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Well, if any fears lingered that the Gothic 1 Remake would be a phoned-in retread, they should certainly be banished by the latest footage. This open world RPG looks even more ambitious than the original, boasting an “immersive and realistic world”, and making the frankly wild claim that it features “complex life simulation on a scale hardly ever seen before”.

As you explore the world—an “immense penal colony” (tee hee), trapped in a huge magical dome—NPCs will play out full routines each day, and the wilderness is populated by a variety of creatures with full natural behaviours. It’s all designed to give “the impression that this is a world that can exist without the player”.

THQ Nordic is talking just as boldly about quest design, saying the game will always react naturally to your choices, no matter how you choose to approach situations and even when you do things or in what order.

Honestly, this should probably all be taken with a pinch of salt. Developer Alkimia Interactive is a brand new studio with no track record in this kind of RPG design, and even the industry’s most experienced veterans would struggle to live up to the grandness of this pitch. The footage looks strong, with a lovely visual reimagining of the first game’s environments, but we’re not shown much of how all these very deep interactions are going to work, and character animation and combat both look pretty stiff.

But if the Gothic 1 Remake does end up being janky and over-ambitious but interesting and unique, that’ll certainly make it an appropriate successor to the cult classic original. Though I do raise an eyebrow at claims as hard to back up as “complex life simulation on a scale hardly seen before”, I’d always rather see a game reach for the stars than play it safe, and it’s particularly fun seeing this kind of bravery from what could have been a very conservative remake.