Gothic 1 Remake - Lockpicking Guide

Gothic 1 Remake faithfully and charmingly revives many of the old gameplay systems present in the original a quarter of a century ago.

One system to not make the cut, however, is Lockpicking. Out is the art of listening for clicks, and in is solving a complex Rubik's cube-esque logic puzzle.

There's no tutorial for this and it can be tricky to figure out, so here's everything you need to know (and a hack at the end to solve any and every lockpick puzzle!)

When you attempt to pick a lock you'll see a series of sliding plates with 7 holes on each. The amount of plates depends on the difficulty of the lock.

In order to succeed, you need to align all the pins on the plates in the fourth slot. You'll know when the pin is the right spot when it pops up instead of down.

(solved)

The catch is that moving one plate often moves another, hence the logical element and comparison to the Rubik's cube. You have to remember what moves what and plan ahead to align the pins perfectly.

This is pretty tough to do, especially in the early game with no experience in Lockpicking. It gets even harder at higher difficulties.

Fortunately, we can help!

As with many skills in Gothic 1, Lockpicking can be trained to improve your efficacy.

Once you've spoken to Diego and he's told you about various trainers in the Old Camp, Look for Fingers by the arena. He offers to improve both your lockpicking and pick pocketing.

Without training Lockpicking, it is highly unlikely you will be able to pick more challenging locks (those with 5 ore more plates in the mini game)

If you want to cheat your way through a lock (and let's be real - lockpicking mods are popular for a reason) then there's a solution.

Since this is a logic problem you can use the power of maths to solve it. If you're as bad at maths as we are though, you might need a little (A)ssisted (I)nvolvement.

Tell your mathematically gifted friend this. Anything in the bullet point below written in ((brackets like this)) is for your reference, delete it when asking your friend:

"Puzzle State

There are 5 plates, P1–P5.

• ((Replace 5 with the number of plates))

Each plate has 7 positions numbered 1–7.

A state is represented as:

(P1,P2,P3,P4,P5) ((Add P6 etc if there are more plates))

Initial state:

(X,X,X,X,X)

• ((Replace X with the starting positions of the pins in each plate. For example, if the first plate has a pin in the third hole, replace the first X with the number 3. Continue for all plates))

Goal state:

(4,4,4,4,4,4)

Legal moves:

A move consists of selecting one plate and moving its pin one position left or right.

A move is legal only if:

- No pin moves below position 1.

- No pin moves above position 7.

- All secondary movements caused by the move must also remain within positions 1–7.

Right-move effects:

• ((these numbers below indicate how the other plates move when an individual plate is moved. If another plate moves the same direction, it's marked at +1. If it doesn't move, it's marked as 0. If it moves in the opposite direction, it's marked as -1. ))
• ((The first X represents the first plate, the second X the second plate, and so on))
• ((For example: if moving the first plate to the right also moves the third plate to the right, the fourth plate to the left, but doesn't move the other plates, you would write 0, 0, +1, -1, 0))
• ((Repeat this for all plates. The only way to learn which plate moves what is trial an error in game. It's recommended to quicksave, learn the positions, and reload to later solve it))

P1+ : (X, X, X, X, X)

P2+ : (X, X, X, X, X)

P3+ : (X, X, X, X, X)

P4+ : (X, X, X, X, X)

P5+ : (X, X, X, X, X)

Left moves are the inverse of the corresponding right moves.

Task:

Find a legal sequence of moves that transforms the initial state into the goal state. Show the sequence of moves and the final verification.

Your friend should return a solution that looks something like P2L, P2L, P3R, P4R, P2L, P1R, P2R, and so on until the solution is reached. Bear in mind this could be as many as 70+ moves if you haven't trained lockpicking, so take your time!

If you find it isn't working then try moving the plates in the opposite direction as the solution. There may be some confusion as to what indicates left and right due to both the plates and the pins moving left and right but in opposite directions.