Elex 2: Why Piranha Bytes will probably never do Gothic again

Elex 2

Elex 2 has been announced and the cat is out of the bag, which Piranha Bytes has been up to for the last few years. Much more important is what Piranha Bytes has not done in the years, and that is Gothic! For ages you can hear the fans shouting that a new game from the old RPG series should come from the studio, please. The possibilities were there for years, but still nothing came and I no longer assume that it will happen again.

Because after years of waiting I am now firmly convinced that we will never see a new Gothic again old development studio got piranha bytes.

Table of contents

1 The Gothic file 2 Piranha Bytes is afraid or simply not in the mood 3 Piranha Bytes has evolved 4 Piranha Bytes no longer need Gothic Recommended editorial content Here you will find external content from [PLATFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I agree that external content can be displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration.

The Gothic Files

"I don't care who you are"

It was with such warm words that people were received in the colony at that time. Source: Spellbound Entertainment / THQ Nordic Barcelona / Piranha Bytes / media agency plassma Let's rewind briefly and unravel the story of Gothic. In 1997, four game designers founded the Piranha Bytes company. Your goal: to do a role-playing game that is the way you want to play it. 4 years later and massive amounts of crunch - large parts of the game should only be finished in the last six months - the result is a role-playing game that conquers the hearts of players in Germany. Grounded mood, credible behavior of the game world, large open world with no loading times. All of this creates an atmosphere that was previously unknown in fantasy role-playing games. Just a year later, and again masses of crunch later, Gothic 2 comes onto the market and tops the success by far. With the expansion "The Night of the Raven" at the latest, the role-playing game will achieve cult status.

Then, three years later, we are now in 2006, Gothic 3 is coming up. This time it should be a big leap that can compete internationally with greats like The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. A huge game world, a new graphics engine and more story are promised. Everything should get higher, faster, further. Only Piranha Bytes gets bogged down and despite extreme crunch the title goes bad. The release is more of an alpha version than a finished game in Gothic 3 was the game of fate for Piranha Bytes. After years of muddling through somehow, the development ends in a bug disaster. Source: Spellbound Entertainment / THQ Nordic Barcelona / Piranha Bytes / media agency plassma Laden. After the drama, Piranha Bytes falls out with the publisher and they part ways. For the time being, the rights remain with the publisher Jowood, who has Arcania: Gothic 4 developed. However, the game flops and pulls the publisher into bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Piranha Bytes is doing a new trilogy with Risen and then throws himself into Elex.

That brings us back to the here and now, because whatever falls under the table. Jowood has been broke since 2011 and the rights to the Gothic series have been freely available to Piranha Bytes since then. So why is it that they haven't returned to their successful brand in all these years?

Piranha Bytes is scared or just not in the mood

On the one hand, piranha bytes are at the time when it was Jowood rips, fully involved in her Risen series. Risen 1 is a complete success and Risen 2 has already been announced. So a new series has been established and the new publisher Deep Silver is sticking to it so much that a third part of the Risen series is also being postponed. But then the air is out, the trilogy is over and it would actually be the perfect time to surprise everyone with a new Gothic. But Piranha Bytes doesn't do that, because they want to create a new world with Elex. This cut shows very clearly: Piranha Bytes has absolutely no interest in developing a new Gothic part. The brand is still big even 20 years later and fans would explode the internet if a new part from the old development studio were announced. But no, Piranha Bytes doesn't want to.

One of the reasons is the eternal treadmill in which the studio is trapped. For years, the Gothic studio has also expected games that are like Gothic. Open world, rough characters, difficult opponents, character system, these are points that fans tick off on the checklist. During the development of Elex, studio boss Björn Pankratz himself spoke of the fact that there is another way of breaking free from this corset, with the setting change from fantasy to science-fantasy. That sounds like a cheap excuse, but the change of scenery is granted to them.

