Gothic is an action RPG developed by Piranha Bytes and released in 2001 for PC. As we can read on Wikipedia, the team worked more than 4 years on the development of Gothic’s technology and some screenshots from an early beta version with much more blocky polygon models and fewer details were found by derboo in Power Play magazine issues 5 & 9 / 1998 and issue 5 / 1999. Check the gallery below to see the beta screens and compare them to the video from the final version!
Also, LOTS of info and screens can be found in this topic @ World of Gothic.
Images:
Video (from the alpha version):
Video (from the final version):