Gothic 1+2: Masterpieces in Immersive Design

Gothic 1 and 2 are some of the best open-world action-adventure-RPGs of all time, and part of the reason why is their uniquely immersive gameplay designs. Developed by the small German studio Piranha Bytes and released in 2000 and 2002 in their native Germany, Gothic 1 and 2 were truly ahead of their time; while not the first to implement scripted NPC scheduling and reactions, they were already doing so years before Bethesda supposedly pioneered that concept with Oblivion, while some of their other design elements like in-world skill trainers and the process of forging weapons aren't really seen in other games, even to this day with almost two decades of industry advancements since the original Gothic. Some of their design elements may be a little quaint or antiquated at this point, but for the most part the immersive design of Gothic 1 and 2 is timelessly brilliant and contributes to a feeling of atmospheric immersion that often isn't found in other games.

It begins with the lore and backstory. The early Gothic games create fleshed-out, believable worlds that feel like they could be real places and not just staging for video game action. Gothic 1 is set inside a magically encapsulated prison colony run in total anarchy by the convicts -- a bit similar in concept to John Carpenter's Escape From New York -- originally set up by the king as a place to send criminals to mine magic ore used to forge weapons to fuel the war against the orcs. After a successful revolt, the prisoners killed the king's guards and took control of the colony, eventually splitting into three different faction, each governed by their own ideologies and sustaining themselves through their own practical means.

This same article in video format.

In the Old Camp, where the king's mining operation was originally set up, the new ore barons are content to live as kings inside the barrier by continuing the ore mining and bartering the ore for outside goods. We see the exchange in the intro cinematics, and we as players get to experience the ore mining by visiting the Old Mine. There's a clear hierarchy within the actual camp, with the ore barons on top and living the high life in the castle, while the ore miners live in the slums of the outer ring -- it's an authoritarian system where the miners are content to be exploited by the ore barons because living in the safety of a controlled camp and getting to partake in outside goods is a better alternative to surviving on one's own in the wild where you could become the meal for any number of dangerous beasts. With the wilds being as genuinely dangerous as they are -- you get absolutely destroyed by even basic creatures in the early stages of the game -- you can understand the motivations people would have to band together in the Old Camp, and its infrastructure operates in a way that makes logistical sense.

In the New Camp, the water mages -- who helped erect the magic barrier, along with the fire mages who've remained in the Old Camp as the ore barons' counselors -- are less content with being trapped inside the barrier, and are working to find a way to free themselves, and everyone else, by blowing up the barrier with what would be essentially a giant ore bomb. To that end, the New Camp runs its own mining operation, but since they don't trade the ore with the outside world, they have to sustain themselves through agriculture. We see them farming rice, and even help distribute water to keep the farmers hydrated. Besides eating the rice, they also use it to brew schnapps which they trade with other camps, and occasionally raid supply lines from the Old Camp. It's supposed to be a more free-form society with no strict rulers -- while the amenities and living conditions may not be as cushy as the Old Camp (as long as you're not a digger), you don't have to be bossed around by the ore barons and their guards. As long as you contribute and don't cause problems, anyone is welcome. And if the idea of freedom from the barrier appeals to you, the New Camp and its plan to blow up the barrier is probably your best option.

Meanwhile, those who were dissatisfied with both camps chose to break off and form their own Sect Camp in the swamp, where its members are able to forage for food with the swamp's natural vegetation. They also harvest and produce swampweed reefers, which they smoke to induce a high much like marijuana, and use it to trade goods with the other camps. Their heavy use of swampweed lends some of its users an enlightened state, granting them limited control over the magical realm, almost like the fire mages and water mages. Through meditation, their gurus began to see visions of a god known as the Sleeper, who promised to set them free, and so the camp grew into a cult-like worship of the Sleeper. Life in the Swamp Camp is ultimately easier than the others, as long as you're willing to buy-in on or at least play along with the concept of worshiping a strange god -- many of its members join up just to laze around smoking swamp weed all day.

Gothic 2 features a harbor town in Khorinis, known for its shipping trade with the main land. The city is run by a governor, but because of the orc war and the king's need for ore, the city has been placed under martial law, now run by the leader of the paladins and the town's militia. The city itself operates on various trades, with master craftsmen like Harad the blacksmith, Constantino the alchemist, Bosper the bowyer, Thorben the carpenter, and Matteo the merchant and leatherworker. Some common folk work as apprentices for these masters, while most other citizens work at the docks, although the war has led to fewer and fewer ships coming into the harbor and leaving most people out of work and struggling to make ends meet. The majority of land outside of town is occupied by farmers, who supply most of the food for the island, but with the influx of the king's paladins demanding more food from the farmers (and not paying for it), the largest landowner, Onar, has formed a rebellion against the paladins and hired mercenaries to defend his land. The smaller farmers in closer proximity to the city have torn allegiances but have little choice but to work with the paladins.

