THQ Nordic has surprised Gothic fans with a flurry of news about the classic RPG franchise. The last mainline game from Piranha Bytes came out all the way back in 2006, with a spin-off in 2010, so imagine the surprise when THQ Nordic dropped a a teaser trailer and a playable demo for a new game. Well OK, it’s not new, it’s more classic Gothic with a new coat of paint. The 2001 classic is apparently getting a full redo, but there’s a catch.
The company only release the teaser demo to get a picture of fan interest. The original franchise had a strong cult following over the years. Creator Piranha Bytes built an impressive and wondrous world, filled with interesting characters and deadly enemies. And though by modern standards it’s pretty dated, in both gameplay and visuals, there are no doubt some fans who want to see an updated version come to fruition.
Check it out in the trailer below. There’s about two hours of playable content in the demo, go check it out for yourself on Steam.
But the trailer isn’t why people are freaking out, oh no. A new teaser demo for the remake has just landed on Steam. The team behind the project really wants to gauge fan interest, so here we are. THQ isn’t calling this a remaster, as it looks like they’re aiming to rebuild the core Gothic experience. And it’s more in line with a remake because of this. The game is getting completely rebuilt using Unreal Engine 4, with the original story and setting being the core of the new version.
So when will the full game be out? Well, assuming there’s enough interest seen in reaction to this demo, THQ Nordic still has a lot of work to do. “Quite some time,” THQ writes in the announcement. “We will only start full production if the community demands a Gothic Remake. In order to do so, we will need to grow the development team and rebuild Gothic from scratch.”
