Finished up Gothic today, with about 23 hours on the game clock (and at least a third again as much spent on retries). My initial impressions of it were pretty misleading, as right after the long and completely nonlinear first chapter, the game’s structure becomes completely linear. After that point the game is still strung together via NPC conversations, but 90% of the conversations from that point on are there purely to advance the game’s plot in a single direction. The player can still travel anywhere on the map (provided he’s strong enough to get past ‘gatekeeper’ monsters placed at specific points here and there) and discover hidden areas, but most of the time outside of towns in Chapter 2 and onward is spent either in dungeons or travelling between quest nodes.