Gothic 3 Demo

The Gothic franchise made quite the name for itself over the years, thanks to the new way of looking at the RPG genre and the different mechanics implemented into the gameplay. Thus, beside the fact that you played from a third-person perspective and the combat was in real time, the games also had a very open world for you to explore at will, with a multitude of side quests and a heavily populated environment that always offered a challenge.

In this third installment of the series, called simply Gothic 3, the story takes you further inland, toward the human kingdom and away from the island you risked your life saving in the first two games. Here, things are not as joyful as they once were, because the orcs decided to have their way with the villages and basically start a full scale uprising, which ended with very few free people left. Hence, most of the humans are either slaves to the orcs, or mercenaries fighting for them, and none of the options seem very appealing, for the obvious reasons.

Your character is the same one from the previous installments and he gets to choose his fate, as well as eventually decide the outcome of the entire war, depending on the path he chooses to follow. In order to overthrow the orc overlords, humans have created a secret rebellion, which constantly tries to gather more people and get strong enough to rise against the tyrants. In the game, your role is to choose whether you want to join the rebellion, or simple work as a mercenary for the orcs as well and crush mankind's legacy.

Although the game has received a lot improvements, the core gameplay elements are still there, especially when it comes to how the action develops over the course of the story. Thus, you are given a vague idea about what your end goal is right from the beginning, which is to meet with Xardas and see what he has to say about the current situation.

Along the way, you can deviate from the main plot, though, and make your own story as you go. No one stops you from going anywhere on the map as soon as you step foot into the game, although the enemies that await you in distant lands may not give you too many chances of survival if you go there unprepared. Hence, the freedom that made the Gothic games so attractive has remained, along with many other gimmicks you can still enjoy.

On the other hand, there are some things that remained but shouldn't have, such is the case of the combat system. Despite the fact that it was marginally improved, it is still almost impossible to fully control and erratic at times, making it very difficult to notice when you have gained proficiency with a certain weapon, because the attack motions remain the same regardless of your level or expertise.

In the end, Gothic 3 may not be exactly what everyone wanted it to be, since it kept all the bad things intact as well and made almost no significant effort in improving the annoying combat mechanics. Other than that, the universe remained just as magical as always and it is a real pleasure to explore it, not to mention the fact that you can influence the fate of the entire world with your actions and have some fun while doing so.