Gothic is no walk in the park, and the remake didn’t move the needle on that too much—PC Gamer weekend editor Jody Macgregor called it “an RPG for people who think Daggerfall was the last good Bethesda game” in his review. One thing the remake did overhaul was the lockpicking system, though players are still finding it a bit of a headscratcher.
Reddit user ConferenceWarm171 posted a thread yesterday joking about the system-induced mass confusion. One reply from user Salvator-Mundi- reads, “It is a classic puzzle. Moving one plate actually moves multiple plates. Plates at different levels move different other plates. You have to find the order of moving the plates.” That breakdown only hurts my head as a Gothic greenhorn, but Salvator-Mundi- conceded in their post that “they could add easier locks at the start of the game.”
PC Gamer online editor Fraser Brown had some gentle critiques of the game’s lockpicking minigame in today’s Dungeon Master column, where he said the system “has broken me and I can no longer experience joy … I guzzled down one of my favourite beers last night and could only taste disappointment.” He also said it’s better than what’s in the original game, which makes me a little glad I never played it.
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Developer Alkimia published a community blog on Steam yesterday addressing the issue. “We are monitoring the sentiment about lockpicking which seems very mixed; we cannot stress enough how much easier this gets when you start adding skill points into it,” the post said. “We will ofc continue to monitor and communicate as soon as we have solutions or timelines for when fixes will be deployed.” (The post also states that some crash bugs are being worked on with a fix due by Monday, in case you don’t care about all this lockpicking drama.)
It’s funny to see all this backlash. I always thought lockpicking minigames were the penance you have to suffer to get a good RPG in return—the bitterness that brings out the deeper flavors in that black coffee. Do I like picking locks in Oblivion? No, I’m not a dunce. But would I trade that jank for the world? Of course not.
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