A playable teaser for a remake of Gothic, a flawed and beloved RPG, is out now on Steam

The team at THQ Nordic has been busy spooling up a new development team in Barcelona, Spain. To test their mettle, the powers that be set them to task on a remake of a game in their stable: specifically Piranha Bites’ cult classic Gothic, a flawed and beloved role-playing game from 2001. The result is this playable teaser, available for free to anyone who also owns any other Piranha Bites game.

Gothic was a devilishly opaque little game that focused on a male protagonist inside a prison colony. You battled orcs, but also explored the political landscape of a remote feudal society. It featured non-player characters with their own schedules, and many other subtle features that were an inspiration to the team behind The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt.

The same developers who created the Gothic series went on to make Elex, a complex open-world RPG that blends the science fiction, post-apocalyptic, and medieval genres into a single, somewhat unwieldy experience. Elex was poorly received, but does have its champions.

But a remake... a remake sounds pretty good, now that you mention it. THQ has also posted a side-by-side comparison with the original, which we’ve embedded below.

“THQ Nordic is eager to learn from the players through a survey following the completion of the prototype,” the publisher wrote on Steam, “whether and how it should proceed with the production of a full Gothic Remake, or leave the heritage and the great memories associated with it untouched.”

There’s also an official website, if you’d like to follow the game’s journey to a possible full release.