Arx Fatalis

aka: Arx Fatalis: Return to the Underground
Moby ID: 7189
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Arx was a once a prosperous place. However, after one night the sun of the world of Exosta never rose again, and the blistering cold forced their inhabitants into the dwarf mines. There, a new city was built, and humans, trolls, goblins, dwarves, and other races lived along peacefully, until the scarce resources proved to be too few for everyone. The animosity started to build up, and conflict between races ensued. The protagonist starts the game dazed out, being dragged into a cell by a goblin. Where is he? Why did he end up there? Who is he? With only that in mind, the adventure starts...

Inspired by the Ultima Underworld series, Arx Fatalis is a first-person role-playing game taking place in a vast underground world. All the locations and interconnected by passages, tunnels, and stairs, with eight levels altogether. Despite their dungeon-like appearance, locations also include populated settlements such as the city of Arx, where the player character can buy and store supplies, as well as other non-hostile areas. The player, however, is free to attack and possibly kill any non-player character encountered. While several main quests must be completed in a specific order to unlock a new area, the player can access and explore certain locations freely at some points in the game. There are no dialogue options, but some missions can be completed in different ways, and there are also a few side quests.

The player generates and builds up the main character by customizing his main attributes (strength, intelligence, dexterity, and constitution) as well as various skills, which include close or ranged combat proficiencies, technical skill for lockpicking and disarming traps, and others. Vanquishing enemies and completing quests yields experience points, which are converted to attribute and skill points when the protagonists levels up and can be allocated manually. Much of the combat in the game can be avoided, and the player may opt to develop a stealthy character, a spellcaster, a ranged attacker, as well as the traditional physical type.

Combat in the game is action-based. The player can press down the attack key to build up force in order to strike more efficiently. It is also possible to execute several types of melee attacks by combining them with directional arrows. One of the unique aspects of the game is the spell-casting system, where the player uses the mouse (or the directional pad in the Xbox version) to draw the runes constituting a particular spell. The most complex spells can be performed by combining runes. Spells can also be readied and cast simply by pressing a corresponding key. Casting spells depletes the protagonist's magic points.

As some places lack light sources, players can take advantage of the darkness to stealthily move in the shadows, or use torches to lighten up a room to search for some object or find their way in a path. The game's world offers interactivity by allowing the player to pick up, drag, and place most objects. Food must be collected and eaten periodically to prevent the protagonist from dying of hunger. The player can combine various items to create new ones, as well as modify their properties. For example, it is possible to cook food, bake bread, use tools such as pickaxes and shovels, and brew potions.

Spellings

  • Arx Fatalis. Последний бастион - Russian spelling
  • アークス・ファタリス - Japanese spelling
  • 地城守护者 - Simplified Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

193 People (150 developers, 43 thanks) · View all

Lead Designer
Game Director
Lead Programmer
Lead Artist
Level Design/Level Programming
3D-Animators
Additional 3D-Animations
3D Artist
Additional Game Design
Programmers
Sound Programmer
Etranges Libellules SARL graphic coordinator
3D Artists
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 75 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 92 ratings with 7 reviews)

Was it good for you too?

The Good
Arx Fatalis is an obvious homage to the Ultima Underworld series, with a similar core concept and gameplay lifted right from the pages of the Underworld manuals.

The core idea of the game it that it's an RPG with freeform character dynamics but a linear plot. It succeeds in as far as making building your character an entertaining process and simulating freedom of gameplay.

What keeps the game so fresh is that despite being locked to the game's straightforward plot at all times, there are plenty of unique things to do along the way. All sorts of items can be combined to make more useful ones, and the world can be interacted with in unique ways. For example, fish can be cooked over a fire, bread can be baked and potions can be distilled.

Arx has an innovative magic system in which you collect runes and draw their shapes in the air to form combinations which cast spells. It's clumsy on a technical level, but there's an inherent coolness in drawing runes in the air that makes up for that.

Apart from these innovations, the game is pretty standard RPG fare: Talk to someone, get a quest, kill a creature, get better items, level up, increase your statistics, rinse & repeat. There's nothing to complain about as Arx succeeds in keeping this formula quite entertaining for the duration of its game.

Also of note are the game's sound, which is above average, and its visuals, which, while not particularly striking in terms of special effects, evoke the atmosphere of dank, oppressive underground catacombs quite well. (Whether this is a good thing or not is clearly a matter of opinion.)

The Bad
Unfortunately, Arx trips over its own feet on the way to RPG greatness. It's horrifically unbalanced. Any poor sod trying to play as an archer will soon find that all their points spent in ranged weapon skill are completely useless, as ranged weapons are barely useful against the very weakest of the game's sorted enemies. Similarly, some spells are useless while others are the miracle cure as soon as they're acquired.

Another major failing is the plot. For an entirely plot-driven game, Arx really doesn't have a lot of it. It clearly attempts to be a fantasy epic, but there's nothing here that one wouldn't expect to find in a paperback Forgotten Realms 'novel': Strange prophecy, ancient evil, foretold savior, Ring/Sword/Teddy Bear of World-Saving, et cetera.

