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The gamers yearn for the mines. Specifically, the gamers yearn for the sandbox mining colony of Gothic, the janky and completely beloved 2001 RPG that’s getting remade as I write this. They yearn for it so much that its demo version has gotten a full-on update you can play right now.
“There’s a new demo in town! Developer Alkimia Interactive has been closely monitoring and analyzing player feedback since the release of the Gothic 1 Remake demo—the so-called Nyras Prologue—in February. More than 15,000 players completed the survey, with even more feedback coming in via social media, Steam forums, and the official Discord server,” said Alkimia in an update posted alongside a mini making-of documentary about its work on the demo.
Gothic was a seminal, vital first RPG for many players—especially in Europe and the UK—because of its ambitious sandbox world environment and different ways that characters could make their way through the story. This demo, released to a lot of attention during this year’s Steam Next Fest, is a prologue about secondary character from the original game.
The precise changelog for the demo was detailed on THQ Nordic’s website, with the most salient change from player feedback being faster movement, pick up, and loot animations that overall make the character feel more agile.
In the video about the update, Alkimia developers also acknowledge a pervasive bug where hits won’t register even though your sword goes right through some goblin’s face. (This is my least favorite bug.)
When we learned more about it last year, PC Gamer’s Robin Valentine noted that the Gothic 1 Remake looks “even more wonderfully over-ambitious and janky than the original game.”
You can find Gothic 1 Remake Demo: Nyras Prologue on Steam, where it’s free.
