[Demo Feedback] In-depth after 4 hours

[Bullwark]

First of all, thanks for giving us this insight. Much appreciated!

Played on a 2080Ti, i7-7700K with 64GB ram on the GOTHIC setting in 1440p and got 79-62 fps. If you can promise that for the main game, I would be alright with that. Demo was installed on a proper SSD. Language set to german only.

Performance dropped only once to 22 frames without any viable reason. This "state" lingered around for 1-2min and never happened again. It occured when I killed the goblin and went into the small camp.

I cut straight to the point(s). Plain spoilers ahead.

Voiceovers

Like I said I played the german version. I insantly missed the original voice of Diego, but got a good feeling about Matthias Keller's interpretation. "Old" Diego sounded a bit more "mischievous" and seasoned though.
Really enjoyed the rest of the cast! Diego's and Whistler's conversation in the beginning felt really authentic. I immediately wanted them to interact further!
You get a nice background on how the camps interact with each other.

Orry and especially Drax felt great. I like it when people talk how they feel and are not afraid to use swear words. Kirgo also was lovely. Really felt the "oh sh!t" factor when he told me, the only women here, are not available for anyone and it might bring trouble if I eyeball them... I really felt Ratford's suspicion of Nyras.

Talking to those characters got me really immersed into this rough and unforgiving prison colony setting! I truly hope this (original) tone will keep on through the game. It's an important factor of the overall atmo!

That being said, I didn't like Nyras performance that much. His voice didn't fit his face. He also seemed a bit "exaggerated". For example at the bandit's camp when Drax wanted to see Jorik's drawing, Nyras "groaned" strangely like it would be some effort to get that paper out. Didn't like that. Reminded me of the "hero" of the Teaser back in 2019. A bit too "over the top" in some situations.
Don't like him as a character (which is not a bad thing). Would kill him later with pleasure ;).

Overall very well done! Great voiceactors and performance! Bravo!

Visuals/Camera

Characters look good. Still a bit too young to fit their voices properly. Especially Diego. Kirgo had this 80s/90s style going on. Really liked that! Their armors looked really good. Nice details and style.

During Diego's first dialogue, the cinematic camera switches were too frequent and annoying. In other conversations it was ok. An option to toggle that cinematic style on/off would be appreciated. Or dial it back a notch.

The lighting seems too harsh for my taste. Also finding stuff in the surrouding vegetation seems to be very difficult. I feel some things need to stand out a bit more. Plants for example. And animals! Ran into a sleeping scanvengers a couple of times.

I didn't really feel at home at the place of exchange. Everywhere was a bit too much going on. I know it was heavily underdeveloped in the OG.

Looking ahead from either Jorik or Kirgo it was nice to see the camp, the new fire mages place, the tower inside, the roads down ahead and the area with the first Lurker we encounter. But something was missing. Not just something but Xardas whole tower is gone? Did you relocate it? Please don't!

Molerats looked good. Not a fan of the scavengers. I know in G2 dlc they looked like that. But now they seem to be closer to Snappers...I miss their overgrown, clumsy chicken appearance. They were walking food. Funny looking, but still dangerous in the beginning. Now they are predators?? Not a fan of that.
Not too keen about the Goblin either, but I could live with them.

Overall I can't really say I feel at home with the UE5. Everything looks Gothicesque somehow (or tries to), but also doesn't. I don't know if this "doesn't" is in a good way (yet).

Immersion/interaction

First thing I did was to explore everywhere aside from the main road. Which got me to Ratford early. He didn't talk much and sent me on my way. When I found Jorik he started to talk to me like he had given me this quest. That felt wrong. I haven't talked to Drax at this point. There should be a backup plan when we miss some parts of the quest and interact early with some elements.

Beer quest with Orry also needs a dialogue rework. In the OG you could immediately go to the appopriate dialoge option, if you had a quest item early. Would've appreciated being able to say "I already got you your beer" for example.

No warnings from animals anymore?? Scavengers just got up and attacked me. Where is their trademark scream?? Also theiy looked like Snappers more than scanvengers. Their animation emphasizes that. Really missed the warning grunts, screams from animals when I got too close in the OGs. I hope that's not missing in the initial remake!! The same with molerats and the gobbo. Why was that left out? Just for the demo? This needs to be in a proper remake!!

Also NPCs didn't register my drawn weapon all the time.

Picking up things is a drag. Sometimes it didn't register, or took too long for an unknown reason. It's like Nyras has a delayed reaction to picking stuff up sometimes, eventhough they are perfectly in reach and the prompt appears.

Animation/sounddesign/fighting system

I don't how close the demo resembles the main game. I hope not very much.