The sum effect is that these worlds make logical sense; they have a clear structure and societal organization, guided by realistic and understandable motives, where people do actual work in the world to produce the goods and resources necessary to survive. The games don't just tell us these critical world-building details, they show us. Harad, for instance, doesn't just stand behind a store counter all day telling us how he's the best blacksmith in town -- we actually see him working throughout the day, and he can actually show us his expertise by teaching us how to become a blacksmith ourselves. It's not just a piece of abstract narrative, it's backed up through actual gameplay mechanics. Likewise, we don't just hear about the farmers outside of town working to supply the city with food -- we get to go to the actual farms and do quests for the farmers, even helping one of them harvest his field of turnips. Virtually every NPC has some kind of job or occupation within these worlds, and in most cases we see them actually doing their jobs -- Thorben sawing wood, Ratford and Drax hunting scavengers, diggers mining ore, farmers tending their fields, and so on.

It helps the atmosphere and immersion immensely when you see even generic, ordinary NPCs participating in mundane, ambient activities because it makes them feel more like real people. Ambient characters will have idle conversations with each other, allowing you to catch random snippets and watch as they gesture towards each other; they'll sit at campfires at night, cook meat at frying pans, or stir cauldrons; some can be seen fixing up their huts, or manning a forge; they eat, drink, smoke, and even go to the bathroom; they scrub the floors, and play musical instruments; they practice their swordsmanship and study literature; the list goes on. They also follow a realistic schedule, with NPCs going to sleep or congregating in taverns or around campfires at night. They even react to your presence and actions in a fairly realistic way: draw your weapon around them and they'll become defensive, drawing their weapons and telling you to lower yours; step in their huts and they come running to defend their property, weapons drawn, telling you to leave or they'll call the guards; stand in their way while they're walking and they'll tell you to move aside.

Even wild animals behave in a realistic way, with a lot of creatures visibly foraging or hunting for food -- scavengers peck at the dirt for bugs or whatever, and wolves hunt scavengers, showing that there's even an actual food chain within this world. Most wild beasts aren't hard-coded to aggro you on sight; if you get close, most of them will adopt a defensive state, growling and gesturing at you to try to scare you into leaving them alone, and will only attack if you don't back away. Many creatures will also go to sleep at night, allowing you to sneak up on them and get them jump on them. Furthermore, it makes sense why different creatures would be of different relative strength values, in part because of their physical designs and also because of that established food-chain -- you can tell just by looking at a lurker that it's going to tougher than a molerat, and likewise you can tell a snapper is going to be tougher than a wolf, or a shadowbeast tougher than a bloodhound. Meanwhile, enemies don't scale to your level; every enemy type has a fixed level and fixed stats, which really accentuates that feeling of climbing up the food chain, so to speak, as you get stronger and find yourself now able to handle tougher enemies that you previously stood no chance against.

It's equally impressive that every single NPC, from important named characters to generic filler characters, is fully voice-acted, and that you can talk to every single character in the game. Fully voiced characters wasn't a new thing in 2000, but it was usually only being done in smaller games with only a handful of characters -- not large, open-world RPGs with a hundred or more NPCs. In truth, the English voice acting isn't very good; some NPCs are putting on horrible accents, and there's no consistency to what type of accents the actors are using -- one guy sounds like he's Texan, another Irish, another Cajun, and I don't even know what's going on with Bromor. Besides that, the actors also mispronounce words or don't say certain names or words consistently, and you hear some easily recognizable voices get repeated between characters, like with the voice actor for Xardas also playing Saturas, Jack, and later the dragons. It's not all bad -- some of it's actually pretty good -- but the problems can distract from the immersion for some people. It never really bothered me, however, and I for one appreciate the use of full voice acting, since it helps to bring the characters and the world itself to life more, rather than using text or only voicing important NPCs.

