Arcania: Gothic IV Impressions
Stepping into a wide open, more user-friendly fantasy world.
The Gothic series has undergone big changes in recent times. For the first three iterations, the Piranha Bytes-developed open-world role-playing fantasy franchise was for the PC crowd only. More specifically, it was built for the type of gamer that dislikes direction, catering more to those who prefer making their own decisions, exploring and discovering new lands and mechanics at their own pace. It wasn't user friendly, but attracted a user base so dedicated that fans continued to patch the tragically underdeveloped Gothic 3 after Piranha Bytes had moved on.
In the days since Gothic 3, Piranha Bytes made Risen, and the Gothic series was transferred over to Spellbound Entertainment. The game went multiplatform, and the goal was to make something that could appeal to a broader audience, specifically targeting North America. The name also was reworked, going from Arcania: A Gothic Tale and later changed to Arcania: Gothic IV. The fiction is still connected to the story from previous games, but the Nameless Hero of games past is no longer the playable character. He's the corrupt king of this new land mass, which will be slightly smaller in size than the sprawling world map of Gothic 3.
![[IMG]](http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1090936/arcania-gothic-iv-20100518044952160-000.jpg)
This time around you play as a new character, a shepherd from a small town on an island called Feshyr. It serves as the training area for the game as you sling arrows at deer to collect parts for the father of your love interest, Ivy. It's a pretty, sprawling land, with rolling hills dotted with rock fragments, straw houses, broken wagon carts and impressive vistas. Round a corner past the blacksmith clanging a hammer on an anvil and you'll see a wide, uneven expanse of grassy land stretching to the foot of grey hills, or a towering rocky outcropping jutting into the open, blustery sea. The team developing the game wants you to be able to explore anything you can see, so if you can make out snow-capped mountains in the distance, magic swamps, dark forests, or mysteriously lit houses perched on hill trails, there'll be some way to get there and explore.
The process of actually getting around the world has been made more painless than in Gothic games past. There are still teleportation stones, but they're conveniently located right outside of notable areas, such as the game's major cities and townships. Once activated, they can be used to quickly zoom from place to place. If you've just run through a deep mountain cave and need to swap out items or pick up some new quests, this should make things a little easier, and you don't have to go blindly rooting around towns to find stones tucked away in random locations like before. Also, in terms of user friendliness, things like map icons and quest indicators will make world navigation more convenient, pinpointing where you're supposed to go. If that kind of hand-holding doesn't sit well with you, it's also possible to shut off UI assists to the point where the game is nearly HUD-less.
Tangling with creatures in real-time, third-person view combat can be accomplished in a few different ways, all of which are tied to a skill tree. As you level, character points can be distributed along several different branches of the tree, boosting things like melee power and stamina recovery and unlocking new abilities like a zoom-in for your bow and additional attack properties for ice, lightning, and fire magic types. I'm told there's a huge number of weapon and armor models in the game, each of which is designed with a different cultural motif in mind. That means if you're getting gear from around Feshyr, it'll likely have some kind of fish or other aquatic element engraved into it to reflect the industry of the area.
![[IMG]](http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1090936/arcania-gothic-iv-20100518044929364-000.jpg)
Should you decide to head into battle with a mammoth two-handed sword, the difference won't just be a damage total. Instead, you'll see your character grasp the weapon differently, holding it out and behind as if it were heavy. Swings are slower, and by turning on a combo assist the sword will glow briefly while being swung to indicate when another attack command can be inputted to keep a combo going. To avoid attacks you can roll away from enemies, and potions are swiftly quaffed, meaning you don't have to go hide behind a rock if you want to regain some health in order to let an animation play out without interruption.
At any moment you can quickly switch between modes of combat, so if you'd rather put some distance between you and your target after a few sword slashes, you can break out a bow and start charging a shot. Once a bow shot is fully charged you can hold it and move your character around, meaning you're not rooted to a spot and vulnerable to enemy fire while trying to aim. The game does feature an auto-target assist, but if you choose to take advantage of it you'll lose some of the weapon's power that would have been available had the shots been manually lined up.
Magic users will be able to pick between three magic types, each of which comes with special effects. Lightning will briefly stun targets, fire can do damage over time, and ice can slow those that are hit. Dumping more skill points into specific magic type skill branches will also unlock more damage potential for each type, notably the ability for lightning to chain and shock multiple targets at once, as well as blasting out more than one fireball at a time. As a nice bonus, simply bringing a magic type to the ready will provide a low-light source of illumination, letting you see better in a dark dungeon and coming in handy if you forgot to bring along torches.
![[IMG]](http://pcmedia.ign.com/pc/image/article/109/1090936/arcania-gothic-iv-20100518044925239-000.jpg)
There'll be plenty of fighting to do once the tutorial on Feshyr is over and the king, who's gone mad with power, wipes out your town, throwing you into the story of the world at large. Though it is an open-world game, some areas will be gated until certain story progress is made. Still, with a full day night cycle, some impressive lighting effects, and a detailed weather system it should be a pretty world to look at even before you can explore everywhere. The major cities of the game are especially detailed, such as one that juts from the ocean on an outcropping of land, separated from the mass of the main island by a stone bridge. Between its worn towers and walkways are strung laundry lines with clothes drying in the sun, which gives the impression that this virtual space feels authentic and lived-in. I'm hoping this kind of thing turns out to be consistent throughout the rest of the world.
There's plenty more to the game, including an alchemy system, lockpicking mini-game, stealth mechanics, scrolls and magic glyphs, side quests you can do for the game's factions, and lots to discover within what looks to be a gigantic world. For this particular demo I got to see and briefly play the game on Xbox 360, and though the game is still in development, it's looking good. The interface for the controller took a little getting used to, but looks like it could be manageable. The one thing that sometimes hurts games like this – bugs and performance problems – could still be an issue, but that's not something anyone will know until the game's ready to go on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC platforms.
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