The horror. Terrible ,terrible game,and its even worst as a Gothic sequel. You just go and smash things (things that don't fight back,just waiting to get killed), stupid fetch quests...

Stupid story, boring too easy combat,stupid characters... stupid game...

This game would have received a 7 from me if they hadn't had 'Gothic' in the title. Gothic means a lot to RPG fans, and this game just stole the setting and slapped on a shallow, brown-yellow exterior that made me cringe while playing it. Gone is everything that made Gothic games great in this iteration, avoid at all costs.

When I played it for the first time, I was more disappointed than I thought I will. Spellbound did really bad job on that one.. It is a merely a continuation of previous Gothics. Only two good things that I am able to come up with are the graphics and improved fighting style (Compared to Gothic 3). Improved doesn't mean good though.. Most of opponents we face during the game we won't have any problems with. Character faces not only repeat often, but people all seem the same even when talking to them. I must admit I didn't beat the game, but I've played it for plenty of hours and I must say it is really monotonous.. The quests we do are boring and nothing we never seen.. "Go there, collect this.. kill him/it/them.. bring me that.. find me some of these.. talk to him.." As far as I've seen the storyline, I completely didn't like it. Bringing up some characters from old Gothics is only as much as it relates to previous series. Oh, this, and creatures from Gothic series. The world isn't really interesting to explore at all. We often are forced to visit caves and all of them look a lie and have the same schematics. We enter the cave, do a circle and come out just where we entered, only that we need to jump down. They made exits high so players wouldn't be able to go this way after entering the cave. And in each damn cave it's the same story. The world isn't open anymore, we unlock locations. We don't have NPC as teachers to increase our stats, we just choose what we want to improve after leveling up. Bah! We don't even need a smithy to make a sword. We can forge one standing in the middle of swamp. Same for potions any anything else. Makes the game way too simple, and makes it seem like developers made this game for little kids, for which previous Gothics were too complicated. One thing I also don't understand is that we are able to choose "American" version of colours and textures which make game to seem.. More.. Friendly.. Less.. Dark and evil. This really is ridiculous.. Well.. I played the game for a bit.. I was forcing myself to play it, hoping that it will get more interesting later down, but it didn't. This game disappointed me greatly, and is nothing like previous Gothics. I didn't like Gothic 3 when it was out to begin with, but Arcania... Arcania made me appreciate Gothic 3 now. Arcania made me realise how great continuation of Gothic 2, Gothic 3 is. After I seen how bad can continuation of Gothic 3 be. Gothic 4 just isn't fun. I am giving it 3, since I enjoyed it a little slightly bit at the very beginning. But the more I've played my hate for this game started to grow and grew more and more. It's just a waste of time. Let me do a quick summary. Pros: -Umm.. Graphics? -Soundtrack isn't bad.. Cons: -Monotonous. -Too easy, even on hardest difficulty. -It just isn't the same anymore... I rather call it Arcania, than Gothic.â… Expand

Hack and slash RPG. There is no depth, poor storyline and terrible plot development. Game not even a challenge. This game is literally carried by the weight of the Gothic title.

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. After years of waiting after quite bad Gothic 3 we finally get our hands on Gothic 4: Arcania! But... is that really what we were waiting for? You are not free in deciding what you want to do, the whole game is a tunnel built for you. You move from one location to another in search for more quests and loot. NPCs look the same, you cannot feel of them as of real human beings, they don't inspire you for anything. Quests are really primitive as well as dialogs. Combat system is fine, battles are dynamic, but AI is I personally tried to play as warrior, my friend played as an archer, he said the final fight was hell. Very first version is not balanced in item qualities and prices. Crafting is really primitive compared to previous games in the series. After Gothic 3, which was a shame for company made it, I really expected for much more. This game fails on every front, please consider before you buy it.… Expand

Been playing since Gothic: 2, never have I seen such a terrible release in RPG games, this is by far the worst, extremely buggy, all the elements that have made Gothic 2 a success have been taken out, graphics are incredible, although this requires high end machines, a 0/10 maybe JoWooD might pay attention in the future and listen to the hardcore fans that badly want the Gothic gameplay back.

the story is cliche the gameplay is terrible you have the walk to much in this game. graphics and music are nice tough. in summary this game is an insult to the gothic franchise and RPGs all together

As a fan of Gothic 1, 2 and (somewhat) 3, I didn't enjoy the game. From the start, it was failing one by one all expectations I had for a game promoted under "Gothic" brand. Among the major disappointments:

1) The hero is a wuss. Gothic games are traditionally built around rugged, self-reliant, morally ambiguous character. In Arcania, the character is a pathetic simpleton, whose life ambition is (you gotta be kidding me) is to get married. Also featuring charming looks of a stereotypical junior office manager. 2) The dialogs are a rip-off. RPG computer game is not supposed to be exactly a work of high art, but *dialogs are supposed to make sense*. Characters in Arcania drivel. Dialogs in the game are built from trivial statements, repetitions and linearity.

3) Limited freedom. For example, in Gothic it was possible to attack any NPC in the game, usually with dire consequences (e.g. the whole town population became hostile). Psychologically, it makes the player feel responsible for his actions, which is an important part of game atmosphere. In Arcania, you are unable to harm NPC, unless he or she was specifically designated as hostile by the game. 4) Character development is a sham. It could be a minor point, if the game was good otherwise. For example, recent Mass Effect 2 also has a greatly simplified character development, but it is still a great RPG. For Arcania, however, it is yet another nail into the coffin.

