GB Feature: Gothic 3 E3 Preview

Our E3 2006: The RPGs editorial is nearly complete with the addition of today’s hands-on preview of Piranha Bytes’ Gothic 3.

The first thing you notice when you’re staring at Gothic III in action is just how believable the environment looks. Sure, the excellent graphics add to the realism, but everything from the surrounding mountains to the diverse buildings shows a great amount of detail. Aspyr producer Blaine Christine tells me that this is because the team has hand-crafted every area in the game, all the way down to the foliage. Absolutely nothing is tiled, which is an impressive feat for a relatively small development team working on such a large game world. In fact, the continent where Gothic III takes place spans over 75 square kilometers, making it three times the size of the island we ventured on in Gothic II. The continent has also been broken out into three distinct regions, including a cold Viking-like mountainous area (Nordmar), a lush coastal area, and a dry desert region on the south side of the land mass. Players will obviously need efficient means of traveling across such a large area, so the team is implementing both horses and journey stones that allow for teleportation.