WARNING: This review is very spoiler heavy!

Let me quote ProudLittleSeal’s amazing review on Fallout here for a bit

“The trouble with calling something “ahead of its time” is that it implies whatever made that something so special has become standard since its release.”

Now, this quote could be applied to many games that people call “innovative” or anything synonymous with the word, look at something like Half-Life for example, many people cite its focus on actual storytelling and immersion as one of its biggest innovations for the FPS genre at the time, but one thing that people don’t mention quite as much is it’s gameplay, where instead of shooting enemies from point A to point B (while maybe solving puzzles as you go along), you go through a variety of smaller sections where gameplay can differ pretty drastically, whether it is the survival horror-esque sections inside the Black Mesa facility, or the fast-paced gunfights between you and soldiers (and the aliens later on), and then at the last few levels of the game, a mix of platforming and gunfights in the alien world of Xen (whether you think Xen is good or not it’s up to you), it’s this variety of gameplay loops that many devs still did not try to replicate after all these years that truly makes Half-Life’s gameplay alongside everything else.

Now you have read all of this and wonder:

“What does this all have to do with Arx Fatalis?”

Well, Arx Fatalis is another one of those games that are somewhat commonly called “innovative” and “ahead of its time” for many reasons, but similar to what ProudLittleSeal said about the first Fallout, very few games actually tried to do something close to Arx Fatalis, which is ironic because the game itself is clearly inspired by Ultima Underworld (Arx Fatalis was even originally going to be Ultima Underworld 3, but EA did not allow it to be Ultima Underworld 3).

And speaking of Ultima Underworld, let me stop to talk about the dreaded Immersive Simulation term, arguably one of the most misunderstood terms in all of gaming, every time a discussion that involves trying to define what does the Immersive Sim term actually means, it often ends up with people fighting to define the meaning of it, sometimes missing the actual point about the design philosophy in of itself, the main point of a Immersive Simulation is the following:

Adapting the rules of a tabletop RPG like Dungeons & Dragons, in which you can solve problems in as many ways as you can think of, while making the world behave as though it was real and you really were interacting with it

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Now, if we look at System Shock for example, notice how most of the rooms in the game have a bunch of furniture like chairs, cabinets, desks and all of those stuff, notice how there is a bunch of junk that serves absolutely nothing throughout the entire game like worker hats or skulls, a lot of these components are made to make Citadel Station as a place feel real and not gamey like the levels from DOOM. Heck, even look at how you engage in combat in System Shock, instead of just pressing the button to shoot, you have to point your cursor at the enemy you want to shoot and then you press the button to shoot, as with the grenades, you have to click (twice) on them to activate them, drag them out of your inventory and click at the point of the screen you want to toss the grenade at. Even the audio logs (an idea that came from Austin Grossman) were made to fix one of their biggest issues with Ultima Underworld, that being the dialogue system, in which the game paused everything to start the dialogue screen, with audio logs it was made so that you never get pulled out from Citadel Station when playing it, and the transition from Citadel Station into Cyberspace feels less like the game pulling you out of the world and more so teleporting into a different world.

Now, while Ultima Underworld and System Shock were (and still are) great games regardless at how well they execute this design philosophy compared to games released later, it is undeniable that in some aspects they are rough around the edges, mainly in terms of graphics, keyword, GRAPHICS (the art direction in System Shock is great though), since, at the time, fully tridimensional games with fully tridimensional items and character models were still not a thing, so if we look back at System Shock again, while it does have the strength of having every room look and feel as believable as it was possible at the time, the fact that the environment itself was also fully 3D (using a heavily modified version of the Ultima Underworld engine) but the enemies and items were still 2D sprites definitely makes the game, at least in terms of graphical fidelity in comparison to games that used this design philosophy to much greater effect, pretty dated.

And then, years later, there came the Dark Engine, which would take the Immersive Simulation (originally called Immersive Reality) philosophy to the next level, and it did in many ways, now that the graphics were fully tridimensional (although in some ways the graphics were outdated even for the time the first Thief game was released), the geometry of the levels could be more complex than the engine from System Shock could ever be before with further uses of verticality and such, not only that but there was more interaction with items and the environment than ever, and of course the one thing that everyone mentions about the Dark Engine when they talk about it, the usage of light and sound which could cause different reactions on NPC based on audiovisual cues like footsteps, throwing items onto the floor/wall and many more interactions with it, with no other game demonstrating it better than the Thief games, particularly The Metal Age, where the engine was used to its fullest potential.

Though the Thief games and System Shock 2 further expanded on the imagination of the Immersive Simulation design philosophy than they ever did up until this point (and up until Ion Storm released the hit Deus Ex, which knocked it out of the park the same year Thief 2 released as well), there was certainly still room for improvement and even more interesting ways to expand on the design philosophy.

And finally, that is where Arx Fatalis comes in, a game that was initially met with lukewarm response from critics and middling sales but has gathered a cult following over the years, especially after Arkane’s explosion into popularity with their hit Dishonored.

Now you might also ask me:

“Why did you waste most of your review talking about the history of the immersive sim philosophy and not actually talking about the game at hand?”