Arx's voice acting is subpar, but since it's a translated game that is to be expected.

Finally, one of the biggest problems with Arx is that it's incredibly short. A veteran RPG player will probably be able to churn through it in under fifteen hours, possibly less. The only RPG I've ever played shorter than Arx is Fable.

The Bottom Line
I've learned to judge game's plots by much lower standards than books or movies, so I was able to forgive Arx's lack of originality and enjoy the unique, innovative RPG game dynamics and the rich environment. For RPG players who can forgive a terribly unbalanced game, I recommend Arx; it really is quite fun... for the short time it lasts.

Windows · by ShadowShrike (277) · 2005

Remake of Ultima Underworld?

The Good
This game reminds me of one of the games that made me switch from C64 to the trusty PC (386 at the time): Ultima Underworld. It's a heavy RPG that plays out entirely underground and is filled with treasures, problems and difficult quests. It has a complicated real time magic system where you have to draw runes in the air using your mouse pointer! It sounds kinky but it's actually working really well. There's lots of original equipment, boss fights and well written dialogue in there too, plus a great deal of character development. And food. And more!

The Bad
I didn't like the weapon deterioration, the fact that you have to eat continously and since I am bad at drawing things, the magic system got on my nerves. Other than that, this is a high quality game.

The Bottom Line
If you liked the Ultima Underworld-series, then you're almost bound to love this. It's a great homeage to those old classics, yet it contains a lot of original ideas and implementations, enough to make it stand on its own proud feet. A hard core 3D RPG with a real time fighitng system and a real time magic system that isn't the best game to choose if you're claustrophobic.

Windows · by Mattias Kreku (413) · 2003

Arx Fatalis - Deadly City?

The Good
First of all, let's make things straight. Deadly City is the English translation for Arx Fatalis (latin). I don't really know why the game is called like that, Arx isn't that deadly, but I guess its all about the history of Arx.

Most people hate this game because of it's small world and few characters. I personally love this feature, the game is easy to explore and you will never get lost in the world. Also, you will always know what you have to do. You won't need to travel 998383838 regions to get to an NPC in order to get... one Magical Feather of the Phoenix (random name) or another...

The combat in Arx Fatalis is easy to learn since it uses the classic "recipe". You hold the mouse button to "deliver" a stronger hit. You can use bows, swords, axes, daggers or any other weapon you can get.

I liked the spellcasting system. Each spell can be casted only if you cast specific runes (each spell requires specific types of runes.) in a specific order. To cast the runes you must "draw" with the mouse cursor the symbol which represents each rune. Switching between melee/ranged combat mode to spellcasting mode is easy thus making combat even more intense and at the same time interesting.

The character's interaction level with the surrounding objects is simply "heroic"! You can cook, go fishing, read books, steal and more!

The story in the game is interesting overall, but the ending seemed a little "abrupt" to me...

The game graphics are absolutely great and the atmosphere offered by the graphics is unequaled. Maybe some buildings look a little bit weird... but I won't consider that a flaw.

Each character has it's own voice and the actors did a great job. I watched all the characters in the game, and believe me they seem to be real! Also each character has it's own "daily routine", which makes things even better. However, you can't tell if there's a day-night cycle since the action takes place in the underground so I've never seen any character sleeping. Too bad...

The quests you recieve are always different, I've never seen any "cloned quest". Each quest, even if it may seem to be secondary, affects quite greatly the main storyline.

The game also features some puzzles, which aren't entirely difficult, but you never get bored by solving them since they are interesting and if you ever get stuck on one puzzle you'll be very satisfied if you solve it after.... don't know why but you will be :)

The opponent's AI is well scripted and each enemy seems intelligent... some may even cause you trouble.

The environment sounds and sound effects are helping the overall atmosphere of the game to get even higher! I liked the music played by the local musicians and the atmospheric sound from Arx...

The Bad
Well first of all the loading times are... deadly... The world is made of many "regions" that you can access one at a time, and everytime the loading is really deadly. Maybe that's why the game is called Arx Fatalis...

The spellcasting system requires the caster (player) to go somewhere for training before casting spells in a fulltime combat... Sometimes it's really difficult to cast some runes just because you "missed" a "shape" with the mouse.

The Bottom Line
That would be all bad things... the game is great, a classic even. Maybe it does not surpass other "great" RPG's, but Arx Fatalis is special in a special way and maybe if you play it you'll put the CD in a special place, to be seen by everyone. The game deserves such a "sacrifice"...

Windows · by Hypercake (1310) · 2008

[ View all 7 player reviews ]

Trivia

European and German version

In the German PC and the European Xbox version all blood effects and the possibility to cut off limbs (along with limbs used as level decoration) were removed.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Sleeper of the Year

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  • MobyGames ID: 7189
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by POMAH.

Xbox added by rstevenson. Windows Apps added by Koterminus.

Additional contributors: Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Apogee IV, jaXen, Stratege, Patrick Bregger, Abhisit Chanmana.

Game added September 4, 2002. Last modified March 14, 2024.