I recruited Gothic 1 Remake's most notorious NPC and a pair of molerats for 4 hours of unbridled RPG chaos

By the time I reach the gates of the Outer Ring, I've made my peace with Gothic 1 Remake. I have no map. I have no weapon. I have no money (or, in this case, ore nuggets). But what I do have is a pair of bugged-out molerats following me into the camp, screeching all the while.

I'd just made the apparent mistake of wandering into the underbrush near the camp's south gate, where two ugly, toothsome beasts immediately took note of me. Eyeless though they were, their hooked snouts clearly scented my "freshie" status as a newly-delivered Convict trapped behind the magical barrier that has rendered the land within a subdivided prison colony. But, the molerats don't attack. Instead, they snap their jaws angrily – or perhaps excitedly – with due reverence for my gloriously drab attire and complete lack of worldly possessions. I take a step, and so do they. I run a few paces, and they follow suit.

I have no means of killing them save for my bare knuckles, so I decide there are worse things in the world than having two ugly little pets screaming and snarling at my heels. I can always reload a save later on. Maybe they'll give me some street cred in the Outer Ring, where I have to prove my mettle to various NPC mentors and learn the basics of survival in exchange for side quests, experience (XP), and learning points (LP). It's not until I walk into the Old Camp without needing to speak to either guard that I realize I cannot actually speak to anyone. The game thinks I am in combat with the molerats, and it has kind of broken everything.

A hero's welcome

Gothic 1 Remake might be a far more polished-up rendition of a 25-year-old cult classic RPG, but it wears its old-school friction like a snug pair of mine-muddied britches. If I want a map, I'll have to buy one for a staggering 38 ore pieces from the cartographer. If I want to learn how to lockpick from a man called Fingers, I'll need to source my own lockpicks and present him with a freshly-thieved ring. If I want to find any specific person, I'll have to ask around town and find my way to them through word of mouth, because my quest log is more like a list of leads to follow up on with little mention of where I might find them.

A chorus of jeering NPCs greets me in the Outer Ring. They aren't hooting about some nearby brawl, but calling for me to kill my new companions. I ignore them and hope for the best. I have a mission to complete – deliver a message to the Fire Mages of the inner camp – and I won't let a pair of screechy ratboys or spirited convicts scare me from the path of duty.

I'm able to strike up some basic conversations with a handful of NPCs, but only after running ahead of the molerats and triggering the dialogue before they catch up (note: they always catch up). My first orders of business are to find a weapon of some sort, some armor, and most importantly, a damned map of the area so I can work out how to get to the Fire Mage.

This is brand new territory for me – literally. It might be a good time to mention that I never did play the original Gothic when it launched in 2001. I have no idea where I am in this bustling shanty town of highly-organized criminals, and the snippets I'm able to get out of named NPCs are minimal at best; Warders and Shadows run this district for the Old Camp, which has splintered off into two other groups known as the New Camp and Swamp Camp respectively.

If I want to get into the Inner City and find that Fire Mage, I need to appease a guard named Thorus by enlisting mentor Diego to help garner some sort of positive reputation in the Outer Ring and become a Shadow myself, or I can find the Swamp and New Camp reps to see what they can do instead.

I decide there's nothing for it but to keep asking around town and learning more, racing my pets to and fro. It's around this point that I get suddenly drawn into a conversation with a digger NPC named Mud (diggers seem to be a sort of vocation in this mining town), who asks if I'd like some company. Sure, I tell him, because why not make a new friend?

Friends to the end

Only that was a terrible decision. I now have not just guttural snorting molerats in my entourage, but a shirtless man who has never known the cooling embrace of shutting the damn hell up for a change.

I strike up a conversation with a chef named Snaf, and Mud immediately comments on how much he cherishes our friendship. I find myself in a brawling arena and learn where I can claim a cabin, and Mud tells me that he will always be right beside me, waiting to go to some "nice quiet place" where we can talk. It's sweet at first – the guy clearly is just a simple bumpkin who, much like the molerats, knows a bad bitch when he sees one.

But between the snarling and the chomping and the NPCs yelling at me to fight things and Mud's incessant heaping of platitudes, my patience grows thin.

I save and restart the game, finally sick of the novelty of being the nameless king of molerats, but when I reload, Mud is still with me. Whatever, I think to myself; at least nobody is hollering in thick Cockney accents for me to "finish 'im" the way they were when I had un-aggroed enemies traipsing after me. It turns out those molerats really were a conversation-killer, because now, I can talk to pretty much everyone. I learn from Diego where to start my cred-building journey, and finally, I start to feel like I'm getting somewhere.

The reality is that in just over four hours, I feel I've done comparatively little in Gothic 1 Remake. I've got recipes to source ingredients for, a magic scroll to make for a mage named Torrez, and I bludgeoned poor Mud to death in the streets with my fists in order to loot him (yes, he still carries little more than a crappy club and handful of ore to make off with). But, it perfectly captures the great spirit of adventure that infuses every RPG when the world is this much of a reactive, somewhat silly playground of mayhem.

It lives on in Crimson Desert, yes, but the charming jank, robust yet evenly-paced narrative, and genuinely colorful nature of the inhabitants of Gothic 1 Remake reminds me of more of the hype around The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered. Unpredictability makes everything all the more amusing – even when you have molerats and an adoring fan flanking you at every turn – and the reality of a truly explorative RPG is far more exciting than it is daunting once you get used to the lack of handholding. Now, has anyone seen a damned map?!

Gothic 1 Remake is one of many upcoming RPGs I'm anticipating, and there's plenty more where it came from...