u/Numerous_Dealer_6949 — reddlx

Why a Risen Remake is the Key to Saving Gothic 3

G1R has been out for a month, the reviews are trending up, and G2R feels almost inevitable. But the real question nobody is talking about is what comes after that.

We all know that G3 was not shipped in the best way possible:

Its a massive game, even for today standards(2-4x the size of Skyrim)
It is half empty compared to G1 and G2,it is many times the size of G2, but density of stuff is noticeably poorer
The city/town conquest loop, one of G3's central features, is repetitive and poorly executed.
Story is half-finished
Varant and even Nordmar to some degree are empty place holders

I don't think Embracer/THQ Nordic would want to give them 6-8 years to make G3 Remake, especially after splitting Fellowship Entertainment. THQ Nordic cant afford 6-8 years of silence from its main IP

Even doing a retold story of Gothic 3 which would be many times smaller would take at least 6 years (since its almost like designing a new game) and that would be out of question after the already mentioned split.

I presume most of what they could get is 5 years + 0.5 for polishing at best, if they have product done by those 5 years.

Even to make decision like that Faithful vs Retold version is going to take time, time that is of essence for Publisher and New Embracer.

In the new climate, Gothic is going to become main IP, THE MAIN IP of New Embracer and THQ Nordic...They would need a new Gothic game every 5 year cycle.

So what could be done?

CONTEXT: With G1R, Risen is now officially a part of Gothic universe(Risen flags in Gothic Remake, etc) and that is not by the chance, but a brilliant marketing strategy. Risen 1 is popular with Gothic fans, plays kinda similar and even its story feels like it connects to G3 ending.

After finishing G2R, studio would probably have around ~60 employees

They can split two teams

Team A: Gothic 4: Chronicles of Faranga / Gothic 4: Tales of Faranga (Risen 1 Remake as Gothic spinoff from main story, better for marketing and franchise momentum)

40-45 people

4-5 Years to make

Team B: Gothic 3 Remake

15-20 people, The community patch authors are an untapped resource Alkimia has direct access to. The community that maintained Gothic 3 for 15+ years documented every bug, every broken quest, etc.

Pre-production

This way Alkimia can make new Gothic/Risen game while working on Gothic 3 pre-production for 4-5 years without any pressure from publisher.

In that 4-5 years pre-production they can:

Discuss about potential of Faithful Remake vs Retold,
Fully design and prototype the new city conquest system (the single most important problem to solve),
Build a narrative bible and full story structure,
Think about what to do with Varant and Nordmar emptiness, if they want to go for Faithful remake they would probably go for Myrtana+Nordmar as Main game and Varant as DLC(like NOtR for G2),
Develop the world density systems,
many other things.

In the mean time Team A would work on G4(Risen 1 Remake) which is around the same size as G2, maybe even less. G4 would work as R&D for G3R of some kind, Alkimia can develop systems that are missing for G3.

When Gothic 4 ships and 40 people rotate over, G3 doesn't start from zero. It starts from a solved design with a proven prototype.

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u/Numerous_Dealer_6949 — 19 hours ago

▲ 28 r/worldofgothic

Embracer group split and Gothic's future

As mention in May this year Embracer is going to split itself into two companies:

Source: https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/embracer-announces-plan-to-split-into-2-companies-as-tomb-raider-and-lotr-spun-off/

Fellowship Entertainment - which is going to get almost every AAA and High AA IPs of Embracer group like KCD, LOTR, Metro, Tomb Raider, Remnant, Darksiders and more

Gothic is staying with THQ Nordic and is going to be Tier 1 IP together with likes of Titan Quest and 2 more games.

As we know official sales number in the first week were 500K+ copies sold, while the steam part was ~360k copies and consoles 140k

right now steam sales are somewhere in between 430k and 600k( reported by third-party websites) I will be conservative and say a ~480K and if consoles take same % as they were in the official numbers, Gothic should have sold around 680k copies by now on all platforms.

Since THQ Nordic wont have many IPs capable of selling those numbers of copies, I think we can expect G2 Remake to be greenlight on next directors meeting. With it being one of top IPs of THQ Nordic they are probably going to be patient with it, so i expect more marketing and more polished release in the future.

Regarding the official THQ Nordic YouTube comment, it's worth noting that community managers never post publicly without prior PR approval and deliberate intent behind their words. A comment like that carries institutional weight, and should be read as a positive signal for the future of the Gothic franchise. Had the sales numbers fallen short of expectations, the company would have either stayed silent or issued a carefully neutral statement along the lines of 'We remain focused on supporting the current title.' The fact that they chose to engage enthusiastically speaks volumes about where Gothic stands internally at THQ Nordic right now."

u/Numerous_Dealer_6949 — 13 days ago

▲ 58 r/worldofgothic

Reason for excitement

We've come a long way to get here over the past 25 years. I remember it like it was yesterday, watching my dad play Gothic over his shoulder when I was a kid.

Many of us were skeptical about the remake and whether it would succeed. While nothing is certain until we actually see the state it launches in, the statistics are looking very good so far.

Sites like Gamalytic and PlayTracker, which track wishlist numbers and sales FOR STEAM ONLY, agree that around 120k pre-orders have been sold on Steam alone (based on data up to yesterday). The game has also entered the top 3 on Steam's Global "Top Sellers" list.

The number of wishlists is at 3.1 million, which puts us in 3rd place on Steam's "Top Wishlists" chart. We are currently doing better than CoD: MW4.

With an estimated budget of between $10–$20 million, the game needs no more than 700k copies sold to make a small profit of $2–$6 million (assuming the maximum budget) and likely secure a Gothic 2 Remake.

Other data is available in the images.

Edit: As someone mentioned in chat earlier, the site suddenly dropped the wishlist count(Gothic is still 3rd on wishlist tho).

Edit 2: As I've learned, this isn't a drop in interest, but rather a bug in Steam's API. Due to the massive volume of purchases, it sent huge amounts of data that the tracking algorithm simply couldn't process properly. This only affected the projected number of copies sold for Month 1 and the wishlist count.

u/Numerous_Dealer_6949 — 1 month ago