A modder’s ambitious project enters open beta. We’ll tell you what’s inside and how you can play it yourself
It will probably be a few months before the Gothic Remake from THQ Nordic is released. But if you’re already keen to be sent back to the mining colony on the island of Khorinis as a convict, we might have just the thing for you.
A modder has given Gothic 1 a new technical foundation. Instead of Piranha Bytes’ own development, the unofficial remaster is now powered by Unreal Engine 4, which is also no longer dewy-eyed.
We’ll tell you whether the switch to UE4 has any playable advantages and how you can easily play the open beta of the modding project yourself.
There is also a video, here are around 40 minutes of commented gameplay directly from the modder for you:
Focus on stability and performance
Let’s get the cow off the ice before it collapses under the weight of your expectations: The fan remaster offers no new gameplay features. So nothing changes in terms of gameplay, although that doesn’t have to be bad news for fans of the first Gothic
Why the remaster then? The modder Dmitry Kalyuzhny wants to ensure better performance and more stability on modern computers with the port to Unreal Engine 4. After all, the original version dates back to 2001 and could therefore cause more and more problems.
And what about the scope? Here’s some good news: You can already play through the fan remaster from start to finish. And who knows, thanks to the Unreal Engine substructure, there may be mods for the remaster in the future, such as higher-resolution textures and the like.
How to play the fan remaster of Gothic 1 yourself
If your mouse finger was itching just reading the first paragraph, you can get started yourself in no time at all. Because the fan remaster is free for owners of the original and can also be easily installed via Steam.
One catch: You must already own the original game If you don’t own Gothic 1 yet, you should ideally keep an eye out for the next Steam sale: Gothic is regularly reduced to a few euros
Navigate to your Steam library, right-click on Gothic 1 and select the context menu entry Properties
In the window that now opens, switch to the tab Betas
In the field Private Betas
then enter the access code TheColonyisNotUnreal and you can download the Open Beta.
Finally, a few words about the future of the Gothic series: Micha is certain that the brand will survive despite Piranha Bytes’ difficulties. Meanwhile, fans are bothered by the new look of a monster in the remake. You also recently voted for your favorite – you can find out the result above
Will you be taking a closer look at the fan remaster in Unreal Engine 4 or would you prefer to stick with the original despite the outdated technology? Let us know in the comments section below
