Regarding the female representation in the Gothic remake.

[dense shard]

The discussion is based on two key premises: first, Gothic is a work of art, and whether it is considered “good” or “bad” does not affect the analysis of its style. Second, a remake should primarily be a faithful restoration of the original — preserving mechanics, tone, and style — rather than reinterpreting it philosophically or stylistically. Otherwise, it is more accurately a reboot. (Source: MakeUseOf article)

The sexualized female characters in Gothic 1 were a deliberate stylistic choice, rooted in the neo-medieval fantasy of the 1980s–90s. Early fantasy games and art, including Dungeons & Dragons 1.0/2.0, Warhammer Fantasy, and early video games like Diablo and Sacred, frequently depicted muscular men and semi-nude female warriors as part of the genre’s aesthetic conventions. These choices reflected the artistic style of the time rather than purely marketing motives.

Contemporary critiques highlight issues such as male gaze, hypersexualization, and “male hegemony” in games (Fu, J.: Male hegemony in video games: Effects on female representation, psychology, and resistance). However, these critiques do not negate the fact that Gothic 1’s representations were intentional artistic decisions.

The Gothic Remake diverges from this tradition by depicting Gomez’s concubines as modestly dressed women. While arguably more historically accurate or less controversial, this change abandons the original’s stylistic consistency. In a faithful remake, maintaining the original artistic choices remains a priority, even when they conflict with modern standards.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/worldofgothic/comments/1p2w4on/regarding_the_female_representation_in_the_gothic

[dense shard]

Funny to see dislike without any counterpoints, usually means someone got angry

[dark axle]

I think some people are getting tired of this topic.
I understand people that don't want many changes.
I'm just thinking if they release a game in 2025 with hundreds of male characters and a handful of female characters and on top of that they put these female characters as sex slaves and in almost nude leather clothes there will be a gigantic shitstorm. And I understand Alkimia / THQ doesn't want that.

[dense shard]

"I'm just thinking if they release a game in 2025 with hundreds of male characters and a handful of female characters and on top of that they put these female characters as sex slaves and in almost nude leather clothes there will be a gigantic shitstorm. And I understand Alkimia / THQ doesn't want that."

Im sorry but i cant accept that, do a remake is not a right.
If you have to adapt a remake bc if not "buuuh shitstorm" than dont do it in the first place.

That's why my premise is "Videogames are Arts" and as we know Art shouldnt be under the market rules

[south rover]

fair that ppl are getting tired of this conversation.
As for the gigantic shitstorm, I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I think at this point there is so much distrust in companies either censoring OR pushing different ideeas that a lot of people turn rabid at the smallest thing and start yelling WOKE

Imo, the bigger shitstorm is coming because of them changing so much in a bunch of characters that had almost no role in the game to begin with, instead of respecting the original vision for them and allowing the remake to have the old school charm.
There are dozens if not hundreds of "influencers" and grifters that cant wait to jump on the next game to call it woke and farm ragebait and then there are youtubers like Asmongold that have already commented on the women redesigns and u just know hes gonna farm tf out of this issue

It seems like we have gone full circle and the majority is no longer people that get mad for NOT censoring certain aspects, but instead people that get mad when that does happen.
There has been a lot more outrage in the last 2 years whenever a game took a "safe" decision rather than the one players wanted than theres been for a game being edgy or slightly offensive

As for the guy that made this post, he kept it completely respectful, no unnecesary aggresivenes, no turning the discussion into a beauty standards debate, made some good points.

[hallow cloak]

There is nothing wrong with the original Gothic design and premise. The very idea that we "cannot have that in 2025." is utterly ridiculous, untrue and is devastating to art itself. It has been proven time and time again that this modern mindset is NOT the reality and doesn't make profit! People are more tired of censorship and uglification, by large.

BG3 was Explicit. Witcher is Explicit. Nobody cared! It sold so well that Gothic may never go that big. Gothic 1 and 2 never even had the level of explicitness that these games had - it is just a dark fantasy. It is not edgy and thirsty, it is "brutal world" like the very description of Gothic on their page says. And if they keep censoring and uglifying it, it will never reach those heights.

