Arkane Studios - Interview @ Gamasutra

In a follow up to Arkane's recent acquistion, Gamasutra has an interview with Raph Colantonio and Harvey Smith:

This acquisition means you'll never get to work on [outside properties like] Ultima Underworld, or Half-Life, or Deus Ex. Was that a hard decision?

HS: We routinely describe our current game as a combination of Underworld, Half-Life, and Deus Ex. I think it's important to note that as much as Raph and I love Thief, System Shock, Arx Fatalis, Deus Ex and BioShock, that style of game.

Ultima Underworld is perhaps the patient zero, I would say -- it's not the IP specifically, it's the spirit of what the player gets to do in this atmospheric environment where the player can play with systems, and play creatively.

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Thanks, Moriendor!
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Interesting interviews. And I still have Arx Fatalis and DMoMM unplayed on the shelf...

Thrasher said:

I still have Arx Fatalis and DMoMM unplayed on the shelf…

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Both were fun games, especially Arx Fatalis, which is very underrated.

This news has me wistful and yet vaguely optimistic that an Arx Fatalis II might actually become more financially viable at some point in the future.

I adored Arx Fatalis - played it through three times to test out the different character builds. It's a style and tradition in roleplaying games that I'd dearly love to see continue. The underground, highly interactive and immersively atmospheric first person rpg...

JDR13 said:

Both were fun games, especially Arx Fatalis, which is very underrated.

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That's the last straw. I need to take 3 months off from work to catch up. It's been stipulated that I will be goin' to Kauai next week without laptop.