Quests, likewise, also have a lot of immersive elements to them. Quests in video games, particularly open-world RPGs, can often feel like tedious chores completely detached from the world you're in -- shallow busy work to give the player more Things To Do -- but Gothic's quests don't really fall into this category. Even the simplest, most banal fetch quests are given meaningful context that makes you care about doing them. At the start of Gothic 2, for instance, you're given a quest from Lobart to farm turnips, which is obviously just a dumb fetch quest and might not seem like fun or exciting gameplay, but the city is under lockdown and you need a way in, and Lobart is offering to let you pose as one of his farmers by buying some clothes from him. Since you're starting from scratch and have no money, you can work for him to help lower the price -- there's a clear motivation for why you would want to help him farm his fields, and for why he would have you doing this quest. Later in the game, Lobart's wife Hilda falls ill, and Lobart sends you into town to fetch a healing potion (again, another utterly basic fetch quest) but it's a quest given to you by established characters you know and like -- these are people who literally fed you, clothed you, and gave you a place to sleep when you just starting out in the game. It's not just a random NPC whom you've never met before asking you, a random stranger for a favor like so many quests in other RPGs are.

The world design and user interface also do a good job of immersing you in the gameplay. You've got no mini-map constantly guiding you and showing you everything before you actually see it in person, and you don't even have access to a world map until you buy or steal an actual, physical map in the game world which you access from your inventory. The world map doesn't even show you the full detail of the world; it's more of a hand-drawn approximation much like a cartographer of that era would actually produce. When you pick up a quest, you don't get a GPS waypoint marker telling you where to go and spoiling the solution for you. Rather, the quest-giver will give you an in-world description of where you have to go, like "leave town through the north gate, turn right at the fork and follow the road until you get to some steps on your left, then take them up and turn left to head into the forest." What's more impressive is that the world has enough design and structure to it that you can actually follow these types of directions, using in-world signage and landmarks to navigate. When Pedro steals the Eye of Innos and you're tasked with finding him, for instance, you're told that someone saw him jump off the bridge and swim up the river; from there, you use in-world clues to track him down, like following the trail of dead novices who were sent after him, and asking bystanders if they've seen him pass by.

The population and distribution of creatures within the world also feels pretty natural. With few exceptions, the world isn't divided into "zones" tailored for specific levels that you progress through in a relatively linear fashion as you get stronger and move across the map, as if the world is just an artifice built around you. The only place where this really feels like the case is the starting area for each game, where the path from your starting point to the first major location has nothing but "young" and otherwise weaker versions of basic enemies to sort of ease you into the game a little bit. Otherwise, enemies just sort of exist wherever happens to make sense for them. Roads between major locations are usually pretty safe and only have a handful of pesky varmints like bloodflies, molerates, or scavengers, who pose more of a nuisance than any real danger, which makes sense since the roads are traveled frequently and that would keep the wildlife population there to a minimum. Lurkers can generally be found near water; shadowbeasts usually live in caves or dense forestry, basically wherever there's not much natural light; snappers are often found near rocky cliffs; field raiders show up near farmlands; harpies in places of high altitudes; minecrawlers in mine shafts; swampsharks in swamps; zombies and skeletons around graveyards; and so on. Enemies aren't just pasted around the map to fill out space or to create artificial challenges; they feel like an integral part of the world design, and just live within this world.

Different areas of the game thus have varying degrees of difficulty to explore, not just because of the type of enemies you typically find within those locations, but because of the sensible logic behind the actual world design. And even within those specific biomes, there are varying degrees of difficult enemies. The swamps behind the Swamp Camp, for instance, have an assortment of bloodflies (which are pretty easy to kill even for low-level players) and swamp sharks (which are much tougher enemies better saved for later in the game); forests will often have basic wildlife like wolves near the outer edges, and shadowbeasts deeper inside. In the context of an open-world game, this creates a really organic difficulty curve where you're free to go wherever you want, and most areas in the game will have enemies of some sort that are appropriate for whatever level you happen to be, without the game scaling enemies to your level, and with always some tougher enemy just around the corner. It allows you to create your own difficulty based on how you choose to explore the world and how far you push yourself to get past or around tough obstacles. As a new player you're generally safest on main roads and in the immediate surroundings of populated areas, but as you explore and become more familiar with the world you start to get a feel for the rules that govern what sort of enemies will appear where, and as you get stronger you can start to experiment with exploring areas that were previously too tough.

Gothic 2 makes a point of sending you into the orc-infested Valley of Mines way before you're strong enough to actually fight them, thereby creating an interesting gameplay scenario where you have to explore the map while finding ways to avoid or get around really tough enemies seemingly everywhere you look. It does a great job of making you actually feel like a weak and inexperienced fighter, which you're supposed to be at that point in the game, and further exemplifies the game's "show, don't tell" philosophy when it comes to tying narrative elements with gameplay mechanics. Instead of just telling us that the orcs pose some sort of theoretical threat and must be stopped, we get to see through our own eyes and first-hand experience just how powerful they really are, which makes the threat feel that much more dire and palpable while also setting a strong barometer for just how far you'll have to climb in order to fight them.

