Khorinis Upper Quarter

Risen 1 is reasonably well regarded and is often considered the (distant) 3rd best Piranha Bytes games.

Gothic: Good game. Gets carried by the characters. atmosphere and world
Gothic 2: Like Gothic except they did quite a few improvements on the gameplay side - Great game.
Gothic 2 NOTR: The perfect addon. It adds more to Gothic 2s world and everything fits perfectly. Great reason to replay it.
Gothic 3: Desaster at release. Decent after a million unofficial patches. Feels more like a TES than a Gothic game.
Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods: One of the biggest shits i have ever played. Bad does not describe this mess. Jowood outsourced development to a bunch of indians here and it shows - Even fanfiction mods are better than this.
Risen: Pretty much what Gothic 3 should have been. Great first half - Weaker second half thanks to endless lizard caves
Risen 2: Easily the worst combat in the series. Even Gothic 1 combat is more enjoyable than this. This is also the only PB game without guilds - An experiement gone wrong that some might enjoy - Most won't though.
Risen 3: Took a step back from Risen 2. Overall it's one big pandering mess though. The combat is better but still fairly weak and in general this is just one game which exists to throw references to better games into your face. Easily the worst PB story. Overall okay - Worth a playthrough - I paid 30 bucks and didn't regret it.
ELEX: The best game PB made since the first Risen. Combat is still anything but great but the world is fun to explore and the story gives enough motivation to play through it which is an achievement after Risen 2 and Risen 3. I hope they learn from their mistakes and ELEX2 ends up being like ELEX with less jank and better combat.

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What's Gothic about? I've always heard it's great but know nothing about it. It looks comfy as fuck.

One thing that always struck me the most about Gothic is how far ahead of its time it was. Starting with the superb sound and environmental design that made all the camps in G1 and cities in G2 feel incredibly alive and lived in (try playing Morrowind after it), which is further reinforced by the how simple, intuitive and minimalist the UI was and how non-menu heavy the interactions throughout the game were, putting any other bloated ass mess of an interface made before OR after it to absolute shame, including ironically Piranha Bytes' own fucking games.

Don't ever listen to people whose main way to deliver criticism is "it just seems so lol", Elex is a great game that's well worth your time if you love Gothic, it's just not G2 tier good, also whoever was the art director for it should be fired.
Risen 1 could've been great too but it takes an insane nosedive in quality at a 50% mark or so.

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RPG where every character has a place in the world.
You don't have nameless NPCs who just exist to sell you shit or dumb text on your face. Everything has a purpose. Same goes for the world. All items and enemies are placed by hand and don't respawn so the world feels alive,

That's what most consider the strongest point of those games.

Agreed with everything (didn't play forsaken gods though and never will)
I am optimistic for Elex 2, the first one was definitely a step in the right direction after Risen 2 and 3

>also whoever was the art director for it should be fired.
lol I know him irl.
He said when he was designing monsters he just wanted to make them look cool and not realistic. really tells you a lot about the design philosophy

There's a story, but that's not why you play it.

It's one of the most fully realized "living world" fantasy RPGs ever. Combat isn't the funnest, but no matter what anyone tells you, it IS 100% skill-based. You can solo every single monster in the game at level 1 bare handed with no armor or magic without getting hit. But this takes a ludicrous amount of skill and patience to git that gud. So the gameplay mechanics might not be super exciting, but there's nothing WRONG with them. If you just want to play a WRPG with an incredibly well made open-world then you can't get much better than Gothic. Gothic 2 expands this even further (the entire world of Gothic 1 is literally IN Gothic 2).

>whoever was the art director for it should be fired.
As much as I loved Elex, it genuinely looked like someone bought up an entire asset store and cobbled a world out of it.
Even if the reason why LARPers, Mad Max nutjobs and sci fi nerds exist at the same time gets explained, its pre-apocalypse world where vacation resort bungalows are just a stone toss away from factory complexes that are right next to radar stations which are next to windparks that are build next to castle ruins, military research facilities and nuclear silos still makes no real sense.

