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The game’s storyline follows a typical
dungeon crawler theme. Your character wakes up in a small dark cellar in a bewildered state of mind, without having any knowledge about his past life. He escapes the cell, but confronts a guard whom he kills immediately with a heavy bone lying on the cellar and then embarks in his quest for survival.
Arx Fatalis’ setting takes place only in eerie dungeons and caverns. This means, there’s no sunny-side village or town nor any other tourist attraction, but cold dark tunnels. At first, you may think it is pretty bland, but once you embark on your dungeon journey, you will interact with gnomes, elves, and orcs and find yourself in a completely mysterious environment, filled with secrets and magical runes.
The game's character creation interface is similar to new and old role playing games. You create your character by applying various skill points as well as ability points. Different abilities range from close combat tactics and artifact knowledge to stealth and magic. The game has an equal focus on combat elements as well as magic, so choose your abilities wisely. You can refer the game manual for help, but sometimes the referring it may hamper your gameplay experience because it contains too much info about the character creation process.
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After creating your character, it’s time to set out for your journey. The initial levels serve as a great tutorial for players to get well-acquainted with magic, close-combat and some useful puzzle-solving elements. The in-game interface has a cluttered inventory section, a detailed map so that you don’t get lost and a diary that automatically jots down important aspects of game. You will also have a chance to interact with a variety of dungeon inhabitants including orcs, goblins, gnomes and elves. An interaction with these non-player characters will help your character know more about himself and his purposes.
An interesting, or rather irritating aspect of the game is the compulsion to nibble food crumbs to stay alive. This feature is inspired from the Ultima series and becomes very frustrating because your character has to be fed too often. The combat feature is akin to other role playing games like The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind. You will use different weapons such as swords, axes and clubs to have a close combat with your assailants. There are few long range weapons available. I would have expected more long range weaponry for stealth attacks because close combat elements make it more of a hack and slash game.
