Arx Fatalis, for PC

Rating: 8.3/10; Great

Played 2020

Highly recommended; a classic despite some jank

Arx is a first person action rpg very similar to the Elder Scrolls series but delivering a more focused experience. The entire game takes place in a large interconnected dungeon in a world where nuclear winter has forced everyone underground and racial tensions between the humans, trolls, goblins and ratmen run high. The game lore paints a picture of an entire city moving underground and each race setting up on a different floor, with the ratmen and dwarves already being there, but the actual experience is slightly underwhelming because the game areas are small with only a handful of npcs. There is not much suspension of disbelief that there are actually 100s or 1000s of people there, such as having panoramic backgrounds and inaccessible paths to give the indication of a much larger world. But this is only a minor atmospheric nitpick. The rest of the game is great.

The game starts with character creation where you allocate points to 4 base attributes that roughly correspond to: warrior, thief, mage and survival. Most weapons and armor have minimum strength requirements to use, while only 1 or 2 weapons require dexterity and there are no intelligence requirements for magic. Points are also allocated to the skills, which again are divided into warrior, thief and mage. You will not get enough skill points to master everything but you can mix and match to create the character you want. The skills may not be the most balanced as some are far more useful than others, but the game is not so difficult that you need an optimized build. Afterwards you start off in a goblin jail cell and must scrape your way out using bones as improvised clubs, slowly working your way up from nothing to being a legendary hero. The game ran mostly fine for me on windows 10 with default settings, but the framerate dropped significantly when both the inventory and character sheet were open. Not a big deal but it does suck that the game does not pause when you look at your sheets; stats, spellbook, map or journal. The inventory shows at the bottom of the screen with a backpack of slots, where items with variable size and stacking are placed. The inventory can be expanded but items cannot be rotated to fit sideways and everything has to be picked up and moved around with the mouse; a carpal tunnel inducing control scheme that is almost as bad as Ultima Online. This is used to creative effect though with you able to move objects to find hidden things, drop or throw items to trigger pressure plates and dropping meat near a fire to cook. Thankfully there are keyboard hotkeys for putting items into the inventory, equipping, and using common items like torches and potions. The other way of interacting with the world is double clicking on an item or world object and then clicking on another. This can be used for things like: lighting things on fire, poisoning weapons, carving wooden stakes, mixing potions, digging with the pickaxes (the shovel uses the equip button for some reason) and tying rope.

The character moves along at a plodding pace, which can be annoying when you are backtracking or shopping in town. He can crouch, jump and sneak, and yes there is some platforming. Stealth seems to be based on your stealth skill, line of sight, darkness level and sound you make, but I cannot be sure because I did not play a sneaky character. Combat is simple but fun with clicking the mouse to attack. Hold the button to charge up a more powerful attack and move around to try to avoid attacks, but beware that enemies are not stupid and will hold attacks to strike you the next time you get close. They will also flee when hurt and scream for help, potentially getting you overwhelmed. You can do a stab, slash or chop depending on the way you are moving when you press the attack button. The main significance seems to be whether you hit the walls or other objects, which can quickly wear down the durability of your weapons. I would have preferred a more intuitive way to control attack type because stabs and chops are far superior in the tight quarters you will most often be fighting. Equipment is deleted from the game upon reaching 0 durability so be sure to repair at the blacksmith or use the object knowledge skill to repair on your own. The smith fixes things perfectly for gold while you will degrade the maximum durability each time you fix something yourself, and the value of an item depends on both current and max durability. There are more than enough weapons to get through the game, it is fairly simple to enchant an item with indestructible and there is plenty of money, so you can choose how you want to deal with durability.

The technical skill allows you to use tool kits to pick locks. Important locks have keys to be found, which can all be stored on a key ring item to save inventory space. I was disappointed that I could not smash wooden chests and most wooden doors, and that a couple chests looked small enough to pick up and lug back to town, yet of course you can't pick them up. I felt I was being ripped off for not investing in lockpicking but can accept that it is just for optional loot. At least there is no silly minigame! The minigame comes with the magic system, which is intriguing. You have to collect rune items that form a kind of alphabet for magic. Combinations of 2 to 4 runes make up specific spells. The spellbook lists most spells you can currently cast while some are hidden. The kicker is you have to draw each rune on the screen to cast spells. The spellbook shows how to draw each rune and can put a single recipe on the top of the screen to help you cast. Needless to say, spell casting requires player memory and drawing skills, which can make pulling off magic under the duress of combat very difficult. To help with this there are 3 slots where you can store already casted spells to unleash with a simple button press. The magic system is the most interesting aspect of the game but it can be a handicap for players who lack the specific skillset, especially when compared with the simplicity of melee combat.

Outside combat there are story and side missions with fully voiced dialogue, simple and intricate puzzles, metroidvania style goodies to come back for (the pickaxe, telekinesis and levitation are examples), and systems for brewing potions and baking. The game does not hold your hand for any of this and it can be difficult to figure out what to do; especially with the more intricate puzzles. An important hint is that anything that can be clicked on to use, be an initiator or target for double clicking, or be picked up, will glow and display a name when moused over. There are books to read with obscure details that you may be expected to know, and one hidden spell for fast travel is mentioned in a conversation that is not repeated.

