Gothic 4 Coming, But Not From Piranha

We're getting some very mixed emotions here, after JoWooD's latest announcement in which they confirm the production of Gothic 4. First of all, fans of the series will likely be disappointed to hear that original developer Piranha Bytes / Pluto 13 will not be working on the fourth chapter in their role-playing series. Their collaboration with publisher JoWooD has apparently come to an end, since they couldn't come to terms regarding the development of Gothic 4 (according to JoWooD's communique).

Secondly, the same communique statest that Gothic 4 is currently planned for PC and consoles. And worst of all, not "next-gen consoles", but "current-gen consoles"! That makes the project sound pretty obsolete already, and who knows how many years it will take to be completed. Especially when we take into consideration that JoWooD has yet to announce a developer for Gothic 4, as they are barely "in promising negotiatons (...) with various prospective development studios".

All this also seems to cancel the following statement made by Albert Seidl, CEO of JoWooD, last September (story):

"We are already working on add-on packages of JoWooD's SpellForce- and Gothic 3 series, which will partially be launched in 2007 already."

If JoWooD and Piranha have parted ways, odds are there won't be any other Gothic 3 add-on released. There are also some other things we're confused about right now (such as the ownership of the "Gothic" trademark), so we're hoping to get some comments on this from Piranha. We'll get back with an update if that happens.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)