Improving your character is also done in an immersive way that ties your character-building to in-world actions. Instead of pressing a hotkey to bring up an abstract character window where you click an icon to learn a new skill, you have to seek out skill trainers -- NPCs who are knowledgeable experts and who will teach you what they know. When improving your melee combat skills, for instance, Scatty actually teaches you how to hold a sword properly, which you'll notice your character had been doing improperly all along. When you upgrade your melee combat again you're taught a specific stance to initiate an attack faster, and how to perform a spinning attack at the end of a combo. When learning to skin animals you need an expert to teach you where to start the cut and how to pull the skin off in one piece. You see, your character doesn't just magically improve; he learns through the context of the actual game world and his interactions within it, all in a way that makes logical and contextual sense. Other activities like crafting are also tied to in-world actions, rather than a generic interface. Forging a sword, for instance, requires you to heat up a sword blank at a forge, hammer it into shape on an anvil, dunk it in water to harden it, and then sharpen it on a grinding stone.

The combat system can seem clunky and unwieldy at first, but it too contributes to the great immersive design of Gothic. As previously mentioned, your attack animations change as you increase your character's combat skills, so there's a type of synergy where, as you get better at handling the combat system, your character also improves. Instead of just increasing damage values, Gothic actually shows that your character now has a greater understanding of how to fight with a particular type of weapon, which leads to being able to execute faster and longer combos, in addition to having a higher chance to land critical blows. Instead of just being an abstract change that only reflects in the behind-the-scenes math, it's a much more tangible, physically present change that affects actual in-world application.

It's also really cool that, when you knock a human enemy's health down to zero, they don't just die -- they just get knocked out for a bit, allowing you to take their weapon and anything else they might be carrying. Then, if you desire to kill them permanently, you have the option to execute a killing blow while they're down. It's a great system, since it lets you beat up NPC's without having to commit murder, which is something that you can't do in a lot of other, similar types of games, and is something that you would realistically be able to do in real life. So if someone is really ticking you off, or is bullying you, or simply has something you want and won't give it up, Gothic actually allows you to flex your muscles and teach them a lesson, and when they get back up they'll acknowledge the fact that you just kicked their butt. If, for instance, you beat up a guard in the Old Camp and then attack a merchant, and that guard sees you doing so, they'll turn their back and pretend not to notice because they don't want to get beat up again. It makes sense, and further helps to make these characters feel more alive when they have that aspect of self-preservation, and that you have the freedom to use a show of force on virtually every NPC who isn't an important part of the main quest.

Then you've got all the smaller details with the user interface, like the fact that you have a fairly unobtrusive heads-up display that only shows your health bar, and that of your current target -- no other distracting bells and whistles. When you take damage, the health bar doesn't even flash red, it just discreetly depletes. Switching weapons and spells is done by physically cycling through options in the game world, although you can just press a hotkey from the number row, though again there's no HUD showing you this. Dialogue screens use non-invasive camera angles and don't do anything crazy like artificially widening the aspect ratio with obnoxious black bars, or bringing up ridiculous dialogue selection windows -- it's just a tiny little window with subtitles and your options. Opening your inventory doesn't pause the game, and eating some food or drinking a potion to increase your health takes time to play out the animation -- you can't effectively pause the game and heal back up to full health in an instant.

There's plenty more I could talk about when it comes to why Gothic 1 and 2 are such great games, but I feel like these immersive design elements are some of their most important and unique qualities. While other games of this era, and even a lot of modern games, are content to resort to more "video gamey" designs that remind you you're playing a video game, perhaps in the interest of convenience (either for the player or the designers themselves), Gothic 1 and 2 took the extra steps to make sure that everything was as immersive as they could possibly be. The world operates in a logical and intuitive way, in terms of how society is built and what all the NPCs do within it, and the gameplay mechanics make sure that most of your basic gameplay functions play out through actual in-world actions so as not to pull you out of the world you're in by directing your attention towards an interface. Even to this day, after nearly two decades of industry advancements, Gothic 1 and 2 are some of the best and most immersive open-world RPGs ever created; even though they show their age in some ways, their immersive design is timelessly classic, and has yet to be replicated by any other game I've experienced.

Mods used in this playthrough/review include the latest SystemPack, PlayerKit, and DX11 enhancements, which you can find by following these links: Gothic 1, Gothic 2. I did not use the Riisis texture mod or L'Hiver, which are mentioned in these guides.