Gothic 3 Preview

Piranha Bytes is tweaking creature intelligence in order to create a true to life in-game ambiance. AI-controlled creatures respond appropriately to the world around them. For instance, during your quests you may come across the so-called Hornrammers, peaceful beings that don't look for trouble. However, if they are provoked, they are extremely dangerous and could harm anybody or anything standing in their immediate vicinity. So the trick is to use this to your advantage, and make the Hornrammers go towards your enemies (if you don't want to fight them yourself). On the other hand, you can lure larger creatures into a city dominated by the Orcs. Huge T-Rexes can be found in certain places and can easily be "persuaded" to enter the city and scare the living crap out of the Orcs.

The world has changed. Orcs rule the mainland now...

This looks like a suitable place to retire. Maybe not.

The game features a new graphics engine called the Genome Engine. Apparently, this new technology has done wonders for the in-game surroundings. When compared to Gothic 2, things have improved immensely. Every area has been meticulously designed and furnished with plenty of details in the backdrop. Piranha is constantly working to create a realistic world, so a lot of hard work was invested into making areas such as forests, deserts and snowy regions. Sadly, we'll have to wait a bit more to see how some of these sections look and feel like in practice. Character models and creature models appear to have received a radical make over. To illustrate: models in Gothic 2 were supplied with about 1,200 polygons, whereas in Gothic 3 each character includes 12,000 polys. We've learnt that motion capture was also used to bring some of these characters to life. When all is said and done, the visuals will clearly be one of the game's strong points.

The official website of the game offers a few samples of early tunes from the soundtrack. Listening to the first two tracks leads me to believe that we're also in for some decent game audio. Although I must point out that I wasn't all that pleased with the quality of dialogue in Gothic 2. Hopefully, that will change this time around.

There was much debate as to when the game will hit the stores, but for now the Q1 (or Q2) 2006 launch is the safest bet. According to the developers, there will most probably be a demo version of Gothic 3, prior to the game's release and they also specified that the Gothic 3 will probably ship on one DVD. There are rumors floating around that the developers are planning a console port, but for now the PC version remains their priority. (Unless they get a wink from MS, in which case they'll leap to the opportunity to make Gothic 3 a 360 exclusive title. -Ed)

In any case, I think we're in for a pretty hefty slice of RPG delight. If you enjoy a good RPG, Gothic 3 should definitely be amongst the top titles of your wish-list for the following year. (Also on Vader's wish-list: Chaps with Velcro on the thighs, hip boots and a big bag of Sheep-chow. -Ed)