A love child from the creators of the famous Gothic series. One of the best games I have played in a long time.
So for whom is this game? If you liked Gothic this is a no-brainier, go get it. If you haven't played any games from the series, be warned: A lot of people complain about it being too "difficult":
If you expect a smooth and easy experience, that constantly holds your hand and makes you feel like a badass from the first minute, this is NOT your game. In Elex you start with nothing and you got to earn your place in the world. You get thrown into a dangerous post-apocalyptic world with dangers lurking at any corner. You wont be able to take on every monster you encounter. Sometimes you have to run away to fight another day.
Later you get better armor and weapons and can got back to those scary monsters and get to feel like a badass while killing them. You earned it.
Oh and the difficulty settings don't really do much, so don't get your hopes up.
Fights are not only about your weapons and attributes but also your skill as a player. They require you to time your attacks and manage your stamina.
That said, the fighting system stills follows the Piranha Bytes traditions of being a little bit clunky. You will experience some balancing issues and character progression is not exactly smooth, to say the least.
Still the good news is that while the game takes some getting used to, it is also pretty fair. Enemies telegraph their attacks ahead of time, giving you some fighting chance. You can also travel together with a companion, that can help you with killing the enemy.
Also you don't really have to grind or die a thousand deaths to progress. Most quests can be solved without even killing anyone and you will progress just fine just from them and some exploration. You don't need to mindlessly kill enemies for experience.
Also you get all the time in the world to figure out what and who you want to be. While it does favour long term thinking in how you use your skill points, it is still pretty forgiving. Contrary to similar games, you don't really need to hyper-specialize you character in any direction. You can have a character that is good at everything if you want to, you just might progress a bit slower.
My biggest concern before buying this game was the setting. I really liked the medieval setting of the original Gothic series and was skeptical if this futuristic setting would work out.
You get the nature loving Berserkers that live in a primitive feudalistic society that forbids any use of technology and banishes anyone not following their laws. The Clerics, a bunch of technology-loving religious zealots that try to brain wash anyone into accepting their way of live and finally the Outlaws, freedom loving criminals that are crazy enough to actually LIKE living in a post apocalyptic wasteland. So classical medieval fantasy meets Fallout meets Science Fiction. Funny enough, it fits perfectly together into a crazy but beautiful world that is lots of fun to explore.
Speaking of exploration. Jet pack. Remember awkwardly trying to climb mountains in Gothic? The jet pack adds another dimensions to the explorations game and is just just super fun to use.
The quest design in this game is superb. Many quests offer multiple choices on how to solve them and some dialog options are hidden through skill checks. Some of the choices you make in this world have actual consequences on the story and you will be forced to make some interesting ethical choices that are hard to classify into the traditional "good" or "bad" scheme. You will meet a variety of super interesting NPCs with their own backstory and quirks.
Graphics are great for its age, weapons, armour, landscapes all look great but but variety of NPCs models is a bit lacking. Especially the female Characters all seem to have the same face which can be confusing at first. Considering the small budget of the game, this can be forgiven though.
And yes, speaking of female characters, the society in Elex is still pretty patriarchal but that could be argued to fit the setting. Still there are some memorable and powerful female characters in this game, so progress, I guess.
Also probably cause of small budget, the cut scenes are a bit lame for a modern game. Mostly people standing around and talking. But there is only a few of them so they can be tolerated.
Music and sound are great, so to be expected from Piranha Bytes.
So if you want a rough gem and can tolerate a game, that treats you like an adult that doesn’t need constant hand holding, this game is a great immersive open world RPG experience!
