Having just finished playthroughs of Prey, Dishonored, and Dishonored 2, I decided I had to play Arkane's first game, Arx Fatalis. $1.64 later, I had a copy from GOG.
Interestingly, Arkane made the source code for the game open years ago. This has led to the development of Arx Libertatis, which is an open source port that runs nicely on Linux. Easy to set up, and runs great on modern hardware at modern resolutions.
Anyway, here's my guy holding a sword!
@jester totally different, but you can feel the guiding influences (think back to the OG Thief games, lots of the same devs).
Pretty standard combat for the era with a neat twist on magic (spells use mouse gestures). The "explore everything, pick up everything" mechanic is very familiar if you've played Prey or Dishonored. Storyline is pretty linear, no dialogue interface BUT your decisions in gameplay DO make a difference.
Near fully voiced too! But only partial subtitles, as a warning.
@koreiagatsu It's neat! Here's a short clip (I'm casting the Ignite spell, which lights flammable objects in a radius - nothing for it to work on here).
The process is:
Hold Ctrl
Left click, draw rune
Release left click (keep holding Ctrl)
Left click, draw next rune
etc
Each rune shows up in the top right in a rune queue as you draw it successfully. You can mix and match runes extensively, and most spells require 2-3 runes in the proper order (there are 40 runes total).
@koreiagatsu I'd rate it a solid 8/10 by the standards of the day, maybe a 5/10 by the "keeping my interest 20+ years later" metric. But again, at the price I paid ($1.64 on GOG, not sure if it's still on sale) it's a solid buy.
There are some decent walkthroughs still available (https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/pc/371212-arx-fatalis/faqs/28139 and https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2873348759) and although it's dated the Arx Libertatis engine makes it much more playable on modern hardware than other games of the era (looking at you, KOTOR).
Delta Sierra
jester
kiyerin