Post by WickedCrustacean on Dec 22, 2017 6:58:25 GMT -5
Inspired by Ultima VII: The Black Gate, THE original open world RPG, the German development studio Piranha Bytes created the little known but highly revered in the hardcore circles RPG series Gothic. In mid-2000s, they lost a legal battle for the franchise to their publisher, and restarted with the Risen series. While the original Risen 1 was a very enjoyable RPG, the second and third entries were widely panned as being terrible games, and when they announced they were working on a new franchise a couple of years back, many people, including their biggest fans, were fairly skeptical. The fact that this new franchise, named ELEX, featured a setting that seemed like a cheesy mishmash of various tropes (fantasy, sci-fi, post-apocalypse) did not help, and everyone was preparing for a major disaster. In fact, one of the mainstream gaming websites even had an article back in the summer, outright stating in the title that this will be a disaster.
ELEX came out in October, to little fanfare. As expected, most gaming websites (with the notable exception of Eurogamer) gave it terrible marks, as they tend to do to games from studios that have no power over their advertising funding. If only they had such critical acumen when it came to a big studio for once, but that's a different topic. Having read people's reviews on Steam and other places early on, I got a distinctly different vibe about the quality of the game, and bought it in late October. It proved to be an excellent decision. I just finished the game yesterday, after two months of dedicated gaming. My final save-game was about 78 hours long, and Steam had me playing it for 141 hours. What I will say up-front, before going into the details, is that the mainstream media is completely wrong about ELEX, and this is a rough-around-the-edges gem that while being very flawed in some ways, is in others simply outstanding, and deserves attention from any hardcore RPG fan.
ELEX takes place on the planet of Magalan, an Earth-like world that got to about our modern level of development and technology when it was struck by a massive comet. The impact and its aftermath wiped out most of the population, leaving behind a post-apocalyptic world littered with the ruins of civilization. On top of that, the comet contained the eponymous ELEX, a substance that has many strange characteristics. The strike of the comet spread this ELEX throughout Magalan.
There were some survivors though, and over time, they organized themselves into four distinct factions. There are the nature loving and technology hating Berserkers, who have learned to transform ELEX into another substance called Mana, which gives them the power to use magic. Following their early leaders, they set the goal of terraforming Magalan with their special plants, the World-Hearts, which suck out ELEX from the ground, and change it into Mana, while at the same time allowing plant-life to thrive in those areas. The Berserkers live around a set of strict Laws, which prohibit the use of any technology, among other things.
Then, there are the Clerics, who interestingly worship their god Calaan but also worship technology. They use plasma rifles and military Mechs, and strive to learn new things, but at the same time, their society revolves around their religion. The Clerics use ELEX to power their weapons and machines.
The third faction that the player can join are the Outlaws, who are a bunch of freedom loving maniacs straight out of a Mad Max movie, and whose main motivation seems to be profit. Unlike the first two factions, these guys do not impose any kind of strict rules but are quite likely to stab you in the back when you aren't looking. The Outlaws use ELEX to create drugs/stims, which they then shoot themselves up with for varying effects.
The fourth faction are the Albs, the bad guys. These were originally Clerics who then decided that worshipping Calaan went against pure logic and reason, and set out to form their own splinter faction with an emphasis on clear thinking without any emotion. They started eating ELEX to enhance their physical and mental powers, and aimed to evolve into something higher. Over time, as generations passed since the comet hit, they turned into cold, emotionless robot-like people, who routinely waged war and did terrible things to everyone else on Magalan.
This was in addition to other factions fighting regularly among themselves.
I realize that reading these descriptions might make a person think it's a hopeless hodge-podge of ideas, but the thing is, it works perfectly in the game. Everything gels well together and makes perfect sense. When you see the barren desert in which the Outlaws live, you understand why the Berserkers are trying to terraform things. When you deal with the heavy hand of Berserker or Cleric society and their constant laws and regulations, you begin to value the lawless freedom of the Outlaw Fort. When you run from various monsters because your pipe is not very effective against them, you will be prepared to worship Calaan and his mother to gain access to the advanced Cleric technology. It might sound weird at high level, but in the detailed workings of Magalan, the whole lore comes together in a very elegant way.
As the game begins, you play the role of Jax, a famous (or perhaps infamous) Alb Commander, a skinhead looking asshole hopped up on ELEX (which also makes your skin white, hence Albs - Albinos), sent on a highly critical mission from the Alb Stronghold behind the enemy lines, into the lands of the Free People (Berserkers, Clerics, Outlaws). Jax is flying his Raider, a futuristic airplane, but things quickly go south. For unknown reasons to be discovered later, he is betrayed and shot down over the Berserker lands. As he gets out of the Raider, he is immediately surrounded by his brother Kallax and other Albs, as if they were waiting for him, and sentenced to execution for his failure of the mission. He is shot on the spot, but manages to survive. As he is lying unconscious for several days, the ELEX drains out of his body, so that by the time he comes to, he is no longer the emotionless robot, but instead, more or less a regular human, able to make independent decisions for the first time in his life. And so the game begins.
