Arx Fatalis - The Making Of @ Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Dhruin

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Kieron Gillen has reposted an older article at Rock, Paper, Shotgun titled Making of: Arx Fatalis, with input from Arkane's lead sound guy, Cristophe Carrier:
It was a simple aim… but the most complicated of simple aims. “What we wanted to do was Ultima Underworld 3,” Christophe explains simply. It’s quite the aim. While it was the game which invented the modern-first-person revolution, pre-empting Doom considerably, it was far from a simple game. It was all about complicated simulations in a role-playing environment. It was also the first game of the team who were then known as Blue-Sky Software, before swiftly transmuting into the venerable legends Looking Glass (R.I.P.). In fact, they /literally/ wanted to do Underworld 3. “We talked to Paul Neurath [Looking Glass Big Cheese – Ed] to work with us on it,” Chrisophe notes. It couldn’t be done, however, so they set off with their own setting… but with Ultima as a solid blueprint.
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It's just MHO. I always thought the races, the world, the story and the plot of The Stygian Abyss and especially Labyrinth of Worlds more interesting and better crafted than Arx Fatalis. When I think of Arx Fatalis, especially the snakewomen and their small rooms and their search for the hideout of the rebels comes into my mind. I found it hilarious that the rebels had a bigger hideout than the snakewomen and still were never found before. That's one of the many complaints I had about Arx Fatalis. I could make a list, but what would be the point?
 
I don't think you're wrong, as such. UU was deeper and better crafted all 'round. But I thought AF was a noble effort that really found some atmosphere, so I was just reacting to the word "joke".
 
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Since UU2 is one of my top 3 all time games, you could say I'm biased. However, I loved Arx for what it was and am very disappointed that there has not been (and likely never will be ) an Arx 2!!
 
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When refering to trying to find the rebels base you have to think that it is underground and being underground even if it is a city of a million people you may never beable to find it even if you looked for all of your life. Being underground isn't like being above ground where the larger the structure the further you can see it from.

I really liked the first UU but never played the second and I really liked Arx and thought it was a really good game on it's own and was different then UU.

PS. I think there will be a second game and I think that the newer release of the first game is leading towards that. They were originally going to do a second game before DMofM&M.
 
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For a "company" that never did games before (haven't they ?) and that was only founded for creating this game (at least I heard so), this was imho *more* than a "humble effort" ...
 
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