[Update #2]: A few years later, THQ Nordic has now shared a new and atmospheric look at the greatly revamped Gothic 1 Remake.
[Update]: The playable teaser was a success! THQ Nordic is now officially working on the Gothic Remake!
While I'm personally a bigger fan of Gothic 2, even I have to admit that the original Gothic is a truly remarkable game that left a massive impact on the RPG genre. It's also a game that's practically infested with bugs and quite dated by today's standards, the former of which has become increasingly problematic as each new operating system seems to create more and more issues.
In order to address this, as well as to bring the RPG classic into the modern era, THQ Nordic has now released a playable teaser for the Gothic 1 Remake to see what the community thinks about it. Needless to say, nothing is currently set in stone and this is merely a prototype, but here's a small showcase of what THQ Nordic has cooked up:
After only messing around with the demo for a little bit, I have to echo some of the criticisms laid out on the Steam page. The protagonist is way too talkative for a game that's supposed to be about letting yourself get immersed into the world, while the combat itself just feels strange and unappealing to me.
That said, the rest of the Gothic 1 Remake does show a great deal of promise, even though it's obviously unpolished given its prototype status. But if THQ Nordic takes the feedback to heart and spends a good bit of time polishing things up, I can definitely see this being the Resident Evil 2 Remake of Gothic 1 - not exactly the same, but following in the same spirit and with plenty of improvements to make it all the more enjoyable!
You can read more about the Gothic 1 Remake teaser, as well as potentially give it a try for yourself, by hopping over to Steam. Just keep in mind that you'll need to own at least one Piranha Bytes game in order to play it. Have fun, and do try not to get eaten by wolves!