The days of weird and novel control schemes are drifting further and further into the past with each new game that releases. But before there were uniformly understood control schemes, there were older titles that used almost chronically confusing set-ups. Gothic is one of those titles. And still, despite that hurdle, Gothic remains a compelling and engaging title through and through.

As a prisoner sent through a magical barrier, you find yourself in an immediate struggle to survive. The game simulates a pretty harsh existence. The major city runs an extortion racket, requiring you to cough up ore to survive. Ore is the beating heart of the entire mining colony trapped within this place, and without it, you’ll quickly find yourself trying to eke out a useless existence in the woods for about five minutes, before you’re murdered by angry wildlife.

The game encourages exploration, while also ensuring that you are not going places you really shouldn’t be. The world is naturally dangerous – so every new area you make it to is an achievement in and of itself. Gothic isn’t all miserable, though. There are well-written characters, and interesting side quests that create further immersion and engagement with the world. It does so much right with what is, realistically, so little. It certainly wouldn’t win prizes for combat or controls, but the actual feeling of exploring this very wild world remains a simply genuine experience. The animals are, for the most part, actually dangerous and a threat to be taken seriously, rather than just giant rats who you can kill in a few hits a piece. And while the story doesn’t do anything radically new, it is a game to be played for its setting. Because the setting is still magical. It still comes through the screen and fully immerses you in its forests, in its swamps and in its settlements. It even has the capacity to frustrate with the character called Mud. He’s really, really annoying, but also vaguely endearing, due to his self-aware isolation and lack of friends – and isn’t that a feat, to have a fictional character both be incredibly frustrating and also, just a tiny bit, worth protecting. Below, however, is a moment of particular weakness, when he just wasn’t taking the hint.

I will always remember my desperate run to the swamp camp from the main camp, in an attempt to get healing potions earlier than I probably should have been. I devised paths to slip past the velociraptor birds, I quicksaved and quickloaded over and over again as I walked places that aggravated the larger enemies I wasn’t looking to aggravate, and I slid down the side of a cliff to reach a narrow path that led to the camp. Then, using my quick wit and charm, said the right things to let myself into the mystic’s camp, and waited patiently til nightfall til I could sneak into the alchemist’s hut, steal the potion, and make a run for it. All the way back through the harsh and unforgiving wilderness. It was, despite the quicksaving and quickloading I had to do to avoid replaying stretches of “will it attack or won’t it”, one of the most engaging bits of video game derring-do I’ve played.

For a game made in 2001, the fact that it retains that creative spark is fascinating, even in spite of its jank. An experience that remains fun and interesting.