Gothic 2 is experiencing a rebirth right now: the huge Archolos mod makes Peter feel more excited about the role-playing game than he has in years.
What makes The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos a great total conversion? No, it’s not just the amazing fact that 20 years later it brings back that old Gothic feeling I usually only get from games by Piranha Bytes (like recently Elex 2).
It’s rather the fact that all this is completely new on this huge island. Chronicles of Myrtana offers me (and you!) a fresh open world in familiar technology, crammed with quests and characters, battles and adventures, hidden treasures and nightly forest walks that make your heart swell.
And I get to explore it all through the eyes of a born-again 16-year-old, hijacking the secrets of this exciting new world, delighting in hidden allusions to Gothic 2 and grinning with satisfaction when my now no longer nameless hero not only roasts meat over an open fire as usual, but this time I even get to choose whether he should use certain ingredients.
Because Chronicles of Myrtana, this mad project by dedicated hobby developers from Poland, not only revives Gothic, it also adds new aspects to it without them getting in the way. In fact, it’s exactly what I would have wanted from a Gothic 3.
Gothic 3 as it should have been
Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos feels like a return home in many ways. But different people now live in this house, the furniture has been moved around and everything is new and exciting just like the first time.
Chronicles of Myrtana promises 60 hours of gameplay and sends you to a new island far away from the settings of Gothic 1+2, which nevertheless fits almost seamlessly into the larger story of the series. Even the intro is in the same style as back then, signalling: This is new fodder for Gothic fans.
Archolos is the name of the island and … it looks exactly like you remember Gothic 2. Logical, after all, it is a total conversion. This is a mod that builds on the existing, 20-year-old engine and expands it with new objects, characters and – very important – a new story and quests. Just like the equally great Enderal for Skyrim. But just in the familiar Gothic style.
Even the landscapes look like they’ve been arranged just a little differently, yet they have the same natural-looking sweep, gentle slopes and rugged cliffs of the original. The water in the river ripples as it once did and the initial walk through the woods at midnight conjures up memories of the gloomy mazes of logs and wolf packs that made our lives miserable in Gothic.
If my descriptions give you the impression that Archolos is more or less Khorinis in green, let me reassure you: That is not the case at all! Although there are always houses, trees and NPCs that I think I recognise, there is so much new to see here that it is truly exciting. It’s amazing how exciting it can be 20 years later to pick healing plants and knock Scavenger out of its claw socks again.
The fresh open world in Chronicles of Myrtana is what the developers themselves call the largest in Gothic history to date. But Archolos feels just right to me. The distances are not too great (also because there are a total of three fast travel options) and thanks to the many parallels to Gothic 2 (both visually and in terms of content) it feels much more coherent to me than the sometimes seemingly empty and artificial world of Gothic 3. Just think of that endless desert region with its many boring quests!
Chronicles of Myrtana gives me much more of the impression of a Gothic successor that I expected from Gothic 3 than the undoubtedly good, but problem-ridden game from launch that Piranha Bytes released into the world in a feat of strength in 2006.
The Total Conversion is so much closer to the Gothic 2 experience so beloved by countless people and yet, despite all its faithfulness to the original, creates enough room for itself to set its own accents, for example in the widely branching quest decisions that actually have a noticeable effect and can even result in the death of characters.
The huge but ultimately meaningless campaign to conquer the orc cities in Gothic 3 cannot compete with this, especially since Chronicles of Myrtana makes a real effort to make its characters tangible and likeable. In doing so, the fan developers also stumble a few times, but overall the result feels more rounded than Gothic 3.
More of the known good
Chronicles of Myrtana in so many ways gives the impression of just playing Gothic 2 again but differently that it’s almost scary. There is a large medieval town and its surrounding countryside to explore and you start at the bottom of the adventurer ladder. Hero Marvin (the name is an inside joke) must first prove himself as a fugitive and earn the right to join a guild.
As is typical for Gothic, there’s a lot of… er, quite a beating, but little by little Marvin’s fighting skills improve and, thanks to new armour and weapons, once fearsome enemies like the new bears finally fall victim to his blade. From the learning point system to the pick-up animation, it plays exactly as it did back then, but it’s still immensely motivating.
Still, there are differences; Chronicles of Myrtana, for example, is a lot more verbose than the original. Characters don’t speak quite as directly and freely as you’re used to, especially at the beginning there are always long explanations that feel awkward. Later, main and side quests sprawl a bit too much, the last third of the story drags.
To get this far, you’ll need good language skills in Polish or English; however, a German fan translation is already in the works. Building up the familiar Gothic atmosphere (the soundtrack is great!) without the familiar voice actors is a difficult undertaking, but Chronicles of Myrtana manages.
The only annoying thing are the bugs and crashes, which were probably inevitable with such a huge project and given the semi-professionalism of the development team. Sometimes scripts don’t trigger properly, which can lead you into a dead end. But that’s part of a real oldschool experience somewhere: frequent manual saving with several game states!
The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos is (available for free download), but you need a pre-installed version of Gothic 2: Gold Edition. My urgent recommendation is to also play (the DirectX-11 mod), which greatly enhances the graphics of Gothic 2 (and the mod). Then there’s nothing standing in the way of diving into Archolos!
Have you already played The Chronicles of Myrtana: Archolos? Write me your opinion in the comments!
