Open testing of a fan-made implementation of Gothic I on the Unreal Engine began on Steam last night. According to a post by THQ Nordic’s Community Manager on Reddit – THQ Nordic, as well as Alkimia Interactive, are not involved in the development of this project. THQ Nordic doesn’t want the game files to be distributed in an uncontrolled way, so they have suggested publishing a test version on Steam. The lead developer of the project is Dmitri Kaluzhnyj, and the work can be observed on the group on VKontakte created three years ago.
How to play?
As we can read in the developers’ latest post, the original Gothic I Classic on Steam is required for this. On this platform, in the library of installed games, right-click on “Gothic 1 Classic” and click “Properties”. Then, on the left-hand side of the window that appears, click on the “Beta” tab, and on the right-hand side enter the access code, i.e. “TheColonyisNotUnreal”, and click on the “Check code” button.
Then select ‘unrealbeta – Unreal Beta’ from the drop-down above and exit the properties window. At the bottom of the Steam interface, we can see that the download has started and then the installation will begin. Later, when launching Gothic I Classic from the game library, select “Play Unreal Community Remaster”. To save time, you can also tick “Always use this option”.
Gameplay
This is a test version, so the description of the gameplay, will mainly be a description of the bugs. When starting the game, you will see a meatbug walking back and forth in the bottom left corner. The game uses a new font and starts in English by default. In the system taskbar, we no longer see the iconic “Gothic.exe”, but only the word “Gothic” and the logo of the Unreal Engine used. After the language change to Polish, no Polish characters are displayed and some subtitles are in Russian.
The intro does not play, but we are greeted by Diego. In the top right corner we can see a shortcut of the current quest from the diary, which in my opinion adds to the immersion. The camera is positioned differently during dialogue than in the original. On top of that, the character animations are different and they move as if they have their shoulders locked. I do, however, like the new version of the magic barrier, after which, like a soap bubble, magical discharges ripple out.
During the dialogue, I found that when I selected the Polish language version, the German dubbing played, so I switched the language version to English. I like the new interface, but there are shortcomings. You can’t, for example, assign a jump key, and graphics and image editing is limited, at least compared to GD3D11.
Another problem is collision with objects, already taking place in the air. This is probably caused by the different mechanics of jumping and climbing. This remaster also does not use the original music system, so at certain points the music changes every now and then if we walk left and right.
FIGHT
In battle, the first challenge proved to be a meatbug. The main problem was hitting it, which was even more difficult than in the original, so I quickly went to the Abandoned Mine to get a pickaxe. The next opponent was a scavenger. Despite the easy difficulty level, I had to flee because of the difficult character control during the fight – but maybe that’s just a matter of habit.
During the run, I noticed another problem, which was the nail in the coffin for me during testing. Or rather, I didn’t notice, because it started to get almost completely dark. The burning fire hardly illuminated the surrounding space. I couldn’t even use a hand torch or use the menu to change the settings so that I didn’t have to walk purely by feel and from memory. I did, however, make it to Diego’s bed and, after getting some sleep, I was able to continue playing. However, all these bugs made the gameplay too tedious for me.
Unreal Engine
From the start, I wondered what version of the Unreal Engine this implementation was using. Gothic Remake has already been ported to Unreal Engine 5. I probably found out the answer when I was kicked out of the game due to a “LowLevelFatalError”. According to the error description, the engine is version number 4. Like the iconic “gothic.exe”, there are no “Access Violation” errors.
SUMMARY
For the time being, it is just a curiosity with a lot of potential. Despite the bugs found, it is worth noting that it took a lot of skill and time to create this implementation. It is possible that it will become a fan-made “Gothic Remake” for orthodox fans. To be playable, however, it requires testing, in which we can take part and share the bugs found with the developers on the aforementioned group on VKontakte.
