Arx Fatalis Preview

AT: Tell us more about the RPG elements, the way they are incorporated in the game, and how they affect gameplay.

RC: That depends on what you call 'RPG elements'. If you mean the heavy statistic type of RPG elements such as your attributes, skills, AC, weapon damage, various modificators, etc... then, I must say we try to make them as transparent to the player as we can, as we think that they tend to distract people from what we think is cool in a RPG : the realism, the fact that you as a player and your character are one. Now, for us, the two coolest RPG elements are:

1) the fact that you'll be able to experiment things, move objects around, combine them and making your own potions for example, or poisoning your weapon, or other things that will make you go "Cool, they thought about this too !!".
2) the fact that NPCs, and monster follow a set of rules and respond to a set of situations, that can lead to very funny things, such as a goblin following a mice who's following a piece of cheese that I carry around...

I think that these types of RPG elements affect the gameplay a lot, in the sense that in many cases, there are more than one way to solve a problem, I'd say there are probably ways that we, as designers, haven't thought about, and you, as a player might find... (by the way, this is extremly scary for the debugging phase)

AT: You've mentioned in the press release that the game includes some pretty dangerous tasks. What would these duties be? And how does the player mostly get to accomplish them? You've declared that your game uses the so-called 'on-screen' spell creating system, which allows the player to make his own spells by collecting ruins and combining them. Explain some more on this spell generator and the way it works.

RC: Allow me to paste what I've said during the RPGvault interview on magic, as this is a question that we've been asked so many times: "We've been focusing on designing a magic system that would feel as close as possible to "real" magic - if magic was ever real. :) We want the player to feel like he is really casting a spell. That is why casting a spell is a discipline that requires a bit of effort, and you'll have to expect going through a learning phase before you'll be able to become a real spell caster. It is important to note that any path will let you cast basic spells, but only the Wizard path will grant you access to all levels of spells, as there are mana and casting skills limitations. So, now, let me explain you the way it works: The player will have to collect runes that are associated to words of command such as Fire, Create, Time, etc. Each spell is composed by a sequence of words of commands, so for example, to light a fire, you'd have to cast Create Fire. Each word of command composing a spell as to be drawn in the air, with a mouse gesture recognition system. Once the sequence is recognized, the spell is cast, and you have this great feeling of doing something really cool, rather than just clicking on an icon. Spells can fizzle or backfire and injure the caster, and some of them will see their efficiency change depending on the caster's level. Some runes are easy to find, some others are for sale in magic shops, some others are integrated into quests. There is a list of "official" spells that are easy to find or buy, but one of the cool side effects of this system is that the player will be able to guess some secret ones by associating runes in a logical way. All in all, there are more than 50 spells, including the usual offensive spells, but also some very fun and original ones."

AT: Can you reveal some details regarding the weaponry assortment we will see In Arx Fatalis? Also, tell about the friendly and unfriendly characters the player will encounter during his journeys.

RC: Weapons: daggers, 1 handed (swords, clubs, axes), 2 handed (swords, axes), bow, but also bare hands, and obviously, there are some magical versions of these weapons as well. Armors: leather, black leather, chain, mithril, plate, and all magical versions characters: I've talked a bit about characters in one of the questions above, but I can add they are not really classified by being friendly or unfriendly, because most of them can be nice or aggressive according to the context. Obviously, there are some monsters and races that will be always enemy, such as the ratmen, the giant spiders, rats, insects, zombies...But some others are not that categorized, for example, one of the interesting one is a dragon: she can attack you if you get something from her without her agreeing first... but that's your choice if you want to fight her...or may be she can be helpful later ? Or may be she will just be far too strong for you...

AT: Do you have any concept for the multi-player yet?

RC: Yes... And I'm dying to play it ! But I won't reveal how it works yet...soon...

AT: The launch of the Xbox is right around the corner. Do you have any ambitions towards bringing this title to Microsoft's latest console?

RC: For sure. Fishtank and Arkane Studios are both willing to do an Xbox version. It is definitely a very attractive console for developers. Although doing Arx for Xbox is submitted to Microsoft acceptance: it will actually depend of how Microsoft receives the game. If they like it, if they think it fits in their line of products and that the controls work as well with a pad than they do with a mouse... We've done everything to make the interface simple, so let's keep our fingers crossed.