Gothic III is the third game in the famous RPG series from Piranha Bytes and JoWood, released in 2006.
The story of the game begins with the arrival of the nameless hero from the previous installments, along with his friends Milten, Gorn, Diego, and Lester, on the mainland of Myrtana. Upon their arrival, they discover that the state of Robar III has been captured by orcs, and all people, except for those leading the partisan war of the rebels, are enslaved. It is up to the main hero to determine their (and not only their) fate.
The world of the third "Gothic" is simply enormous. It is divided into 3 climatic zones (the snowy Nordmar, the forested Myrtana, and the desert Varrant), each with its own unique cities, factions, flora, and fauna. Hundreds of NPCs are ready to trade with the hero, give him quests, or simply converse. By the way, life simulation, as in previous parts, is an integral part of the game world. Furthermore, this world is now completely seamless, and throughout the game, you won't encounter a single loading screen. The developers decided to give players complete freedom. From the very beginning of the game, they are free to go where they want and do what they want – exploring the world in search of ancient artifacts, completing quests, sparking revolutions... In Myrtana, there are 6 factions (orcs, rebels, nomads, assassins, barbarians, wanderers) to which players can freely join. However, the factions don't have the rigid boundaries found in the previous parts – a player can support both the nomads and the barbarians at the same time. Moreover, deciding the fate of the world (as there are now 3 endings) is also solely up to them.
Significant changes have been made to the gameplay. The combat system has been replaced with a more familiar "clicking" style for many players; combo attacks from the game have disappeared, and magical runes are also gone (spells now have to be learned at the altars of the respective gods). However, new skills have appeared (such as the skill of persuasion or staff fighting), the ability to run quickly (this consumes stamina – a new character attribute), and many new types of weapons (besides the familiar one-handed and two-handed swords, there are staffs, shields, halberds, and the ability to wield two one-handed swords at once). The developers not only created a new engine for the game called the Genome Engine but also utilized many third-party technologies, like SpeedTree and AGEIA PhysX. As a result, the game's graphics do not look outdated even now, five years after its release.
The soundtrack by Kai Rosenkranz, an integral part of the series, was recorded this time by the Bochum Symphony Orchestra and even released as a separate disk. Immediately after its release, the game received numerous negative reviews due to a large number of serious bugs. Additionally, due to legal troubles, the developer Piranha Bytes was removed from working on the series, and there was no one to release patches. By now, however, almost all of the game's bugs have been fixed through patches from the Community Patch Team.
Due to the split between the developer and the publisher of the game right after its release, and consequently the absence of an SDK for the game, along with its low popularity compared to previous parts, few modifications for Gothic III have been released. The game was fully translated and voiced by GFI Russia and published in Russia by Russobit-M.