Piranha Bytes - Gothic Interview @ Gothicz.net

Czech Gothic fan site Gothicz.net published an English translation of their recent interview with Piranha Bytes co-founder Mike Hoge. Most questions deal with specific Gothic and G2 topics, with a little excursion of to the business side of things. Hoge explains a couple of loose ends and design decisions in PB's trademark no-nonsense style. Nothing really new, but it's a good read for fans.

Gothicz.net: As we know, the magic barrier in G1 was created by twelve magicians plus Xardas. In the Colony we can find precisely the same count of them, however the fire mage Milten came in to the Colony after the Barrier was created. So we are missing one fire mage. It seems to me quite impossible, that you would overlook this disharmony. So what happened to this unknown mage?

Mike: The Magic barrier was created by 12 magicians, Xardas being one of them! When Xardas left the old camp, there were only 5 Mages left.. So they took Milten as an apprentice, when he was thrown into the prison after the barrier had been created. There is a dialogue in the game where one of the mages gets the numbers wrong. I think it was Saturas... I noticed that error, fixed it and some ex-team member of mine "fixed" it back because he didn't understand the background. There is no missing mage. The guy just messed it up :)

On a sidenote, Mike says the Gothic rights will return to PB:

Mike: We get the rights to Gothic back when we have finished Risen 2. Why? Because we did only sell them to our ex-publisher for a certain amount of time ;)

Wise move.

This is the first time somebody from Piranha Bytes officially clarifies the rights situation. It's more than welcome to finally have official word on it.
Risen 2 is expected in 2011.