Sprinting looks really stiff. Running up a hill looks strange. More than gliding upwards than actually running. Jumping feels like Nyras got pulled up like a puppet and lands without any impact. He has no weight to him, but feels like a balloon.
Also when colliding with objects or jumping over them with, like barrels, rocks, etc...there is no impact. Everything seems to be oily and bouncey. That doesn't feel good at all.
I feel there need to be little more connective-animations to immerse the char physically into the world. For example stepping over objects instead of reflecting off the surface.

And when jumping over an object that for example is to big for him to take, he bounces right off. Or glides away to the side. At the site in the beginning, there are even softlocks possible, when trying to explore where we "shouldn't". And that should not be. (I was trying to reach the elevator).

I put sounddesign up there, because the missing impacts are connected to missing sounds here. When Nyras lands, there is nothing. Footsteps don't really register to where the feet land and also are too quiet. So it's not only a lack of sound, but also animation because Nyras doesn't really connect to his surroundings that well. That makes controlling the character feel quite "cheap" like he is an oily piece of paper or a balloon like I mentioned. I hope it's just the state of the demo.

Kneeling down to open a chest really felt like Gothic ;). Music is a solid 9/10.

Fighting system is very odd. 4 keys to control hits, one to dodge and one to block without locking on?? So no walking backwards facing the enemies..
That really limits the keys we would have at our disposal if we were able to rebind them.
So it LMB is for the left swing, the RMB for the right. Then a heavy attack and a stab. And after Kirgo teaches us fighting II, the L/R is possible with just the LMB?? What a waste to bind blocking to the RMB and have sneaking on the the right cntrl button.

My solution for this would be combination keybinds to relieve the fighting system. So for example "Shift + LMB" is a heavy attack. "Shift and Q" is a stab for example. Let us choose whatever combination we want, so we can bind other keys to where we see fit. This feels extremely outdated! I urge you to implement that!!! It would be such a relief!

Archery is totally OP in the demo!!

Interface/inventory/hud/etc..

Visually I don't like the inventory, stats-screen, etc.. at all. Feels like a placeholder. Don't know what it is. The colours bother me. But more importantly the menue topics are horizonzally. It would feel more efficient when vertcally. So the icons are on top to choose from.

Item icons seem also off. Hard to know what what is at a first glance. These icons could be smaller, but more indicating, if that makes sense. This might prevent clutter later on.

Quickaccess is ok.

I would really love to be able to choose dialogue options with WASD, or the dedicated movement keys and choose with the space bar.

There was no mouse sensitivity option :(. No keybinds. No quicksave. No Marvinmode, which was a nice touch ;).

The bow and arrow cursor looks out of place. It feels like when you have a great band name, but the wrond font to represent it. It's big and clumsy.
I would feel better with one that has edges (maybe like the originial V) and is more opaque.

Performance

So far so good with my older hardware. Like I said, I only had problems one time with the drop to 22fps which held on for 1-2min. I could only repeat myself when I say I'm not a fan of the UE5...

Bugs

Unnesessary softlocks.

Kirgo called me an "idiot" when I wanted to train with him again and Nyras auto-drew his sword after learning Tier II. He stayed in position with a drawn weapon and I wasn't able to interact with him. After I left and reentered his workplace, he shrugged me off and kept working.

Performance bugged out in the Goblin's camp.

There is a game/demo-breaking encounter. When you did all your quests and moved towards the sleeping place with Drax and Ratford, this cinematic sequence happens where Nyras autocontrolled gets to sit on the bench. There is a good chance, when you trigger that sequence form a "bad" angle, that there is someting in the way (another bench for example) that Nyras is stucking in his motion walking endlessly against the said bench. Only Alt+F4 helped me out.
I hope those cinematic "decisions" are either left out, or extremely polished in the main game, since you can trigger them from all directions. Some of them might NOT be ideal.

Conclusion

Like I said, I really hope the demo doesn't represent the state of the main game. If it does...oh boy. 2025 release date is really "optimistic"!!

If it was up to me, I'd bury Nyras prologue after the Festival, or polish it and keep it up. But in this state it made me more concerned for the main game.

From what I've experienced, I would wait a couple of months after release to see how it's doing. Could well be a very bumpy road ahead of them.

I think Alkimia are on a good path with their hearts. Not so much technically... this needs to get on par. Otherwise the "mixed/mostly" is imminent. And I'd love to see them succeed!!

Thanks for reading if anybody did.

