As some of you might know, the GOTG released yesterday. Of course we all know what I'm talking about. This is about ELEX, AKA the spitiual successor to the Gothic series by famed developers Piranha Bytes.

Before I move on I would like to give you a bit of context or it might get weird reading the thing and then accept my conclusion to it. I've been a huge fan of the Gothic series since forever. In my opinion Gothic* (*the whole series anot just the first game) is the absolute pinnacle of open world RPGs. Nothing of the likes of Witcher or Skyrim comes even close to it. The only way to make a better game than Gothic is if Piranha Bytes does the same thing again and fixes the flaws.

Now you might be wondering with so many high class RPGs out there and Gothic and other PB games looking like utter shit, what makes them so great? Simply put, world building and freedom. PB had it figured out since Gothic first released in 2001. Theworld was completely open for you to explore from the beginning. There were no artificial barriers and the world was dynamic and alive. The atmosphere and the pure design of the world are far from the generic landscapes you will find in other games. Characters had their own schedules and couldn't even give a shit about you as you are always the newcomer with no skills or fame attached to you. You were completely free to do what you want, but you were also completely free to reap the consequences. It is not unusual for a Gothic game to die before you even reach the first hub town. You didn't even have to stray far from the path. That's because Gothic does not use some shitty difficulty curve like garbage like the TES series does. Shit stays exactly the as strong as it ever was. And thanks to the fact that you start out extremely weak, even the smallest critters will brutally murder you at the start of the game. This for me is the perfect setting, the perfect start to a real power fantasy. That also means Gothic is extremely frustrating in the first 10-20h because you have to literally grovel your way up and do if possible mostly non combat missions to gain some XP and money. You don't just get your armor handed to you and then jump into the next bandit camp. That shit is scary and it will take you a long time to even be able to attack more than one foe at a time. But the payoff is amazing.

Another staple of the Gothic series is its numerous flaws which kept it from getting widespread appeal. As we go on I will describe a lot of shortcomings but remember the last paragraph. Everything that is not related to world building and freedom takes second stage in my assessment of the game. You should also keep in mind that PB is a 30 man studio which managed to build gigantic living and breathing worlds. It's tiny compared to what it achieved.

General flaws include sub par graphics, though the vastness of the open world was something that has never been achieved before Gothic. Poor performance, rudimentary and janky melee battle machanics that will kill you if you don't have a perfect grasp of it, awkward animations and of course loads and loads of bugs related to a gigantic and open world with hundreds of characters and quests. Now PB has vowed to fix most of those issues in past games with ELEX. Let's see how or if they did.

--------------------------------Here starts the actual first impression-----------------------------------------

I have been playing ELEX for about 5h now. I've died numerous times and completed a whole lot of quests and discovered about 3% of the map.

Let's look at the flaws first because those are the ones you get immediately after starting the game.

The game is not beautiful and certainly not up to today's standards. Graphics clearly have not been any priority here. Sure, it looks better than Gothic 3 but that came out in 2006 and was at that time one of the better looking games. Environment textures are terribly low quality as is the overall geometry and vegetation. The character textures are better but still feel very dated. If I had to give a PC time stamp for this game it would have to be something like 2012. That said, thanks to great lighting and high quality fog it does not hurt the overall atmosphere, another staple of the Gothic series. The world still feels very much alive. I am running the game at 1440p and all graphic settings cranked up and it runs at a stable 70-80fps. I haven't noticed any drops below 60. However that is on an overclocked 1080. With those kind of graphics I expect the game to run at a stable 120 at least but that won't happen with a PB game. Previous PB games also had a lot of trouble with performance. Thankfully they always come with options so you can have it at the performance you want.

The animations and movements are janky as usual but functional. Making rapid movements in hectic situations like sudden battles can be a bit of a problem. The choice to put the dodge move on the movement keys by pressing them twice is questionable. I've found myself so many times making dodges by accident. That wouldn't be terrible but dodging uses up stamina, which is a scarce resource and needed for any melee actions and running too. If you chose a melee build and are not ready to commit to the jankiness and learning to deal with it you're probably gonna have a very bad time.

