brother Jorn to the island of Archolos, in hopes of escaping the war and starting a new life. While trying to integrate yourself with the local farming village, your brother is mysteriously kidnapped, thus instigating the main quest to track him down and learn more about the people responsible. The rest of the game involves exploring a densely-structured open world map where enemies and loot do not scale to your level; completing side quests for various NPCs and communities to gain their trust and earn valuable rewards; and leveling up your character by investing skill points in different categories so you can get better at fighting all the difficult enemies that populate the world.
If you're familiar with the early Gothic games, then you'll feel right at home with Archolos, since it's based on the same engine and uses all of the same core mechanics, even reusing a bunch of the exact same audiovisual components. That simple basis does a lot of heavy lifting in terms of achieving that authentic Gothic feel, since it shares more of the same fundamental DNA than every other Piranha Bytes game to have come out since Gothic 1 and 2. However, Archolos does feature a certain "je ne sais quoi" in its design that extends a little deeper than simply copying those superficial aspects -- it really achieves an authentic feel in the tone and atmosphere, the early game difficulty and progression, the world design and exploration, as well as the general quest design and character interactions, with the added benefit of a lot of key improvements to various mechanics that weren't necessarily problems in the original games, but are all the more welcome to see in Archolos. This includes things like new quality of life improvements, new evolution on existing mechanics, all-new features and systems, and corrections for certain issues that Piranha Bytes never had the chance to address originally. You could even argue that some things are done even better than the originals, which is facilitated by the developers having 20 years of fan feedback from the original games to incorporate into Archolos. So in a way, it does kind of feel like "Gothic 2: Night of the Raven, But Better."