Gothic 3 is a fantasy-themed open world action role-playing game for Microsoft Windows developed by Piranha Bytes.

JoWooD released a standalone expansion, entitled Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods, in November 2008.

The player must complete quests and slay wild animals and monsters to earn experience and improve skills.

The first part of Gothic tells the story of The Nameless Hero, a man thrust into the events of a penal colony.

The colony takes the form of a natural landscape encased in a large magical shield known as The Barrier, much like an impenetrable dome.

Over the course of the story, The Nameless Hero becomes acquainted with several characters, the most notable of which are Diego, Lee, Cor Angar, Lester, Gorn, Lares, Milten, and Xardas.

Having discovered the source of the evil threatening Khorinis, our hero assembles a crew of trusted friends and sails to a nearby island.

The hero lost all his belongings from the previous game when his ship is stolen while he's onshore with Milten, Diego, Gorn, and Lester.

While this chapter brings forward friends from the previous title (Xardas, Diego, Milten, Gorn, Lester, Lee, and Vatras) it also introduces two new major characters; King Rhobar the Second (who ultimately was responsible for sending the Nameless Hero to the penal colony in the first game) and Zuben.

While the king has a strong past as a bold leader, he now faces a near defeat; his fame is on the decline.

[citation needed] Therefore, the copyright holding publisher Jowood granted access to the source code to developers from the game community to allow the fans at least take care of the significant problems and bugs themselves.

With this 1.5 GB-sized patch[7] significant enhancements and fixes were introduced, so that finally a playable state of the game was achieved.

Hyper's Daniel Wilks commended the game for its "ton of quests, rewards exploration and approachable combat".

Xardas (one of the main characters from the original PC Gothic series), an orphan, raised by farmers, is visited one night by the ghost of Buthomar.

On 21 November 2008 JoWooD Productions released a standalone expansion entitled Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods, developed by Trine Games.