Arx Fatalis was Arkane Studios' first game, and was very much a sign of things to come. It was big, open, ambitious as hell, really good, and a sales flop. It's also very dated now—it was released in 2002—which makes going back to see what you missed something of a tough row to hoe. That may eventually change, though, thanks to the efforts Blackcatgame Studios, a one-man operation that recently teased a work-in-progress remake of the game in Unreal Engine 4.
The summary on ModDB describes the area seen in the videos as being from Level 11, the Human Kingdom village (although I think that's a typo since as far as I know that's on level 1), where players can wander around, talk with NPCs, and fight with guards. Obviously there's a long way to go before the job is done, and given that projects like this are typically both massive and unpaid undertakings, it may not ever be finished. But seeing that dingy settlement remade all shiny and new really kind of gets me right here.
I'm not the only one: Arkane co-founder Raphael Colantonio, the lead designer and director of Arx Fatalis, also took note.
This is mind blowing: Someone is doing an Unreal4 remaster of Arx, my baby from 2002. Back then the game failed hard, publisher ran out of business before the game was even in the stores. Bittersweet. life is full of surpriseshttps://t.co/4DaRRaExPc#ARXFATALISREMASTEREDMay 31, 2019
And if that voice in the video up above seems oddly familiar, there's good reason: That's Stephen Russell, the voice of Corvo Attano in Dishonored 2. You can hear him in the video below, too.
Thanks, DSOGaming.
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