Arx is a moderate length game that lacks the vastness of Daggerfall or Morrowind, or the sheer number of battles found in Jrpgs, but makes up for it with incredible detail and immersion. The melee combat could have been more interactive with blocks, parries and dodges, and archery could have played like a first person shooter, but there are plenty of other innovative mechanics to keep you enthralled. A fascinating setting that I would absolutely love to further explore with the almost physics based magic and item manipulation systems. There is just something highly satisfying about dropping a piece of meat on a fire to roast or dropping a rock on a pressure plate to safely disable a trap. Here's a wish for future Arx games to be made!

Intro

Arx Fatalis is a RPG similar to Morrowind or Oblivion that takes place in various levels of an underground world. You explore, fight, talk and solve puzzles.

The Good

The atmosphere in this game is quite good, with great environmental music and a decent alternative fantasy setting.

The magic system based on drawing lines with the cursor works terribly but is a neat idea.

The Arx Libertatis mod is fantastic, making the game run without a hitch in Windows 10 and improving it in various ways.

The Bad

• Melee combat sucks. It's just hitting and stepping back.
• Casting spells in combat is awful, you will often fail or miss.
• The early game really screws you over if you built a mage or acher because it's melee-only.
• Clunky counter-intuitive controls. Seriously, why do so many early 2000s games have such terrible controls?
• The humans are just boring standard medieval stuff.
• Crafting is ultra-simplistic. Each ingredient only makes one thing.
• The sound mixing is kinda crappy and the audio options aren't helpful enough.

The Ugly

• Tons of backtracking. You get teleporters after ~5-6 hours but you still have to activate them in person.
• The levels can be confusing to navigate and sometimes it's impossible to know where to go. My current quest requires me to follow people and i never even saw them.
• The first level has a weak wall that requires a pickaxe to destroy. After finally getting one i went all the way back. There was nothing in the room behind it. Wtf.

Conclusion

This is the first Arkane game i didn't like. So many elements of the game just don't work well. Too much time is spent on walking between places and the payoff just isn't satisfying enough. I stopped after 7 hours and just didn't care to continue. Back in the day i might've liked it more but would probably have gotten stuck somewhere. Arx Fatalis compares poorly even to older games like Deus Ex or Morrowind. Open-world RPGs are probably my favourite games and i still didn't like this.

I picked up Arx Fatalis for a dollar or two on steam. Looking on the internet there's hardly any information about it, very few reviews/LPs, but I had heard good things. I started playing a couple days ago and my jaw dropped.

This game is really something else; it's the game I've been searching for for years. After Looking Glass Studios went under I've felt a hole in my heart; I've wished for more games like System Shock 2 or Thief 1 or 2, but no developer has managed to capture that Looking Glass Studios magic. The new "Thief" was a disaster, increasing my hunger for a worthy contender.

This game is really unique and it's inconceivable that it was released in 2002. It has a great story, quests and puzzles, NPCs and dialogue. It also has deep crafting and enchanting systems, stealth system. Combat is visceral and satisfying, and the gestural spell system is fascinating. There's lots of quests, branching paths, secrets, exploration, character building and useful loot. It's so feature-packed, it's like Skyrim or something, except from 2002. It's quite an achievement for the time.

The entire game is set underground. The story is about a post-apocalypse world where the denizens all migrant to these underground cities, but of course a great evil has been summoned from the depths and it's up to you to figure it out. The game actually has some Metroid/Castlevania elements: as you progress you make friends with different factions, get new abilities (like levitate or teleport) and unlock areas, allowing you to travel deeper into the "dungeon." Though the game certainly isn't just a big maze of monster-filled hallways, a lot of the areas are filled with friendly NPCs with gameplay consisting of exploration, puzzle solving, quests and dialogue. There's even underground cities filled with taverns, shops, other characters. So it's a bit like a level-based dungeon crawler but with a twist.

Overall my favourite part is the atmosphere of the game. It just feels like a Looking Glass game, those eerie tunnels and chambers, the rich sound design, the deep immersion and intelligent game mechanics. I can't believe this game is so obscure, it's truly ground breaking even for today. Often when I go back and play an old game from 20 years ago it's a bit painful and boring but this game is just really fun, it's like System Shock 2's game mechanics, set in a Thief universe.

To anyone who misses the old Looking Glass games, or who wants to try a new slightly-casual RPG I would highly recommend it. If you can look past the dated graphics this game is truly a masterpiece, better than most modern RPGs and brilliantly unique in its own way. And it usually only costs around $1 on GOG or Steam.

Edit: After some more research it turns out that many people from Looking Glass indeed ended up working on Arx Fatalis. Also, the studio went on to create Dishonored so that explains the style and quality of this game. The devs also made a game called 'Dark Messiah of Might and Magic' I'll have to try it.