Now that shouldn't be a problem I thought since I am always using a ranged build. And here we are already at my biggest pet peeve. They actually managed to make archery worse than in Gothic 3. There is no drawing and holding the bow, no increased damage the longer you draw, no absolute control over the trajectory and the absolutely worst thing that I will not forgive, you cannot collect shot arrows anymore. It basically plays like a glorified crossbow now and I hate crossbows. Might as well just use a gun. What has ridden them to actually make a step back from a 2006 game is beyond me and I'm already on the lookout for mods that might be able to fix this. I've gotten used to it now but it still hurts my archer heart.

We have a Jetpack now! Or we would have if I'd be tempted to use it, which I am not. It's nice to have an additional degree of freedom but it has its caveats. The most thing it can do is absically go up in a straight line. If you don't carefully plan your jump you will find yourself often stuck on ledges and cliffs. It can be helpful in combat for both fleeing and attacking but since it can only go up you will never get far away from the enemy. So right now it's basically a glorified fall damage preventer when I jump off cliffs for shortcuts. I'm hopeful that I will be able to use it later to discover some secret places.

Ok, now let's get to the good stuff. The world.

The game has an extremely slow start in the best possible way. In that regard it perfectly captures the feeling of weakness and helplessness of the Gothic series. The game will present you early on with quests that require you to go into dangerous areas or fight enemies. In the first hours none of that is remotely feasible, so you will have to find a way around it. Charisma skills and money can spare you a lot of combat. To be ready for combat you will have to join a faction to get better equipment. But to join a faction you will need to complete difficult quests that require better equipment. And so you will be caught in the beautifully diabolical loop of infinite weakness that you have to overcome somehow. The first hours will do horrible things to your ego in the best possible ways. I think I may be now 2-3 quest away from joining my prefered faction but that's only because I went very deliberately to one faction to join them. You can easily spend the first 5 hours just doing nothing to further your main quest or joining any factions.

The world is gigantic and it's easy to get lost in it. You do have a rudimentary mini map and a world map but they are scarecly populated with icons. Quest givers will not give you a marker on a map but rather a vague description of a direction. So you will have to rely on your own exploration abilities. This adds to the feeling of complete helplessness in a big and scary world where death can and will lurk around the next corner. You will constantly stumble upon enemies that you won't even have a chance of fighting within the next 20 hours. There is no perfectly laid out difficulty curve. The world is as is and it is upon yourself to know which foe to go against and which to avoid. Thankfully the game provides a robust save system with configurable auto saves. And you will certainly need it. If you don't press the quick save button every 2 minutes you're playing it wrong.

Saying I have only explored about 3% of the world is not an understatement. As usually in Gothic you are presented with a huge map that is divided into many zones with different climates. On one map you will find your generic woods, but also deserts, volcanos and icy hills. Something you won't find in other open world games where it's usually just 2 different climates. The game features generous but not too generous teleporters all over the world. Loading times between them is just about 3 seconds on my SSD. Otherwise it's a seemless world that features no loading times whatsoever. Dungeons and buildings are directly integrated into the world and not separated by stupid loading screens, like in other more retarded open world games.

The RPG mechanics are a bit more streamlined and packed than in previous games. You will always be able to see the requirements for all skills you can learn, what they will do and how much they will cost. You will still need to visit the specific trainers for a particular skill set but as far as I have seen, all trainers will teach the whole pallette of a certain skillset and not just parts of it. Also all trainers will be marked on the map once you have asked them to train you which is a nice quality of life addition. As usual, the possibilities of a character build are endless. Of course your skills will be mostly influenced by the faction you choose but there are plenty different options within them. All styles of play are supported by all factions, so there will certainly be high replayability.

The game highly rewards exploration and will not hinder you in any way. The game comes with its trademark bottomless inventory, so you are free to pick up any shit you want on your way. And there is a fucking ton of shit to pick up. Weapons do not have durability, so you can use them to your heart's content. The game has of course a compensive crafting system so you have shit to do with all the shit you picked up. Potions, weapons, enchantments, the usual stuff. If you love to craft, you will have your fill.

