Gothic 3 is justly infamous, released with a ton of bugs, some of which rendered the game basically unplayable, others unimaginably irritation, it’s hard to find reviewers who were willing to look past that to review the game itself. Which is a shame because Gothic 3 takes the Gothic universe to the next level, tossing the player into a vast world with three continents and climates, and even more moral dilemmas working to negotiate the complexities of the Orc occupation of three human lands.

In each version of the series, Gothic has grown, from a unique story told in a human prison colony, to the collapse of the human front against the Orcs, to the Orc occupation itself. And to its credit Gothic 3 is smart enough to create the complexity that takes an RPG above its smash, grow and loot basics. The Orcs in Gothic 3 are not the simple monsters they were in the last two games. And the humans are still just as ugly and conflicted. It’s startling the first time you do a mission for the Orcs, or the first time an Orc has your back. That’s because in Gothic 3 the old alliances are no longer so simple.

There’s a resistance that’s often corrupt or incompetent, raiding and robbing farmers, or hiding in the woods and doing nothing. There are the human mercenaries who have chosen to work for the Orcs. The Hashashin who have come from the desert to hunt slaves. And the clans of the north who are facing their own struggle for survival. And while like most RPG’s, Gothic 3 still boils down into many of the same dungeon hacking quests, they take place in an environment where individual actions feel like they matter. A sharp contrast with the tedious mess of missions in Oblivion.

I could of course go over the many bugs in Gothic 3, and other problems that cost Pirhana Bytes their spot doing Gothic games. But considering that Gothic 4 will go in a Fableish direction with chapters, instead of a great open environment, a fully patched version of Gothic 3 is going to be a classic game that is well worth playing.