Edit: typos, format

[T-Moor]

I did! =)

I would appreciate a lot, if you put all your feedback here as well:

General feedback in this Google form – https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdy5zn-4D4_QYB3r3k9dUP288U5CdfzYfFFrm57GyNhIdfNRg/viewform?pli=1

Bug reports - https://bugreporting.thqnordic.com/#/projects/150/gothic-1-remake-community/add-issue

Review on the Steam Page - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3448280/Gothic_1_Remake__Demo_Nyras_Prologue/#app_reviews_hash

[Bullwark]

Originally posted by T-Moor | ТГ канал ↓:

I did! =)

I would appreciate a lot, if you put all your feedback here as well:

General feedback in this Google form – {LINK REMOVED}https://bit.ly/3QpyH1Q

Bug reports - https://bugreporting.thqnordic.com/#/projects/150/gothic-1-remake-community/add-issue

Review on the Steam Page - https://store.steampowered.com/app/3448280/Gothic_1_Remake__Demo_Nyras_Prologue/#app_reviews_hash

Much appreciated!

Will do, but link from the Google from was removed!

[Monkar]

where is Jorik??? I can`t find him ^(

[Irrelevant]

Bullwark this is awesome feedback. I second this but performence to me is still a big mess. I can play Cyberpunk2077 in WQHD at max settings at 144 fps and this demo in gothic settings runs at 100. This isn't right at all and I hope they put much work into it. As an AMD user I'm a bit suprised to find no FSR options. The voiceover and performence need a lot of work stil from my point of view.

[T-Moor]

Originally posted by Monkar:

where is Jorik??? I can`t find him ^(

He is on the top of the mountain, where Ratford is. Just go to the cliff, next to the goblin.

[buka59]

Funny that you say that Nyras voice is exagerated in german, its the same in polish. He groans and does some unneccesaary sounds, but in english he is allright. Was the actor told to do this, or was it a coincidence that they just came up with it to play their role?

[Den]

My feedback :

Dialogue & Interaction
The character says "Hey you" even though they've already interacted with the person. This lack of variation can break immersion.
Improve the visual distinction between character names and dialogues to enhance readability and memorization.

Sound & Sensory Feedback
Add a sound cue for the final hit before dying to make it feel more impactful.
When eating a fruit or any other item, adding a chewing or swallowing sound would improve the sensory feedback.
There's no sound when jumping or landing, making these actions feel less satisfying.
Button press sounds are too low and lack impact; they should be more noticeable.
Cooking sounds are too quiet; increasing their volume would enhance the atmosphere.

UI & Readability
On the death screen, most players will want to retry quickly. Moving Load Game to the first option and centering the menu would minimize unnecessary mouse movement.
Make the "Press any key" prompt more readable.
Add a background to text for better readability, similar to how it's done when the character speaks out loud.
Change the color of healing-related text to make it more visible and easier to find important information.

Gameplay & Ergonomics
The character takes a bit too long to start moving, which makes controls feel sluggish.
Being able to climb down ladders faster would improve fluidity.
The bow’s reticle should have a slightly transparent outline while keeping the center fully white for better visibility.

Atmosphere & Immersion
The visuals are very clean, but adding effects like humidity and a heavier atmosphere would greatly enhance immersion.

[Bullwark]

Originally posted by Irrelevant:

Bullwark this is awesome feedback. I second this but performence to me is still a big mess. I can play Cyberpunk2077 in WQHD at max settings at 144 fps and this demo in gothic settings runs at 100. This isn't right at all and I hope they put much work into it. As an AMD user I'm a bit suprised to find no FSR options. The voiceover and performence need a lot of work stil from my point of view.

What language did you play in? I heard polish is fire! German is (for me) too! English I've read is awkward. Lots of mispronouncing, etc.. the word "Khorinis" got butchered...

FSR, DLSS, etc..is not in the demo. Missed opportunity.

Originally posted by buka59:

Funny that you say that Nyras voice is exagerated in german, its the same in polish. He groans and does some unneccesaary sounds, but in english he is allright. Was the actor told to do this, or was it a coincidence that they just came up with it to play their role?

Could be that they give the actors emotional cues to sort of help them to play a certain character. And the english didn't follow. Or they hired the voiceactors from the teaser XD.

[Wally]

wait, you played for 4 hours without figuring out you can lock on by hitting TAB?
lol

[Bullwark]

Originally posted by Wally:

wait, you played for 4 hours without figuring out you can lock on by hitting TAB?
lol

Yes. XD. Was most of the times playing with bow and arrow. I'll give it another try soon.

[KVPMD]

Originally posted by Wally:

wait, you played for 4 hours without figuring out you can lock on by hitting TAB?
lol

Well, game gives no clue. The same for jump back. And the different types of swings. I thought it was due to the weapon type or missing skill ;)