Its the Dark Age. Cast away from the surface of the Earth by the disappearance of the sun, Mankind lived hidden underground in the Fortress of Arx. Humans only have magic left to survive against Ratmen, Dragons and starvation... But a much greater danger is hovering above the world of Arx Fatalis. Lurking in the eternal darkness of the mines, it feeds off the innocent souls of the city. It is not a monster. It is not human. It is pure evil. The adventure has just started, and soon, the fate of Arx, will be in your hands.
Reviews (0 - 10 of 36)
Verily one of the best role playing games around. It's a first person RPG set in a dark underground world consisting of caverns, underground lakes, cities, ice caves, forts, troll infested lairs and more. The story is heavy and most of the quests in the game are the story quests. This says something about the story considering the game takes 100 + hours to complete. Unlike some RPGs nowadays, this game doesn't hold your hand either. Want to cast a spell? You have to do so on screen with the mouse (Xbox version is slightly different). Want to forge a sword? There's no cut scenes here, you've got to do it yourself by finding the right equipment and using it on the weapon you want to forge. Want to use a potion during melee? There's no pausing while going into inventory, so assigning items to keys is a must here. Puzzles are also present and there's no journal entries to help you here, maybe you'll find a few cryptic messages to help you but from then on, you've got to use your brain. There are however, NUMEROUS ways to progress through the game. You can go charging in with your sword, breaking through doors and killing all in your way, or you can simply sneak past enemies or assassinate them from the darkness. Quests can also be solved in multiple ways which makes replaying the game worth it.
The only game that beats this in my opinion is Dragon Age: Origins but this game certainly has the better combat, story and crafting system. If you haven't got it, GET IT NOW.
Excellent FP Role-playing Immersive Sim. Cannot recommend it enough.
Need more like it!
Arx fatalis was WAAAY ahead of its time, its a crime that this fantastic game hasnt gotten a sequel, its world and lore has an insane amount of potential, and the game itself is superb, with some of the best attention to detail, immersion and atomsphere ive seen, this was made in 2002 and its still better than 99% of survival/immersion things out there, the only thing that compete with its immersion is modded skyrim and thats 15 years later.
the game has a few flaws though, such as the encounter with the lastboss being very underwhelming, the dragon encounter is dissapointing and somewhat cringeworthy, and the hero of destiny cliche and the noden concept, i will forgive its flaws however because the people who made this game had a much smaller budget and studio than most, and it was made 15 years ago, so its a vastly impressive game despite any of its flaws.
Fantastic game, challenging, every corner is well though of. Must play! Got it for $5.0 only from Steam so don't be fooled by the low price .. this game is gold.
Challenging and highly atmospheric, if also heavily flawed, dungeon crawler/immersive sim that is in many ways highly reminiscent of Looking Glass Studios classics. You'll journey trough decaying underground world filled with dark ritual, bloodthirsty enemies and eldritch horrors.
Patience, experimentation and careful exploration are often rewarded, and also quite often -required- in a way that is rarely seen in modern games: Arx offers little to no hand holding to players during their journey through its sprawling, interconnected dungeons - thorough exploration and paying attention to clues and readables are keys to making any sort of progress!
Game isn't without flaws tho: magic system, while original and also quite impressive in a sheer number of offered spells and their possible effects, is also somewhat clunky, and spellcasting is often unresponsive. Controls & interface in general will take some time to get used to.
While game offers to player a freedom to develop his character in many possible directions, some skills are definitely far more useful than others, and some playstyles are far less developed than others. Stealth system for example is quite unrefined, and while it is sometimes useful and at some points borderline required to sneak (say early encounters with dreaded Ylside warriors), stealth tends to be rather useless and unsatisfying.
There is quite a bit of different types of fun-to-use melee weapons, each with their own pros and cons. Ranged combat on the other hand, while quite useful at times, is made unnecessarily monotonous by the fact that the player is offered all of -two- bows, second one being pretty much unreachable on first playthrough without any outside help.
Still, I'd say this game's assorted shortcomings are -very much- worth dealing with, and are far, FAR outweighed by its many qualities.
Pretty much recommended to anyone with some patience and willingness to deal with game's flaws and idiosyncrasies.
That aside, this game is amazing, a real hidden gem lost to time. It is brutal in difficulty. It does not hold your hand, and it will kill you fast. As such, you must learn fast to get through. The game's story progresses at your own pace. There are times where it will be utterly confusing and you will have no clue what to do, but once you figure it out, it feels great. Puzzles are complex, but few in number. The skill system is alright, but is workable enough that if you wanted to dual-class it'll work.
The magic system is amazing. You have to write the runes (in other words, you move your mouse in the shape of the runes) to cast the spells, and you can three set in reserve for quick-casting in a pinch. My only qualm there is that when writing the runes, the detection can be finicky and thus one must be precise. The magic system definitely takes some getting used to.
The stealth mechanics are decent once your stealth skill is high enough. Combat is fun, especially when scoring a critical hit. It is quite enjoyable to see a decapitated enemy spurt blood everywhere, or even explode from the raw force being projected from your blow.
A major highlight is the sound design. Absolutely amazing, every part of it. The footstep sounds and ambience really help set the tone of being deep beneath the earth in a winding system of caverns. The OST is awesome and remiscient of that of Thief: The Dark Project (another favorite of mine I recommend). In fact, some of the devs from Looking Glass helped make this underrated gem.
Point and case? RPG fan: get this game. Dungeon crawler fan: get this game. Thief fan: get this game. This gem is guaranteed to keep you captivated for a while.
Arx Fatalis was like a divine revelation to me. At the time i played it, i had already played other immersive sims like Thief, Deus Ex, System Shock and even Arkane later titles. Nonetheless, Arx has a charm that is unique to it.
It might not be as mechanically refined as Thief, but the range of possibilities Arx allows is just staggering. The immersiveness it creates is just unparalled even by today standards and while clunky in a lot of areas, it pulls you into its world like no other immersive sim out there.
The magic system got a lot of praise also. I'm not its biggest fan since i find it kinda gimmicky, but at the time it helped Arx to diferentiate itself. I have no gripes with that.
Absolutely recommended.