Weekly Recommendation: Gothic
Hey there!
Here’s your weekly German media recommendation from Monoglot Anxiety — and for the month of August, every recommendation comes with a special "Clemens Seal of Approval" from my partner. It's a bit like a newsletter takeover... except he's too lazy to write anything so it's still me writing this thing at the end of the day.
This week's Clemens Seal of Approval recommendation is for the 2001 German video game Gothic.
But first, a quick note from me:
Want to share your language journey on my blog? I'm looking for people at all stages of language learning to share their stories on my blog this summer and beyond. Specifically, I want to share your stories with the first foreign language(s) you learned because you wanted to, and not just for school.
If you're interested in writing a guest post, just shoot me an email!
Gothic
Clemens' first recommendation is for the fantasy role-playing video game Gothic, which was released in 2001 by the tiny German games studio Piranha Bytes. The game was a hit among German speakers, but never made it far beyond the fuzzy borders of the Deutscher Sprachraum. The game is notable for its original setting, natural and witty dialogue, and for being a bit ahead of its time when it came to game design for fantasy RPGs. Gothic predates The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind by about a year.
Despite being over 20 years old, the game (and its sequel, Gothic II) still has a devoted, mostly-Germanophone fanbase online. Fan mods are still being written, and it's still possible to download the games and play them — Gothic I is on Steam for just $9.99. Given the great quality of the dialogue (seriously, Gothic dialogues beat the stiff Skyrim dialogues by a mile), it's worth a play for German learners who enjoy (very old) video games.
Gothic as an... art medium?
I'd be remiss to recommend Gothic on Clemens' behalf if I forgot to mention his favorite Gothic YouTube channel as well: Jorgenson. The channel uses Gothic as a medium for... art? Comedy? Music? It's hard to say exactly. You don't need to have played Gothic to get all of the jokes, though playing (or, in my case, watching someone play) the game certainly enhances the experience.
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That's all for this week,
Elise from Monoglot Anxiety