Four titles in, the Gothic series has worked hard to earn a legion of dedicated fans – mainly in Europe, but steadily growing in reputation worldwide. However, the series has never managed to attain either the sterling quality of direct competitors like the Elder Scrolls series, Neverwinter Nights or even Dragon Age: Origins. With that said, it does offer a solid, action-oriented RPG experience with an emphasis on evocative overworld design and loot by the chest-full. Arcania: Gothic IV tries so hard to tick all the right boxes, in fact, that it doesn't actually have a lot of unique personality – and the lack of polish ultimately holds Arcania: Gothic IV, like its predecessors, back.

Taking place ten years after the events of Gothic 3, a nameless hero once again sits at the center of a grand adventure in the divided realm of Myrtana. As the game opens, players get their first taste of the overhauled combat and defense systems, stepping into the role of the increasingly erratic King Rhobar III – rapidly losing touch with his people and, now in isolation, about to have a confrontation with demonic forces.

As this introductory dream sequence dissolves and we're introduced to the game-proper, we also get our first taste of the beautifully revamped and improved engine powering the game. Arcania: Gothic IV's engine is a surprisingly capable and flexible beast, streaming the world (almost) seamlessly. Transitions from sprawling castle towns to rolling countryside and into caves and dungeons is a smooth and natural process. The only load screens you'll see occur when teleporting or just after one of the CG cinematic sequences. Pretty fair.

Vision Engine 7 – the middleware powering Gothic IV – does a very good job of fleshing out a smooth, stable and saturated fantasy realm on the PC version. Our admittedly high-end hardware cranked out fairly smooth performance at the highest possible settings. The texture resolution is pretty sharp – perhaps not the most subtle use of normal mapping though. Self-shadowing is excellently handled, and the draw distance is staggering. However, the pop-in of textures – and the intentional 'disappearing act' of vegetation as it nears the camera (to avoid obscuring your vision) seems a tad rushed. If you have the specs to run this at anything from mid-range settings and above, prepare for a very pretty experience. The character animation systems are also slick, with a decent sense of physicality. Unleashing a particularly devastating spell or delivering the killing blow often results in the foe cartwheeling out and away—which is infinitely satisfying. Character designs, however, leave something to be desired; the human inhabitants are decidedly generic – even downright unpleasant looking at times.

Complementing the combat and spellcasting system are skill trees that really allow for character customization. While the skill trees are broken up into magic, archery and combat-oriented sub-categories, you're not locked into specializations. The downside of spending your accumulated skill points widely (rather than just in specific trees) is that you're only going to start hitting mid-level skill perks and upgrades as your experience points start to peak.

Extensive crafting and alchemy systems go some way towards filling in the skill gaps. Basically, even if you opt to focus on melee, making your nameless hero into an armor-clad megaknight, wielding health and defense-boosting tank-gear, you still unlock various alchemical and crafting abilities after the first few hours of play. The landscape is also utterly littered with ingredients and raw materials - to the point where, we feel, there's actually too much out there, making spellcrafting and potion-making a little too easy – and devaluing the spells themselves.

Similarly, loot drops appear to be leveled according to your own experience points – and we found weapon and armor drop quality to be a little higher than was probably needed for most encounters. This resulted in a lot of the reward weapons feeling kind of underpowered compared with the standard loot drops. Even the added stat-modifiers (your usual host of health, mana, stamina and strength modifiers) often don't compare with the random loot drops.