5) Poor performance on Windows XP. The saying is that the game was optimized for DX 11. On WinXP, with minimal configurations, it looks much worse than, say, Risen and runs slower. This problem is *not* fixed by the first performance patch (distributed shortly after the release). Probably, it will get better with subsequent patches. However, until then I strongly recommend against using the game under Windows XP.

Don't get me wrong, though. The game is not all bad, it is just a huge disappointment for most of the old Gothic fans. If you are new to the series, you may like it. The graphics is awesome and the combat system is not bad at all. If you are a fan of Gothic series, try something else. Risen is real good unless you have played it already.

In general, Arcania seems like a step towards casual gaming, of which I strongly disapprove. It's certainly a bad idea to make a casual game from an epic, atmospheric RPG such as Gothic. Good casual games are many, good RPGs are scarce. Now it's one less.… Expand

Ok, where to start... bought the game and well, disappointing is the first word that comes to mind. It feels unfinished, almost rushed. The ingredients of a great game are there, but it just doesn't deliver on any level as an RPG should. Combat is a basic hack n slash with some archery and spells thrown in, the story is weak and hardly immersing at best and the graphics and visuals are filled with jaggies and shadow stutters. This isn't the worst part. When playing an RPG, immersion can outweigh weak visuals and combat... but the story along with the terrible voice acting and horrid facial expressions while talking take immersion and throw it in the garbage. The only thing that i can give to Gothic 4 is the art direction, which is let down by the game itself. If you're looking for an RPG to relieve the cravings, Gothic 4 just doesn't cut it.… Expand

I am really sad on Piranha Bytes behalf when seeing how this game takes the Gothic name and stomps it into the mud. This game is proof that Jowood did not care about the Gothic series and what PB built up. Arcania is a awful attempt on being anything remotely similar to Gothic, and as a general rpg game it is really just bad on all levels. Graphics is ok, but something is just plain wrong about how everything looks. Be it the movement of vegetation or the waves in the sea. The shadows cast on the ground as the sun crosses over head during the day moves in large steps. It looks very strange. Sometimes during game play I got sick because the trees moved way too much, also in a very strange way. The game world itself is extremely linear and not much passion and imagination seems to have been in use when crafting it. Not all is bad with it though, but most could have been more exciting. The character you control has an incredible ability to get stuck on 2 cm high stuff everywhere. It takes away from the immersion many times. Dialog is obviously written to cater to 10 to 12 year olds and is voice acted by unsuspecting random people pulled of the street I suspect. It is the worst acting I have EVER heard in a game and there are many bad ones out there. The main storyline is weak. The side quests are all very silly. Combat is just hacking away with a weapon in the same way thousands of thousands of times. No change whatsoever. Loot is just rubbish and everything you can pick up in the gameworld is highlighted and has hovering insects etc above them. Wow, finding stuff in the game is very rewarding! Building the character is as appealing as the personality of the emo shepherd you control. Yes, an EMO SHEPHERD BOY is the hero in GOTHIC 4! How disturbingly wrong is that. The teleporters in the game only works in pairs, so you can not go to any teleporter you want, but to the one the one you use is linked with. Absolutely useless and quite shocking tbh. Also some of the teleporter are so close to each other that running the distance is faster than the loading times when using the teleport. This is game making at high level here! The lockpicking minigame on chests are absolutely pointless and stupid. The worst I have seen in any game. That something that stupid can make it in to a game in 2010 is proof that the developers had no idea what they were doing. There are many more awful things in this game but I get depressed just writing about it. Oh, how I miss the excitement I felt when playing the first 3 Gothic games for the first time. Playing Gothic 4 just makes me feel sad, annoyed and most of all I feel insulted. How stupid do the developer and Jowood think the gamers are? Good thing Piranha Bytes are still making games!… Expand

The only thing in this game that's not bad are the visuals, but that is hardly enough to save this stinking pile of cr**. Avoid at all cost! 1 point for the visuals. None for the rest.

As a fan of Gothic 3 I was very dissapointed with this game, it`s just not good. I do not have much more than that to say about it. Do not buy this game unless you get it almost for free. I`m not the one who likes to say I`ve wasted my money, but I surely did when I bought this game for 50 euros. I gave it a 5 out of 10 because I did somewhat enjoy it, but at a minimal. It is also short and nothing like gothic at all!… Expand

Bad game. Too much linear game I've never seen. We are kids or what, that everywhere must be only one way to complete quest? Also there is very low story. Biggest fail is graphic. Shadows and movement of trees... sorry but I must laugh... Vsync and antialiasing is missing so my eyes are hurted from that chewed edges. Fight system is also fail... just poor Hack & Slash. Sorry 3/10

Terrible terrible game.

The dialogues are childish, the combat is just simple button mashing and the best words to describe the game world are limited, linear, restricted and boring. I am extremely disappointed with this title. It's far worse than even Gothic 3. The Gothic series is dead. Long live Gothic.

Very disappointed in this game after playing the first 3 Gothic games. The fighting system was a lot of fun and the graphics were amazing but the story line was completely predictable, way too short and not anything like the previous games. Really regret buying this game. A lot like Risen if anyone has played that, but with even less ability to choose your own way you want to go. If you liked the previous Gothic games then you should expect about 1/3 as much fun and you won't be disappointed. If you are like me and expect a good game you will just get angry so save the money and don't buy it.… Expand