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Arx Fatalis

Windows - 2002

Alt names Arx Fatalis. Последний бастион, アークス・ファタリス, 地城守护者, Arx Fatalis: Return to the Underground
Year 2002
Platform Windows
Released in France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, United States (2002)
Japan, Russia (2003)
Germany (2004)
Germany (2005)
Romania (2006)
Worldwide (2007)
Worldwide (2008)
Genre Role-Playing (RPG)
Theme Action RPG, Amnesia, Fantasy, Puzzle elements, Regional differences
Publisher 1C Company, Arkane Studios SASU, Capcom Co., Ltd., JoWooD Productions Software AG, Nival Interactive LLC
Developer Arkane Studios SASU
Perspective 1st-Person
4.62 / 5 - 13 votes

Download extras files
Manual, patch, fix and guide available

Description of Arx Fatalis

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Without a doubt one of the best RPGs I have ever played, Arx Fatalis is a highly underrated masterpiece by French developer Arkane Studios.

In Arx Fatalis, Arkane has successfully combined the graphical pizzazz of 2002 technology with the in-depth gameplay from the heyday of computer gaming - let's say around the time of Looking Glass' Ultima Underworld. If you are a fan of Looking Glass who thinks Ultima Underworld III will never see the light of day because Looking Glass has gone defunct, your wait is over. The fantasy setting is both intriguing and perfectly explains the diversity of the game's underground environments.

In this fantasy world populated by goblins, trolls and the other common RPG staples, humans have been driven to live deep underground since the planet surface is no longer habitable after the sun burned out. As you begin the game a prisoner with complete amnesia, the kingdom of Arx is facing a most dangerous threat: the evil god Akbaa is about to return, thanks to his fanatical followers. But before you begin performing heroic deeds, you must first find a way to regain your memory - and fill an empty stomach. Before you begin the game, you must first create a new character. This part strikes a good balance between statistics-heavy mode in hard-core RPGs, and simplistic hack 'n slash. You can allocate points to different attributes such as strength, dexterity, etc., as well as dozens of skills that have impact on gameplay.

The first thing you will notice after character creation is that Arx is a very good looking game. Even when I play it on an Athlon notebook computer with standard DirectX but no 3D card, the graphics is nothing short of spectacular. The architectural designs of manmade structures such as the town of Arx and the Temple of Akbaa in particular are excellent. This is a lively world - a world full of people and creatures and monsters that you will want to revisit over and over again.

The second thing you will notice is how 'transparent' the game interface is. Arkane Studios states that one of their goals in Arx is to never take the player 'outside' the main game window (e.g. switching to a 2D screen when you enter a shop), and they have succeeded in spades. You can perform every action in Arx in real-time, in the game proper, by a combination of keystrokes and mouse clicks. When you want to buy weapons from a blacksmith, for example, all you have to do is double-click on a chest in his store to see its contents, then drag the item you want to buy into your inventory, which is permanently displayed at the bottom of the screen. The cost of the item will be deducted from your gold total. Similarly, you can sell unwanted items by simply dragging the item from your inventory over to the blacksmith's chest. You can even repair your weapon by double-clicking it (the game's default for "use" command) on the blacksmith (if you want him to fix it at a price), or on the anvil if you want to fix it yourself. This extremely intuitive, user-friendly interface allows the highest interactivity possible in a game, and helps maintain the incredible level of immersion in the gameworld.

How about magic, you may wonder - won't the game have to take you out to a special casting screen to prepare the spells? Here is yet another area where Arx Fatalis really shines. Similar to the spellcasting system in Black & White, you cast the spells with the innovative "onscreen gesture based magic system." Keeping the left mouse button and a key pressed, you can draw runes in mid-air. A typical spell comprises 2-3 runes, so a series of these mouse gestures combine to create dozens of different spells. This is a wonderful and intuitive system that more first-person RPGs should use.

So the game succeeds in immersing you with gorgeous graphics and excellent interface - but that immersion would quickly dissipate had it fail to sustain your interest in the story. Fortunately, this is not the case: the plot evolves from the mundane "I must regain my memory" to something much more dramatic, full of sub-plots, plot twists, and interesting characters with their own agenda to follow. The writing is excellent throughout, and the voice acting is quite good. There are many optional side quests in the game, and most of the quests can be successfully solved in at least two ways depending on the type of character you are playing (although I noticed that many quests can be solved very quickly if you play a thief, i.e. have very high stealth skill). If you want to finish all the side quests and see all there is to see including all the secrets, Arx Fatalis will easily take you over 100 hours to finish (although much of this time will be spent searching for shortcuts from the different levels).

There are many more great things I can say about Arx Fatalis, but I will leave it to you to find out lest I spoil the surprises. It is too bad that Arkane did not receive permission from EA to label the game Ultima Underworld III - because this is exactly what it is (the game even has a hidden UW mode that you can reach by casting secret runes), down to the tiniest detail. Fans of Origin's classics will be delighted at the excellent attention to detail: everything you pick up as a weight, for example, and the ways you can interact with the environment are staggering: you can cook raw meat and fish, use the fishing pole to fish, bake cakes from raw ingredients, and combine different items to make new objects.

Simply put, Arx Fatalis is the best dungeon romp I have played since… well, since Ultima Underworld 2. If you love the kind of dungeon romp that completely immerses you into its world, you simply cannot miss Arx Fatalis. Two thumbs up, and an honored induction into our Hall of Belated Fame.

Review By HOTUD

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Comments and reviews

Uthere 2024-02-03 0 point

Easily one of the best RPGs ever, if not the best !

MC Chase 2022-05-25 -4 points

Controls are jank

pc gamer83 2020-11-16 4 points

Awesome game, great gameplay, good graphics, nice story, cool magic mode, loved the idea of gathering some hidden coins/rings under rocks or elsewhere put.

Shadrim 2020-11-14 -5 points

This game will stay in my memory as one good loking collection of failed and inappropriate ideas.
Casting runes, that are often not recognized in the heat of the not pausing battle is not innovative, it is suicidal. The concept of getting hungry might be "realistic" if handled like in, say, dungeon master but it is ridiculously overdone here. Dont know how many virtual tapeworms your char is feeding but finding any kind of nourishment as the increasingly annoying "i am hungry" monologue goes from occasional to permanent is no fun at all.
Using a trainer is mandatory, even if you only try to deactivate the silly hunger disadvantage.
Physics are something that would have added appreciated realism, perma hunger, in-fight rune drawing and searching NPC for whatever item triggers their shopping ability is not.
Once you get over those issues its a nice first person dungeon crawler, well worth playing and enjoying. Just get over the first disappointments, the game really only starts after you left your cell and the city.

Xardox 2019-08-28 3 points

Yeee that is really cool one

MicGamer 2019-04-16 5 points

This game was one of my favourite games,from time to time i come to play it again.Nice atmosphere,Gameplay and story.The drawback is that it is short.

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Buy Arx Fatalis

Arx Fatalis is available for a small price on the following websites, and is no longer abandonware. GOG.com provides the best release and does not include DRM, please buy from them! You can read our online store guide.

Game Extras and Resources

Some of these file may not be included in the game stores. For Arx Fatalis, we have the following files:

ManualEnglish version 1 MB (Windows) PatchPatch 1.18 English version 3 MB (Windows) PatchPatch 1.18 to 1.19 English version 8 MB (Windows) PatchPatch 1.21
Win 9x / Me not supported English version 8 MB (Windows)
FixTexture Fix English version 1 MB (Windows) GuideRPGDot's Unofficial Guide English version 4 MB (Windows)

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