I'm running out of things to say and I really want to jump right back into a game so here is my rushed conclusion and recommendation.

ELEX is Gothic. If you enjoyed any of the Gothic games or even Risen, you will have learned to deal with the numerous issues in those games. ELEX is a worthy successor and a full recommendation for those that look for a different experience in an RPG and value pure freedom over everything else.

If you had any big issues with previous Piranha Bytes games you do not need to bother. ELEX does not improve upon those issues in the slightest.

If you have never played any PB games I would not recommend ELEX right away. Unless you're enthralled by the setting I would recommend starting at any other PB games, preferably any Gothic game. It's easier to forgive flaws in old games than in ELEX. So you might want to play those first to be able to appreciate ELEX more.

Well, I'm off again. I have hundreds of hours in front of me with this game. And while it did not exceed my expectations in any way, it's still fun and frustrating and fun in its own way.

No thanks.
It is cool that you like the game though.

Your joke about this non-existent game went way to far.

I've had my eyes on this for some time, I absolutely loved the Gothic games, and even Risen (the first one, that is). They have their flaws but they're just so much more pure fun and challenging than other open world RPG's. I always feel like the Gothic games are being treated unfairly due to their relative lack of polish, people are way too concerned with shallow features and appearances.

Did you write that or did you copy from somewhere?

Anyways i eyed risen 3 alot, but never took the plunge. Some impressions said that the melee combat was broken, the camera was broken, quests were bland and repetitive and shock, the mobs actually scaled with level, something you accused TES of doing wich actually only Oblivion did.

I have heard their gothic fame many times, but i also saw them do 3 risen games with terrible reviews.
So, i've put PB in the same bag or worse than Spiders (french developer). Spiders have made good games. I love Bound by flame, but it was short. I like Mars war logs but it was short. I thought i'd like the Technomancer but it was boring.

So, with these companies you are always tossing a coin. Have they made a decent but flawed game this time, or is it another dud?
I'm glad you are enjoying it, if those are your words. But i am gonna need to research it alot and have a substancial price cut before i might give it a chance.

With that said, i'm glad european development is birthing these companies. These European and Japanese developers may very well be the future once the american ones blow themselves up with multiplayer online games and lootboxes with a limited active player base.

I have played Gothic 1 exclusively via keyboard. No mouse binding. No gamepad. Only keyboard. Because fucking CHRIST THESE GAMES HANDLE LIKE CRAP!

But...big fan of Gothic here, big fan of Risen 1...so will pick this up when I get some time on my hands.
Also, I'll wait for a few patches first. No Gothic has ever run properly from the base build.

Skyrim also has scaling enemies. Not as aggressive as in Oblivion but still there. I never played Risen 3 so that could be. That's why I'm specifically talking about Gothic. Risen generally doesn't even come close to Gothic, that's why I'm happy that ELEX is closer to Gothic again.

If you want interesting quests and polished combat you're wrong with Piranha Bytes anyway. It's all about sandbox freedom and more about the journey itself than any specific mechanic. Playing ELEX for story or mechanics is like playing COD for the music.

And yes I wrote all of that myself. That wasted time could've been spent with playing ELEX :(

The camera problem was only in Gothic 1 I believe. It got better in Gothic 2 and was fine in Gothic 3.

As for ELEX they actually made a step backwards from Gothic 3 which hat quite smooth combat. So the mechanics are basically back to Gothic 2. Still overall feels like Gothic 3 though. And the only major bug I've found so far is related to archery combat.

Another good or bad thing is vastly improved enemy AI. You can't exploit height or obstacles anymore and most enemies both human and beast switch to ranged attacks when you're out of reach and will move so that they will definitely hit you.

This is really all I need to know, and all I am concerned about.  Guaranteed purchase for me. 

I much preferred the combat from Gothic 1 and 2 anyways.