Games Convention: Gothic 2 - Die Nacht des Raben Impressions
Jaz, 2003-09-01

The Games Convention 2003 in Leipzig was significantly bigger than the first GC in 2002 - and what's more, this time a significantly larger amount of CRPGs (or games with RPG elements) were shown. Unfortunately, the two days I spent at the GC weren't enough to cover all of the RPG/like games - in fact, I was really glad I glimpsed as many games as I did, because sprinting from booth to booth, from award ceremony to press center and back while elbowing my way through hordes of gamers took a considerable amount of time.

Here is a short overview of the Gothic II Add-on.

Gothic II: Add-on "Die Nacht des Raben" (German)
This was a surprise for me, as it wasn't known in advance that the add-on for bestselling German CRPG Gothic II would be shown at the GC (and I was quite as surprised to meet Kai Rosenkranz, Piranha Byte's musical director and webmaster). But even despite the lacking announcement, gamers milled around the two computers, backstabbing each other to spend a few precious minutes with the game.

"Die Nacht des Raben" is not a stand-alone add-on. Its story is embedded into the main game, meaning: if you want to play the add-on, you need to start Gothic II over. At first glance, the add-on doesn't change much - but what it does is add new monsters, spells, equipment, skills, guilds, NPCs and even a whole new region of the world to explore, and, of course, a whole new additional story arc which comes with a series of quests.
One of the most prominent changes in gameplay is the raise in combat difficulty. Killing monsters gives less XP, and many of the old quests are changed in some way, sometimes including additional ways to solve the quest.

First Impression
Very good. "Die Nacht des Raben" adds new qualities to the basic game, changing it in several subtle and other, not so subtle ways. If the interest of gamers at the GC is to be taken as a measure of the add-on's quality, then its quality must be brilliant indeed