I'll preface this post by saying I first played Gothic 2 and Risen 3 in 2014 and loved both of them. When I first learned about this game nothing made any sense. The graphics looked like a huge step back from Risen 3, the combat and ranged gunplay looked terrible and the mishmash of genres used to create the setting made absolutely no sense to me. Despite my love for their previous work, I was afraid Piranha Bytes had lost me with this one. After reading the OT this morning during a stressful 8 hour trip, I loaded up steam on my mobile device and bought it, thinking, I'm having a terrible day, why not?
No joke: this may actually be my GOTY.
According to Steam I am about 3 hours in and this game has completely gripped me where other open world rpgs have failed. The world the developers have created here and the struggle between the factions that inhabit it create a true sense of freedom and player agency. From the very first dialogue choice you are given, you are made aware that nearly every decision you make in this game will make a meaningful impact; not only on the living, breathing world and its inhabitants, but also on the type of experience you will have throughout the entire game. Want to play a gunslinging badass outlaw? There's a faction for that. Want to play a battlemage, switching freely between destructive magic and brutal melee combat? There's a faction for that too. Ultimately, your experience and playstyle will be shaped by your own decisions.
I may be in the minority here, but I think this game is absolutely beautiful. Not every texture or piece of geometry is perfect, but there is some insane lighting and shader work that has made my jaw drop on a few occasions. Performance has also been absolutely rock solid on a GTX 1070 and 6600K with everything maxed at 1080p.
There are, of course, some negatives. Combat can take a while to get used to, animations can be jerky and the ui is atrocious. There are clearly some bugs to be worked out, and everything can sometimes feel like it is all slapped together with duct tape.
But somehow, despite all of these things, it works.