What does Mud do in Gothic Remake?

Gothic 1 Remake Mud: A close-up shot of Mud, a mud-covered man, standing next to a castle wall. — (Image credit: THQ Nordic)

Shortly after arriving in the Old Camp in Gothic 1 Remake, you're bound to run into the one and only Mud. He's a lowly villager near the castle gate who'll ambush you for a chat when you walk past his shack. All he wants to do is join you for a while to keep you company, so you've likely said 'why not' out of curiosity. The other option was immediately telling a stranger to piss off, which is a bit rude, don't you think?

However, if you've spent more than a minute with Mud, you'll realise just how annoying he is. He'll interrupt you constantly with his comments and follow you around, but when you speak to him, you'll only have the option of telling him to piss off again. So what's Mud's business? Well, I spent hours suffering by his side to figure it out so that you don't have to put up with him.

Gothic Remake Mud explained

Simply put, Mud is a joke character intended to be a pest and annoy you. The only way to stop Mud from following you is to tell him to go away and beat him up, or have him get killed in combat, though he generally runs away from a fight. However, if the remake follows the original story to a tee, you won't have to worry about Mud past chapter four, if you don't want to be mean to him.

If you put up with Mud's incessant chatter for long enough (roughly three hours, in my case), you then have the option to ask him to be quiet, which he'll happily agree to, for a few minutes at least.

While Mud's interruptions hint at him being a bigger character—he mentions using you against his bullies, putting in a good word for you with the Old Camp, and being hungry—none of these come to fruition, at least in my five hours of exploring with him. In fact, he'll say these voicelines repeatedly and at random locations, too, so it's not based on where you are currently in the world or story.

There is a chance, like in the original game, that Mud can bug out and get stuck while you're exploring. If this happens, he will eventually reset and reappear at his house in the Old Camp. He'll chat to you like normal when you stroll past but won't follow you around. When this accidentally happened to me while heading over to the Swamp Camp, prematurely ending my scientific experiment, I wasn't all too annoyed.

Rory has made the fatal error of playing way too many live service games at once, and somehow still finding time for everything in between. Sure, he’s an expert at Destiny 2, Call of Duty, and more, but at what cost? He’s even sunk 1,000 hours into The Elder Scrolls Online over the years. At least he put all those hours spent grinding challenges to good use over the years as a freelancer and guides editor. In his spare time, he’s also an avid video creator, often breaking down the environmental design of his favourite games. If you can’t track him down, he’s probably lost in a cave with a bunch of dwarves shouting “rock and stone” to no end.