there so much wrong with that demo lmao.
What? Did it have tank controls or something?
It had a lot of issues. In terms of production value it was honestly more than decent enough, but it did so many things wrong both in terms of characters and mechanically. In some ways it was straight-up ANTITHETICAL to a lot of design choices that distinguished the Gothic series over the years.
Copy-pasting from one of my old comments (not because it was particularly insightful but because I'm a lazy fuck):
Over-exposition, overly chatty NPCs, a protagonist that would never quit spouting annoying quips or describing what was going on to the most minute detail, an invasive UI leading the player by the nose with markers and minimaps, "architectonic barriers" made by crap like "three crates in a row", chest-high barriers you couldn't climb over, fences that didn't let you pass below them even when crouching (even if it looked like you were supposed to be able to), the fact that you couldn't actually fall off a bridge/cliff but you'd find yourself running against an invisible wall, the concept of getting a weapon and fighting dangerous enemies from the get go instead of making clear from the beginning that you are NOT special and in fact weak as a kitten at first, etc, etc.
Even with its limited and now extremely dated tech one thing the Gothic games sold you on from the first moments was the illusion to be a in a physically consistent 3D space and a consistent micro-ecosystem, where what you'd see would be what you'd get.
The demo threw that idea out of the window from the very first steps its fictional world. Everything in its environment felt like a cardboard set ready to break any illusion every time it was put to test.
EDIT - Also, their take on the new combat system was this half-assed approximative imitation of Ubisoft's "For Honor" (which I've never been particularly fond of, to begn with) but without any of the depth or the eye candy to make it work.