No Gothic 3 Add-on From Piranha, But They Sti...

No Gothic 3 Add-on From Piranha, But They Still Own 'Gothic'

We still don't know what were JoWooD thinking when they made the announcement that production on Gothic 4 has already begun (see yesterday's story), but the folks from Piranha Bytes / Pluto 13 were kind enough to explain us a thing or two about the dire situation in which their Gothic franchise now finds itself. Fortunately, we can still say it's *their* franchise, as they confirmed that "'Gothic' is a registered trademark of Pluto 13 GmbH and remains so". So the fans can breathe a bit easier now, we hope.

On the other hand, it's also true that "JoWood holds some usage rights, which might allow them to develop Gothic 4 without us", as the studio's managing director Michael Rueve tells us. He couldn't go into further details, though, due to the usual contractual confidentiality clauses with JoWooD that are still in place.

As for that Gothic 3 add-on that we were still uncertain about yesterday, well... let's just say you can forget about it. Piranha isn't making it, and we seriously doubt that anyone else will.

"We are not currently developing Gothic 3 AddOn or Gothic 4. Negotiations about these products between us have failed after more than 6 months", said Michael Rueve. "JoWood insinuates that development is already done by another team - but I do not really believe that, especially since they have not substantiated that claim."

So there you have it, embrace yourself for a really long wait until any future Gothic RPG... Let's just hope that it comes from Piranha, and that next time they'll get all the time they need to make it right.

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)