During the first day of PGA 2025 in Poznań in Poland, the creators of Gothic Remake held an hour-long meeting with fans of the series. It consisted of a presentation of the new gameplay and another episode of Making Of, this time on the subject of Polish dubbing production. After that, it was time for a Q&A session, during which members of Alkimia Interactive answered questions from fans.
Thanks to user Bezimienny111, we received an amateur recording from the audience, which allowed us to prepare a transcript of the conversation. A transcript with the small fixes, since they were talking, so the interlocutors hadn’t to be very pricese. Alkimia Interactive was represented by Game Director Reinhard Pollice and Video Editor & Polish Dubbing Director Mateusz Pawłowski.
Questions & Answers
Participant 1. I was already trying out the game and there was the battle playground or something like that, right? I wanted to ask if it would be at all in your plans to have it released on Steam as well as the playable teaser before.
Reinhard Pollice: It’s definitely not planned. But we’ve heard this request now quite a few times, so we’ll think about it, but I can’t confirm it right now. So, at the moment, it’s remains an exclusive for PGA. So, take the time and play it.
Mateusz Pawłowski: So, sorry, but I will add some about that. The problem is that’s a two-edged sword. Everyone wants to play it on Steam and play it at home, but it’s demo constructed for events. It’s short. It gets repetitively very fast. There’s not no story. I don’t know that people will have much fun with it at home. on PGA is something different.
(Participant 1 continues) The system itself let’s say it’s very similar to the original one. It’s very original. Let’s say it’s tremendous. Don’t get me wrong. However, it takes a learning curve. I think to be honest I had some you know I have to do some learning before walls killed me like multiple times over. So in order to you know prepare yourself for the game I suppose that would be something to you know test out, see what you can do, how you can start the game, with what game play you want to use before the actual release so that would be my idea of it. But I understand that you know it’s early access and so but it’s tremendous yeah I really enjoy that.
RP: Yeah, I think that in the final game you will get a piece of every sort of play style like in the original and we also this time made sure that you can try out magic earlier that you it’s not just an end game mechanic because we feel magic we actually spent so much time working on all these transformations and cool magic abilities so fast important that you kind of like have a glimpse of what could be a magic game play earlier. And yeah, I think for us again immersion was important. So you should really make a conscious choice about what you play. So we feel I mean I hear you that like trying out the mechanic. It’s useful. But I think the final game, the main game will give you enough of introduction for all of this.
Participant 2: I got a question about the game being playable on smaller PCs, handsome PCs like Steam Deck or something like that. Do you have any plans for optimalization of the game to be playable on the small PCs? Steam Deck.
RP: So Steam Deck, I think with the current version of Steam Deck, we are not I mean it’s kind of playable, but it doesn’t run really well. I think that goes back to like the Steam Deck is kind of old. But I think you know if you have like for example the new one from Xbox the ROG Ally I think it’s very will be very playable. So we make a lot of effort to optimize it to have insights into performance and I think if you have a mediumspec PC or handheld you can play the game really well. I’m not saying that means constant 60 FPS, but between 30 and 60 FPS.
Participant 3: So, during the launch of the game, will you be able to immediately mod it or will you have to wait some amount of time?
RP: So there is we are using a scripting language um called Angel Script1 that works really well with Unreal Engine and this part you can immediately mod. You can’t mod everything with it, but you can alter like AIs you could even like do basic quests with it. So in a sense, yes. But I have to admit also we will probably not have the time to prepare the tools and documentation really for having everything ready at launch.
But in general, the support will be will be there. And after release, we definitely want to release more information, documentation, and potentially tools on how to work with mods because we know that modding kept Gothic alive and it’s still going strong. And we appreciate that a lot. I was myself a modder for Gothic. I never shipped the mod, so don’t even start looking. But yeah, so we definitely want to continue and pass on the torch.
Participant 4: I have one question about equipment in the remake. Equipment will be the same in original version or we will have some new for example kinds of weapons or for example shields to battle or will be one to one like the original version?
RP: So there are no shields in the game. This is a reason because in the lore in the scenario where the war against the orcs a lot of the really useful weapon have to be used to fight the orcs. So no weapons for the Valley of Mines because that’s not necessary. There there aren’t really new item categories, but there are some new items and also we extended a lot the crafting system with also new things that you can craft and learn. So there’s definitely something useful to get there.
And in terms of item and equipment, one of our main aim was also to get the economy in a good state so that it feels always like you are not too powerful in terms, that you own too much ore and can buy everything. And also what’s also new in terms of equipment is we have an armor customization, armor upgrade system. So it’s in the original you only had like kind of like a guard armor like the lower, mid and high tier and here you can upgrade certain parts that both have a visual and a start effect.
Participant 5: What about the pickpocketing?
RP: It’s there it will be in the game. Yes.
Participant 5 continues: But looks like in Gothic 1, Gothic 2 or another way?
RP: So in the classic Gothic games it was part of the dialogue system and it’s not because we felt this is not the right immersion. So it’s actually you don’t have to go in the dialogue scene. Uou can trigger it from outside, but you have to watch that you’re not seen that you have the right pickpocketing skill so it is a little bit changed, but it’s also not a mini game.
We added the lockpicking mini game, because it felt also realistic. Again immersion is important, but for lockpicking I think it would have felt immersive.
Participant 6: I was wondering If we can expect an Easter egg for Archolos mod?
MP: Yeah, I did some call backs. I don’t know about them yet, but by the end I did even in dubbing. I knew that would come.
Participant 7: I was wondering are you guys able totell like how many more hours it will will it take to finish the main story. Just the main story compared to the original?
RP: I think it’s a good question. I think it’s roughly the same, maybe a little bit more, like 5 hours more because I think also it we tried to fill the gaps in between also with maybe not new quests, but also new encounters, new loot, new ways to explore. So the world is way more detailed. So it invites to explore more and there’s also exploration should be rewarded. Yeah. So it’s I would say a little more.
Summary
The project manager is considering releasing the latest demo, Combat Playground. So if any of you don’t get to play it at PGA 2025, you may still get to see it. All we can do is follow the news from the studio and remind the developers that we would like to see it on Steam.
It looks like we won’t be able to mod the entire game right after its release. We will be able to edit scripts, create simple quests, and change character AI, but we will have to wait for additional tools and documentation. The developers currently have other priorities. They definitely still have a lot to improve in the game itself.
The entire Q&A you can listen on the below video.
- As Game Director mentioned on the World of Gothic forum in February this year (ed. note). ↩︎
