May 17th, 2008

Gothic 4 Screenshots!

Today I have to confess something - while I enjoyed RPGs like Arcanum, Neverwinter Nights, Heroes of Might and Magic and Diablo A LOT, the Gothic series didn't impress me at all. In fact, I got bored after playing a few hours each of the 3 Gothic games released so far, but at least I had someone in the house who loves it, so the money for the purchase weren't "thrown off the window " at all. Expected to be released in 2010, Gothic 4 will come with a lot of changes, but first concept art pictures and even screenshots are already available!

Gothic 4 Rainy Beach

First of all, you should know that Gothic 4 will be called Arcania: A Gothic Tale, and Piranha Bytes won't be in charge any longer. In fact, the German developer that was behind the first 3 titles won't be involved at all in Arcania, because this time a German-French developer, Spellbound, will be the one to develop the universe around the same Nameless Hero as before.

The decision to move away from Piranha Bytes has a logical explanation, according to Dreamcatcher's global product marketing manager, Brian Gladman. "You could take a blank disc and put it in a paper bag and put Gothic 4 on the bag and you'd sell half a million units in Germany. The passion for the Gothic universe is at that level…The attachment to Piranha Bytes in German-speaking countries would be akin to the attachment to a BioWare in North America. Anything that Piranha Bytes does is gold in Germany, whereas here it's irrelevant. The decision to go with a new developer for this one was not taken lightly but taken with an eye to really reaching out," he said.

Gothic 4 Landscape

There are a lot of things left to find out about Arcania: A Gothic Tale, and you can bet we'll be there to tell you all about it, as soon as news emerge. Speaking for myself, I hardly wait to see first gameplay movies, because the screenshots look astonishing, as you can see in the two ones from this this article.