Whereas previously the HUD only showed you your health bar and that of your current target, in addition to your mana bar only while actively using magic, Gothic 3 adds your mana meter to the HUD permanently and also adds a stamina bar, in addition to a compass and a 10-key hotbar.

The rest of the HUD likewise throws a lot more information at you. I saw him leave town a little while ago, looked like he was heading for the coast' but because it's Gothic 3 there's no in-world mention of where to find Lester - just an omniscient tutorial window. Talk to Lester on the beach!' And it's like, do they really need to tell you this through an obnoxious immersion-breaking tutorial window? If this were Gothic 1 or 2, they would've had a character say something like 'Hey, where's Lester? He might know more. There you can find Lester who will give you more information. Walk out of the village and follow the path to the left that leads to the coast. These windows continue popping up in the early stages of the game explaining things to you, until eventually it's saying 'Very good! Next, you should talk to your old buddy Lester.

With Gothic 3, that emphasis is apparently no longer an emphasis, seeing as you're blasted with awkwardly slapped-together tutorial windows as soon as you launch the game telling you there's a hotbar in the center of the screen, and that you can press '1' to draw your sword, and click the left and right mouse buttons to attack and block. The first thing that stands out when one starts playing Gothic 3, apart from the completely different engine, is that its core design philosophy feels fundamentally different from the previous two games, where Piranha Bytes strove to make everything as immersive as possible, not only from a world-building perspective but also from a mechanical standpoint.

Gothic 3 review