Alkimia Interactive has announced that an updated version of the Gothic Remake demo is now available on Steam. The demo wasn't very well-received when it first became available during February's Steam Next Fest, but the developers have improved it based on the community's feedback. For example, Alkimia was originally inspired by the slow movement of a game like Red Dead Redemption 2, but players communicated that they'd prefer something more reactive.
We see a lot of things we didn't have so much on the radar, for example, like the movement in the game. Our main reference really was Red Dead Redemption 2, which is a game that has a very slow pacing in terms of movement. The clear feedback, though, was people like it more reactive, and that certain actions that are repeated over and over again should be rather quick, which means not realistic.
In the Demo specifically, there were certain elements that were not working out. The Demo is just what it is. It's not representative of the full Gothic Remake game. The Demo is locked at a certain time of day, so you obviously have just no visual variety. There’s no weather in there — it’s always sunny, right? You see one specific weather and daylight condition all the time. It's not doing justice to the full game.
Everybody has to realize also that, of course, the Gothic Remake demo has daily routines, but they are nowhere near as detailed as in the original. And of course it has some monsters, but like, of course you won't see how monsters beyond that react. You only see very few characters, and you don't see them in a camp, where they are actually living, where they have a real daily routine.
They are kind of like all in an extreme situation because they are trapped. You should get an idea of what can happen with progression, but it was maybe a little too fast. So players might get the wrong idea of like, oh, in the Gothic Remake you will actually progress faster than you will do. But no, the pacing is still very much the same, the power curve.
And then another big problem of the combat in the demo was the hit sounds. There were just clear bugs in there. Sometimes, you would think you'd land a hit with the sword, because the models touch each other, but it wouldn't recognize the hit, so it gives you this awkward feeling of like, oh, the combat system is bad.
But it's a glitch, it's a bug. It's something we'll address and fix. We're not saying like, hey, all is good, right? There's a lot of stuff we need to improve, much, much further and continue to work on until the very end.
Alkimia Interactive has been working on the Gothic Remake for more than five years. At Gamescom, we spoke with the developers and learned about some of the planned changes and additions (such as around ten hours of new content).
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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