With Risen 2 you want to part with the medieval fantasy for the first time and plunge into the pirate setting. Source: Spellbound Entertainment / THQ Nordic Barcelona / Piranha Bytes / media agency plassma But I also suspect that there is a good portion of respect behind this listlessness in Gothic. Angry tongues would say: It's fear. As already mentioned, a new Gothic by Piranha Bytes would make the fan base burst into cheers. Expectations would be gigantically high in one fell swoop, so it's only understandable if you have respect for it. Especially since Piranha Bytes' last contact with the Gothic series ended in a total write-off. This is held up to the studio to this day and it weighs heavily on the company's history. That is why one would rather focus on new series of games than follow in the big footsteps and possibly slip again.

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Piranha Bytes has evolved

But even if PB were to get back to Gothic, in the end it would be something different from what we fans expect. Because of course we know Piranha Bytes to this day as the studio that made Gothic, but behind the scenes the studio is completely different. 15 years have passed since the last Gothic and as it is in professional life, the developers have moved on and the team has been switched. Designers, graphic artists, coders who worked on the series back then and contributed to its charm are no longer there today.

One exit is probably particularly painful and it's called: Michael "Mike" Hoge. The guy already looks like an edgy Gothic character and he launched the idea of ​​the game with a few friends. At that time he lived his life in Gothic and mostly implemented his vision in the games in the series. There are stories that he sat in the recording studio at Gothic 1 and continued to doctor the text while the voice recordings were still in progress because the dialogues did not suit him yet.

Of course, this extreme commitment also had consequences. Gothic 3 puts your nerves to the acid test. For Risen 1 and 2 he already shared the project management and since Risen 3 he has been out. You don't know what he's doing today, but maybe he's sitting by the campfire indulging in a piece of roasted meat.

Recommended editorial content Here you will find external content from [PLATTFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I agree that external content can be displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. That is not to say that this one departure is to blame, that piranha bytes are no longer the same or that they can no longer build on the success of that time. Mike Hoge's successor is Björn Pankratz, the head behind the ingenious Gothic 2 expansion "The Night of the Raven", and with Elex the studio also delivered a good game. Nevertheless, this departure is representative of the further development of the Piranha Bytes team. I suspect that the new heads of the studio are also fully aware of this and also a reason to stay away from Gothic.

Piranha Bytes don't need Gothic anymore

Add to this the current changes and announcements. If you look closely, then Piranha Bytes doesn't need to develop a new Gothic anymore, because the series is alive. In 2019, THQ Nordic bought Piranha Bytes together with the rights for the series and it was only half a year before the bang: a Gothic remake was announced. With Alkimia Interactive, a completely new studio was founded in Barcelona for this purpose. They built a first teaser that every Gothic owner could play on Steam and got feedback.

The Gothic remake should move much closer to the original after the unsuccessful teaser. Or doesn't this gorge seem a bit more familiar to you than it did in the teaser? Source: THQ Nordic / Alkimia Interactive The teaser was thrown around the ears because it deviated far too much from the original, but this pushed them in the right direction with gentle force and, according to the producer, is now developing much closer to the original. The Gothic remake could well win over the fans and be a success. With that the new developer studio for the Gothic series would have been found. If the remake hits the mark, I'm pretty sure that a remake from the second part will also come and who knows: If Alkimia Interactive is also on the wave of success with it and satisfies the fans, then I can certainly imagine that THQ Nordic will give the green light for a completely new Gothic. Developed entirely independently by the studio in Barcelona.

Piranha Bytes? They would then no longer be important for the Gothic series and could continue to devote themselves to their new brands. Where there is an Elex 2, there is certainly an Elex 3 waiting in the drawer. The studio will certainly not be unemployed. Of course this is pure speculation, but I think it is quite conceivable. A lot now depends on the Gothic remake, but that's a different topic.

But if you still want an old-school Gothic from the old developers, you shouldn't have too high hopes for it. There is definitely a future for the series, and it looks a lot better than it did a few years ago. In my opinion, Piranha Bytes will never help shape this future again.