his is one of those titles that illustrates the label of "niche game" to a tee. Arx Fatalis is a dungeon crawling, fantasy laden, first-person perspective adventure. As such, players have a lot of control over how their character develops and are encouraged to be creative with puzzle solving.

While you are thrown into a highly predictable fantasy storyline with interesting inter-species relations, you’ll be able to see most of the quests and plot points coming a mile away. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it certainly isn’t the reason that people will keep playing Arx.

In-game graphics are definitely nice (especially for this genre), and the fire effects are particularly nifty, but the title has a tendancy to chug when there are more than a few NPCs onscreen. The gameplay focuses on making players search every dead body, each abandoned barrel, and all of the critters you kill – these are a few of the little touches that make Arx worth looking into
for many.

Those desiring a fast-paced FPS should search elsewhere, but Arx will certainly be up some people’s alleys. I found myself freakishly sucked into its universe, but maybe it’s due to the cooking. I love finding random flour.  

7.75 While it plays like the world’s slowest FPS, Arx Fatalis has a lot going for it. It’s got creepy atmosphere up the wazoo, decent combat, a cool story, and plenty of RPG elements. The freedom it offers is nice, and the graphics are pretty sharp. It may not be for everyone, but Arx Fatalis has all the makings of a cult hit.