>relatively small but highly detailed open world
>everything in the world makes sense, from NPCs with certain job's/functions, to monsters and their placement in the world
>enemy placement "locks" certain areas of the world organically, meaning you could in theory go there but you will die very often because the enemies are too strong
>incredible and unique atmosphere due to all those things, as well as the dialogues and music
>multiple factions that you can choose between and that are in conflict with each other in believable ways
>interesting skill system where you need to find specific teacher NPCs to teach you separate skills (skinning animals/training 1-hand and 2-hand weapons etc)

there is much more to it but these are the things that stick out to me the most
even though it is a meme at this point, this game really has SOUL and you realize that while playing

>Like every NPC just felt personal.
Everything felt personal. Almost every gameplay mechanic had unique narrative echo, enriching them, making them "matter".
You wanted level up, well fuck you because nobody gonna do that unless you lick thier ass. Want new armor or weapon? Either go adventuring (with it's own unique feedback) or fuck you again.
Also they made a mad good choice for protag, not one thing ever felt like stupid out of character shit.
Nothing ever felt "gamey"

Might be the Dx11 mod.

And speaking of dialogue, there's some "genuinity" to its delivery (at least in the German version) that doesn't sound as stilted as it does in a lot of other games.
It's a dog eat dog world in those games and you don't get any "Oh please kind sir, could you please lend your sword in the battle against those wolves?" but some "Oh great, yet another toasted loser who thinks he can play tough guy around here. Listen up chump, we're going hunting and you look like you're experienced in running away so you may work as a neat piece of living bait. And hey, if you end up in one piece you may even keep some of the spoils that will be left after we're done with the job!" instead.

What Im actually hearing about gothic is that it's clunky as fuck and the writing is a bunch of edgelord bullshit, so of course it appeals to V's contrarian grognars. baka I'm going back to playing my CoC Belfast soccer hooligan mod.

[spoilers] jk, I luv u guys, I'm gonna check this out, sounds great. Gothic 1 or 2, and is it on steam? [spoilers]

Start with 1 since 2 immediately continues afterwards and features tons of callbacks.
And yeah, it's on Steam.
Not sure if the digital (and international) versions of 1 still feature the In Extremo concert, though.

fyi the steam versions probably won't work right off the bat without installing some patches to make the game compatible to modern pcs

Someone post the copypasta which patches to install, I don't have it saved

get the gog version, worked for me

Gothic 2 Steam/GoG patching guide with graphics mods

Download this and install in the correct order (readme). Game won't work properly without these.
mediafire.com/file/6bybstrd1iveieg/g2notr.rar

Then download this and extract to the "system" folder in your Gothic 2 folder
gothic-dx11.de/download/XVersions/GD3D11_X17_1.zip
This makes the graphics a lot better and fixes performance

then if you want to make the graphics even better also download and install this by extracting to your Gothic 2 folder
moddb.com/mods/lhiver-edition-vanilla-gothic/addons/lhiver-edition-graphics-world-vurt-v091

This one?

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Yes thanks

I just pulled this patching guide for gothic 1 from the steam forums. The graphic improvement stuff (step 5 and onward) is optional though

1. Install a fresh copy of Gothic.

2. Install the 1.08k patch.
Link: worldofgothic.de/dl/download_6.htm
This is the official latest patch for the game.

3. Install the Player Kit.
Link: worldofgothic.com/dl/?go=dlfile&fileid=28
The player kit allows you to run mods.

4. Install the latest System Kit.
Link: forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/threads/1340357-Release-Gothic-½-—-SystemPack-(ENG-DEU)
Download the 'Gothic 1 Classic' version of the System Kit - the downloads section is at the bottom of the first post.
The system kit modifies the engine to allow many modern features such as high-res support, widescreen, higher render distance, removes FPS lock, etc and is required for most mods.
I usually recieve an 'unsafe file' warning from my antivirus whenever I download System Kit installers (especially when there's a new release), but have never had an issue once installed.
If you're not comfortable installing the system kit because of antivirus warnings, then don't install it, however the DX11 mod will not work.

5. Install the latest Gothic 1 DirectX11 mod.
Link: worldofgothic.de/dl/download_591.html
This newer version of the preview release is made specifically for Gothic 1 and does not require any additional files to get working as was the case previously.

6. Install an enhanced textures mod.
Link: worldofgothic.com/dl/?go=dlfile&fileid=121
This is 'Freddy's Textures Patch', you can try other graphics/textures mods if you like, but this one definitely works with everything else in this guide.

7. Run the game from the Gothic\System\Gothic.exe executable.
You can bring up the DX11 menu in game with F11 or Control+F11