Arx Fatalis will definitely appeal to a niche audience, but it's a pass from me. I love Arkane Studios and Immersive Sims so I was excited to give this game a shot. Unfortunately, I found the game to be way too cumbersome and directionless to be enjoyable. The game oftentimes gives you objectives with no hint as to how to accomplish them. I'm all for games leaving the player to figure out how to solve problems, but the player needs to at least know where the problem is to solve it. The game's quest log seems to only update occasionally and your journal is a stream of conciousness that isn't organized at all. Despite the game's world class level design (and I do mean that, some of the details and connections throghout levels are astonishing), navagating the world is a chore due to the slow movement speed, confusing location layouts, and the worst minimap of all time. The UI is also a mess and requires you to constantly switch between mouse look and cursor mode, which is very clunky and grating. The straw that broke the camel's back for me was the magic system. The game makes you draw the runes associated with spells in order for you to cast them. This is brilliant in theory, but in game is incredibly annoying and will test you patience and sanity. I kept trying to draw the rune for the only offensive spell I had only for the game to constantly register it as a rune I had yet to own. I was literally spending minutes trying to draw a single spell correctly. Oh, and the game doesn't have any marking system for quest items, which means you can sell them and break your game. The game does have its merrits such as the reactivity of the world, cooking system, and level design, but it isn't concerned with teaching the player much and the gameplay itself just isn't fun for me. If you love games that throw you to the wolves and leave you to fend for yourself, you should definitely give it a shot but it absolutely isn't for everyone. Then again, nothing should be for everyone.
