Can You Stow Your Torch in Gothic Remake?

One of the first things you're likely to realize in Gothic Remake is how utterly annoying its torch system feels. When you activate a torch in your hotbar, you'll light it up, which is helpful in such an often gloomy game. However, there's no way to put it back in your inventory while it's still burning. If you select a sword, for example, you'll stab the torch into the ground where it'll stay burning for a good while.

You can either pick it up and continue, or wait for it to burn out. Admittedly, it feels quite cool stabbing a torch into the ground in some cave so you can draw your sword and fight a bunch of goblins. But for exploration, it's a pain.

The Only Ways to Stow a Torch

There is simply no key or input that puts your torch away once it's lit. In fact, the only way your character will stow a torch is if you walk into water and start swimming to snuff the flame. Otherwise, your only option is waiting for it to burn out and collecting it later.

There are a couple of handy exceptions, though:

  • If you rest in a bed, your character will stab the torch into the ground, and it will have gone out by the time you wake up.
  • If you stab a torch into a puddle or shallow pool of water, it will instantly go out.

Thankfully, torches are plentiful, especially in areas where you actually need them, so you don't need to worry too much about using them. I generally just make sure to stab a torch into the ground on a path or route I know I'll take multiple times, such as the trail to the Swamp Camp. This means I'll spot it later when it's gone out and can always pick it up again.

Tips for Managing Your Torch

You can only put away torches once they've gone out (Image credit: Alkimia Interactive). I also recommend that you set your torch to 0 in the hotbar since this will mean you're far less likely to accidentally take one out and be unable to stow it. This definitely happened to me early on.

Hopefully, Alkimia Interactive realizes how annoying it is, even as an aspect of realism, and adds in a way to stow torches later on, or at least an option to snuff them out on the ground so we can pick them up without waiting.