The long-running action-RPG series has recently undergone some serious negotiations with new developers, says Australian publisher JoWood. The series used to be handled by Pluto 13 (or Pirahna Bytes), but they've gone bye-bye. The new developer hasn't been named yet, so we don't know much about if the gameplay will change at all, graphical direction, quality, whatever.

Usually, this wouldn't matter to console owners at all since the Gothic franchise has historically been a PC exclusive. However, this latest iteration is scheduled for consoles as well as PC. Since most console owners probably haven't played it, the game is fairly nonlinear. Free-roam, do what you want, make allies with whoever and kill whatever. It's sort of like Fable, we guess. Or Elder Scrolls. Gothic titles generally have a lot of bugs that simply don't get fixed -- we hope they take better care of the game when they put it on consoles. Anyone played the other games? Think this'll translate well onto consoles?