Arcanum Preview

The Game

Heyhey… Not Bad!

What really got me thinking that Arcanum just might be able to buck the trend of bad mixed age roleplaying games is that Troika Games is actually trying to build a real, expansive and detailed world. Fallout made for a great Wasteland updated because it had the large and detailed world. Arcanum might be able to take the mixed age RPG into the open.

Slap me around with that will ya?

What good is that against bullets?

The developers themselves claim that the game is huge. In-game travel across the entire continent will take 20 game days or 48 hours of real-time play! Throughout the game you will encounter approximately 280 unique monsters to fight and kill for experience and loot.

In the more civilized settings you will run into over 300 detailed characters. They will be spread among "dozens of major towns and dungeons." Read that again - how would you like your pick of a dozen towns to visit? Would you like to see some in the cold north or others deep in the tropics?

There will be several major quests for you to embark on which will take you across the world. Much as in Fallout, there will be multiple ways to go about these quests - it's your decision how you wish to solve it and what outcome you want. Combat too is quite customizable, almost like Baldur's Gate. You can fight in real-time with all the timesaving measures, or you can take your time and be careful during tough fights with turn-based combat for that extra bit of planning and strategy. There are hundreds of sidequests, which take you across the world and bring you in contact with all the baddies present there.

19th century technology

Like something by Jules Verne

The game will of course feature the full night/day cycle with dynamic lighting and coloring. More importantly, the time of day can affect certain skills - especially thieving and combat skills. Choose your battleground and time carefully!

All-in-All

Arcanum looks like a much more interesting game now that we've heard a little more about it. The developers aren't focusing on the merging of technology and magic. They're exploring the conflict that arises when a new form of power appears to succeed another. Like the post-Napoleonic governments of Europe who adopted a reactionist policy to any social change for fear of spawning another French Revolution, the old powers of Arcanum - the mages - now find themselves threatened by technology which not only may create a new elite, but also dilute that easy power to the masses.

This conflict and its development in the story, as well as the player's role (especially his potential ability to choose sides) is of paramount importance to the success of Arcanum. Having made the setting interesting and giving us a large world to play around with, we hope Troika Games can put the parts together properly to fulfill the potential of this possibly great game.

Brint it on!

Who's your daddy?