Gothic/Controls

Pressing Esc will take you to the main menu where you can configure most controls. If your mouse has a scrollwheel, be sure to use it to zoom out a bit too — this resets after every load game though. Most players find it easier just to use the keyboard though.

You can play Gothic with mouse+keyboard, but the game can also easily be controlled with just the keyboard. This is especially useful when playing on a laptop without a regular mouse. When not in combat, left and right make you turn left and right, and the camera follows, similar to Tomb Raider. Looking up and down is rarely if ever required anyway.

There is no in-game explanation of the controls. You're supposed to read the manual for that, or StrategyWiki of course. Some new players who don't read manuals can get very frustrated by this because the most basic controls are not explained in-game. Interacting with the world is done with the ACTION key, also known as USE key (by default Ctrl) plus a direction. For most actions, the direction is up.

When picking a lock, hold down USE throughout the lockpicking process.

To punch, assume fighting stance first with ~. To attack or parry with a melee weapon, equip your weapon first with 1. To fire an arrow, equip your bow first with 2. To cast spells, equip the magic spell first using 3 through 9 and 0.

The process when dealing with looting chests, defeated foes or merchants is mostly the same. To move through categories, press left right without the USE key. The only difference with merchants is that you move items from the merchant (left) and items from your inventory (right) to the middle of the screen until you're happy with the exchange and the value you offer equals or exceeds the value of the goods from the merchant, then press Enter to finalize the deal.

When using weapons, there is a form of automatic lock-on. Not to make an action game easier for console players (Gothic was never released for any console), but because Gothic isn't an "action" game, at least, not of that kind. Gothic is not like an FPS that tests your reflexes, it's more like Dungeons & Dragons, or more accurately, a hybrid between the two. This style also heavily contributes to the game being easy to play without a mouse.

Have a fiddle with the settings in the game and get a feel for whatever works for you. Jump only works when either moving and pressing jump or if you are standing against a wall/cliff and press up at the same time. If you want to climb something, stand close to it and hold down the jump button Alt. The camera angle will now change, as if the protagonist is looking up. If you now press up once, you will hang off the ledge. If you press up again (or held it down), you will climb onto it. If the slope is less than (say) 80°, you may not be able to grab it even if it looks like it'd be a cakewalk.

If you'd rather play using a gamepad, you can use a third-party utility such as Joy2Key (don't confuse the Linux and Windows versions, as they are different programs with the same name, though they share a similar purpose) to map the gamepad controls to keyboard key presses. This works pretty well, as there are only about a dozen important controls in the game in total.

In any case, be careful, as certain key combinations (such as CtrlEsc) may cause the game to crash if accidentally pressed.

Chart
US 104 key