Now, if you’ve paid attention to this wall of text up until this point, you’ll notice that I gave a pretty big focus to interactivity and immersion within the game world, and how within the Dark Engine framework, they were able to excel in what they set out to do based on that image with text I linked earlier.

As with Arx Fatalis? It further doubles down on that aspect with further systems that make you engage even more with the environment, that is without ever doing anything through a menu or something, look at how you make potions in the game, you first need to use a pestle and mortar on flowers (like a Water Lily flower), and then you combine the water lily powder with a empty bottle, after that you have to use a still (and also have a certain amount of the ‘Object Knowledge’ skill unlocked to do the potion) and after that you’ve done a single potion, only by touching your inventory and a still that is seen in a few places you find through the game, like the alchemy room in Arx’s castle, another example is how you make bread, where you need to combine flour with water to make dough, and then put it on a fire (on which you can light with the spell ‘Ignite’) and BOOM, you have done bread, is that particularly useful? Not really, since there are far more effective options for healing in the game like a Life Potion or the ‘Healing’ spell, but what really does matter is that all of those subsystems make the world feel more immersive and therefore make it so that you actually feel like engaging with objects in the real world instead of just clicking through menus and such things you would do in any other game, to the point that even buying items from shopkeepers work through interacting with the inventory in chests in real time without losing control of the character you play as.

Then there is the magic system, which is the one thing everyone mentions about this game whenever it is brought up in conversation, so it might as well have an entire paragraph dedicated to it.

Instead of simply pressing a specific button for using a certain magic spell, you have to first press the ‘CTRL’ key, draw the correct runes in the correct order, and then click on any spot, and then release the ‘CTRL’ key to cast the spell, a genuinely creative magic system that, much like the cooking and alchemy systems, make the game world feel even more immersive, leading to more interesting interactions within the environment using the magic system, and truly make you feel like a actual wizard performing magic (insert IGN meme here), rather than simply pressing (or holding) a button/key to perform magic like in other RPGs or even games in general (granted you can precast up to three spells, including repeats, which will be incredibly important when dealing with a few enemies you find throughout the game), not to mention can make some fights more intense as a result (like the ones against the Lich), as you have to both pay attention to how you are drawing the runes to not mess it up but also pay attention to the enemies for them to not hit you (and boy are the Lich and Ylsides going to stomp you if you don’t manage either of these things proper), and for a game with such magic system, obviously you expect it to make you want to engage more with such, and of course it will, like using the ‘Levitate’ spell to get through the Ice Caves, and also try combining spells together (like Levitate with Speed, you get through the Ice Caves much faster at the cost of twice as much mana to do so).

Really the only issue with the magic system is that it pretty much throws a wrench on the character creation, where the magic system is such a integral part of the game that you will actively want to upgrade anything related to it and a few other skills like Close Weapons (which becomes redundant once you get to use the Fireball more often), Object Knowledge and Technical Skill, even when I was limited to not being able to use more powerful armory due to not having enough Strength, I managed to use the Ylsides armory by using Blessing and the Ciprian long sword of Force to increase my strength and be able to use the Ylside armor (doesn’t help that it also gives you more strength), something I thought was really cool admittedly. Though to be fair, what WRPGs are perfect when it comes to balancing? I mean, Planescape Torment was (and still is) critically acclaimed even for the time, yet the game pretty much forces you into only upgrading the Wisdom, Charisma and Intelligence attributes, since your companions can already do the combat job for you anyway. And at least in the case of Arx Fatalis, the game is graceful enough to give you quite a handful of spell scrolls which make you capable of using those same spells without needing to do a character focused on magic spells.

Back to Ultima Underworld and System Shock, another big part of both of these games were exploring the dungeons (or space stations) these games took place in, with a variety of nooks and crannies to find throughout both the Stygian Abyss and Citadel Station respectively, and again, while I haven’t played Ultima Underworld as of the time of writing this (yet), System Shock’s Citadel Station was really fun to explore throughout the game because of how much it rewarded exploring through the station’s multiple levels, especially with the security system which would reward you with even more powerful (at least for that stage in the game) items to help you get through levels easier, even going as far as unlocking certain upgrades that you would have unlocked much later in the game have you not explored a level of the station fully.

As for Arx Fatalis, how well does it accomplish the exploration and level design of the underground world of Arx? Damn well, the level design itself is excellent, every place feels genuinely lived in with every room feeling believable, and the way every level connects with each other feeling natural and organic, doesn’t help that every level also has a handful of hidden paths you unlock throughout the levels. Another very noteworthy aspect of the exploration is the sense of freedom you get to explore the entirety of Arx’s underground world right from the get go just after a few main quests, even some late game areas you can explore before you even need to do so like the Ylsides Bunker you need to go through to fight the final boss (though you can’t go through the Crypt until you need to do the quests involving Krahoz and Zohark), not to mention that, as mentioned before in the paragraph regarding the magic system, the Speed and Levitate spells can greatly make traversing each layer of Arx much faster when you start revisiting them more often, which you will do a lot (especially in the City of Arx and the Underground Lake), but even going through each level for the first time is really fun, especially as you discover certain things that either lead to different side quests (which there aren’t a lot, but they are still good enough), or even things you weren’t supposed to discover early on but come very in handy at later points in the game (such as when I went through the Ylside Bunker earlier on in the game and found out later on I was supposed to go there at the end of the game). There are even sublevels within a different level (like the Crypt and Temple of Akbaa), though they do suffer a bit because of the puzzles, as some of these puzzles can be a bit too difficult to do without a guide and can lead to pixel hunting (the one with the symbol stones was one I especially had difficulty with, as you have to keep wandering around to find the stones with different symbols, it took me ages to find the last remaining symbol stone), but even with that slight issue, they still have great level design and never does the levels get confusing to explore or know exactly where you are, much like the rest of the game.