You're severely underestimating the backlash against censorship and looking at it upside-down: the censorship today is worse than explicitness. People are tired of censorship.

https://x.com/Asmongold/status/1991678929510478193?s=20

You may not like Asmongold, or Vara Dark, or any of the people that cry WOKE every day of the year. But the audience that flocks to them is not to be taken lightly, and all you have to do is to be faithful to the original to evade it and even turn it around in your favor. In everyone's favor.

6k people is alot larger that a dozen, you have a mere dozen of the Discord accounts telling you how censorship is ok and how "there's nothing wrong". Do the math. Discord is not as large of a platform as YT and X are, and sales from other titles who have embraced modernity do not show a "mixed reception" at all. They fail.

Zack (@Asmongold)

@Pirat_Nation Any game that does this you can assume to be garbage, while there are exceptions, this is the rule

A decision made purely for political and social reasons that I can guarantee the players don't want

If you're making the change for the player, who are you making it for?

X · Nov 21, 2025, 1:23 AM

[dark axle]

I still have hope that they'll be able to satisfy everyone because I want the release to be a success.
Maybe they will adjust bodies and faces and have appealing outfits to please the one side and have quests with Velaya and/or other women showing them as more than just decoration to please the other.

[lilac horizon]

Its possible that art style of this topic was also adjusted by the fact that they chose different direction of art style for other parts of the game.

As its explained in the Making of Video from Alkimia. See if you didnt check it out already.

As for me personally, I would welcome if the women were the same as in original. It might make no sense but it would be a bad move to not be faithfull for the sake of people who care about this kind of stuff. At the and of the day I couldnt care less if they are going to be sexy or not though, Im still buying the game (at least one copy), playing the sht out of it and hope for a remake of Gothic 2.

Also, I am too, tired of this topic. Because it takes away too much feedback attention from other topics for example here in the discord. There already was a thread with 350 comments which got removed, because the “facebook comment section people” were endlessly arguing there, which was resulting in this feedback claiming the first position in this discord channel and diverting attention from combat/gameplay related topics.

As I said before, like with everyone else, I think its clear that the team already has this information. So I just hope this will not be another 300+ comment thread because I really want to focus on multiple topics here.

[nova kindle]

I will just cope a message form a different topic here as well

We read every single topic and message, we’re ready to lead a civilised discussion according to the platform guidelines we’re using.

Alkimia Interactive has always listened to the feedback of the players and of the Gothic community and made changes accordingly.

We will gather all the feedback and discuss it internally with our team.

Thank you for being a passionate fan base that really cares about the future of the franchise.

[dense shard]

I loved the comments guys, very fair points, respectable, and without any toxicity. I want to say this; I know that some of you find this topic too niche, a distraction from the very important things, but I can't maybe for professional deformation (I studied history, the subject of details) let things go.

Mainly the argument is always the same: if we don't fight for the little things, we don't discover and analyze and finally defend the less important things (as someone describes this topic) how would we win in the big rooms? If we can even maintain some ultra minor character how can you keep faith about the fact they will not change anything important?

It's always a perspective matter.

However I Hope Alkimia read about this post because I want them to know about Neo Medievalism and why Gothic was made like that or not in another way. Lets analyze videogames more, I can assure you guys that they are more deep as one can think.

[nova kindle]

We’ve read this post, don’t worry. We read everything:)

[gaunt kernel]

Well... sadly no one is able to satisfy everyone, but I am pretty sure that Alkimia will nail it. ^^

[unkempt tide]

it is impossible to satisfy everyone, so instead of trying to satisfy everyone try to satisfy your main audiance and you are good

[velvet ruin]

As a longtime fan of sword and sorcery aesthetics, I'm glad the developers recreated this scene faithfully. I hope they do the same for the rest of the game and don't cave to easily offended neo-puritans.