Just before wrapping up on the topic of gameplay, as far as the “multiple ways of the beating certain missions” that everyone mentions when talking about Immersive Sims, they aren’t the most common thing in this game admittedly, though there are some moments where you can do something in a different way and they are really interesting, such as choosing to either buy a dragon egg from the dragon found in the Ice Caves, or fighting him to get three of the same dragon egg, or giving both Krahoz and Zohark to Alia to unlock the Shield you needed to get in the third level of the Crypt to get Krahoz earlier rather than giving both Krahoz and Zohark to their original owners (Alia and Zalnash respectively), also one very interesting observation about those moments is that none of those choices are actually done through dialogue, all of those are done in real time, when even Deus Ex had choices you needed to do via dialogue…

I could keep going and talking about how great the gameplay of Arx Fatalis is, but of course, while gameplay is the most important part of a GAME, great gameplay alone does not make it memorable enough, even the best Immersive Sims have more than just great gameplay, System Shock 2 doesn’t just have great (if flawed) gameplay, it has a terrific atmosphere, a great story (especially villains), an awesome Cronenberg-esque art direction and especially incredible sound design (and soundtrack).

And I am happy to say that in the case of Arx Fatalis it is no different! For an game that takes place entirely underground, it's very impressive how Arkane managed to make every level feel distinct from each other in multiple ways, whether it is the lively City of Arx, or the haunting and desolate industrial dwarf mines, the mythical and almost otherworldly Sisters of Edurneum Outpost and the list goes on, all of these levels feel starkly different in atmosphere from the other, as well as every level looking different in any way or another with incredible art direction and architecture, further elevated by the amazing sound design and pretty great ambient soundtrack present within the game that manages to be at the very least on par with the the first two Thief games, which really shines in areas with a more creepy and foreboding vibe to them like the aforementioned Dwarf Mines and the Crypt, where you feel much more the sound of your footsteps and general interactions with the environment combined with the creepy ambient songs found throughout those levels, contrasted with the City of Arx with a more typical Tolkienesque fantasy song to further differentiate it from the rest of the levels, heck, even the Human Outpost has a song akin to a war movie like Saving Private Ryan, seeing the consequences of the war between the humans and the Ylsides. And of course, I shall never forget the voice that plays every time you draw a rune correctly (MEGA! SPACIUM! MOVIS!).

As for the story and setting? Firstly, the setting itself is like the average western fantasy setting with all the staples you would see in any media such as Goblins, Dwarves (though they are all dead) and all that stuff (no elves for some reason though), however, the setting is made far more interesting because of its premise, where a meteor has fallen into the earth and the sun started to fade away to never be seen again, and so all the races had to work together to transfer Arx into the underground, since without the sun the surface would be completely frozen over, with only very few people being able to survive there, but of course Arx Fatalis is still no slouch at worldbuilding, with many cool aspects of the world of Arx to learn about like the races of Arx, the history of Arx, or everything related to the Noden (which obviously I won’t spoil). The plot itself is also simple, you are a man called Am Shaegar (who is kind of like JC Denton from Deus Ex somewhat) who wakes up with amnesia in the Goblin Outpost’s prison, and you have to escape the prison and after a while you have to start to do missions to manage to destroy the so called Akbaa, with a lot of twists and turns along the way, a simple plot indeed (again, you don’t really have any section with major story choices throughout the game), but that’s where the charm of the game comes from, the simplicity of it’s story and world makes it so that both the simple story and complex gameplay connect much, much better and together accomplish the task of making the world feel and behave as though it was actually real and tangible much better as well, look at System Shock 1 again, that game had a very simple story but complemented everything else about it to make as though you really were in Citadel Station, and some of the same principles apply here as well.

Now, after all of this jargon I wrote (I’ll admit that I may have wasted a bit too much time explaining what the term “Immersive Sim” means), I can confidently say that, while this game is certainly not perfect (far from it), this is an excellent game that managed to use the “Immersive Simulation” design philosophy to its fullest potential possible at the time in so many inventive new ways, and even today you don’t see that many games that matches the depth of this game in specific (or at least in the ways Arx did), like come on, how many games you have seen with an magic system similar to Arx Fatalis? This game is certainly on the same level as the other great “Immersive Sims” like Deus Ex and System Shock 2 and if you are fan of this design philosophy, you should definitely play this game at one point.