From the opening moment, you are physically free to go anywhere in the entire huge world. There is only one small catch: most of the world is populated by deadly, vicious creatures, from the indigenous wildlife to the mutated monsters to the various bandits, reavers and Albs, who are all too happy to kill you. Unlike other open world games, you start as an absolute weakling, and there is no level scaling of any kind. You will die quite a lot. Survival depends on two things, your character's progression in terms of gaining new skills/attributes/weapons/equipment, and your knowledge of the combat system. Upgrading your weapons and armor over the course of the game is essential, because ELEX uses a hard armor system, meaning armor is not a percentage but a fixed value. So if the enemy has an armor of 40 and your weapon does 41, your hits will do 1 damage, and killing it will take 2 years. Don't worry though, it will kill you way before that. Once you build your character up enough, then player skill comes into play, because the combat system is actually quite involved.
Unfortunately, although the combat system is very ambitious and complex, it could have used another several months of work, at least. As it is, it feels very uneven and rough, and will at times frustrate the player. There are melee and ranged combat. As is typical for Piranha Bytes games, the melee combat is the interesting one, as ranged combat is quite simplistic. You get your bow/crossbow/shotgun/plasma rifle, and just shoot. There is no cover system or any in-depth mechanics there, so I would advise people to play melee. The melee part of the combat revolves around defensive moves and offensive combos. You can hold up your weapon or shield to block enemy blows. Shield works better for this, since weapon block only blocks half damage on two handed weapons and powerful blows. There is also a timed parry, but it's pretty bugged right now, and only works sometimes. You can also roll out of the way, which will avoid damage from any kind of attack. On offense, spamming attacks as in other RPGs will not work here at all, because there is a timing system involved. The initial attack does little damage, but if you time follow up strikes in sequence, each subsequent strike will do more and more damage. Landing several of these in a row will build up your combo bar, and allow you to unleash a special attack, which does really heavy damage. What ties all of these things together and makes the combat system quite challenging is the stamina bar. Every action, be it blocking, dodging, or attacking, takes up stamina. So the key element of combat is managing your stamina pool. If you overcommit to attack and drain your stamina, now you can't roll out of the way of the enemy's massive counter-attack. Conversely, if you keep blocking with your shield or weapon for too long, your stamina will be gone, and you won't be able to attack. This is especially an issue in early game, when your stamina pool is very low. The problems with combat in ELEX is that each element is usually uneven in some way. For instance, the hitboxes are sometimes kind of off, so an enemy might swing very far from you and still manage to hit you. I already mentioned the timed parry being broken. Sometimes you have to roll too much, bringing back terrible memories of Witcher 2. All in all, the combat is still more interesting and involved in my opinion than the melee combat in Elder Scrolls games, but it feels like with more development time (or perhaps some mods later on), it could be much better.
The exploration, on the other hand, is just amazing. You have a huge, very interesting world, with more verticality than any other game I've ever played. You can be walking on some plateau, and suddenly find yourself staring down at the valley beneath your feet which might be a good 1000 feet below or more. The entire world of Magalan is filled with mountains, mesas, towers, cliffs, and other elevations which make it a pleasure to get around and explore. What really helps here is the player's jet-pack. This was another feature that I was very skeptical about before playing, as it seemed gimmicky and subject to player exploits. But Piranha Bytes managed to implement it just about perfectly. The jet-pack has a very limited supply of fuel (which regenerates on its own), so that it only allows for very limited bursts of flight. This can be helpful for getting up steep elevations that you can't climb normally, or for gently dropping down a massive chasm, but you can't use it to fly around. It also cannot be abused during combat, since most enemies have ranged attacks.
In addition to the verticality, the world consists of completely different regions, which bring a lot of distinct flavors. The Berserker region of Edan is a lush jungle, overgrown with plant-life. The region of Tavar where the Outlaws are based is a dry desert straight out of a Mad Max movie. The Clerics live in a mountain region full of lava called Ignadon. There is also Abessa, a shared region between the Free People which is a mix of highlands and plains. Up north where the Albs are based you have the snowy lands of Xacor. On top of that, what makes the world so interesting are the ever-present ruins of the dead civilization, wiped out by the comet. Everywhere you go, there are half destroyed buildings, remains of old massive highways, overgrown and in some cases fallen phone towers, abandoned tanks and humvees, remains of modern cars and parking lots, and other remnants of a world like ours, gone forever. I have never played a game with quite that feeling, and in some ways, it almost feels more Fallout than Fallout.
You can also find all kinds of interesting stuff as you explore. The downside is that most of what you will find will be worthless trash. Here, I feel like the developers could have placed more valuable stuff around, but they went with the true post-apocalyptic approach, and you will be at times frustrated when finding an out of the way safe, and hacking it open, you will be reward with two rolls of soft toilet paper. But here and there, there will be some great stuff. Occasionally you will come across a unique weapon, or some old notes and audio recordings from people before the comet or sometimes, after. These notes will sometimes seem useless, but actually, they often have to do with what's going on in the game. When you combine them together, they will often give you hints about some of the game's overarching story-lines that you cannot get in any other way. There are even some quest-lines that have to do with collecting various map pieces, photographs and hints around the world, and putting them together to learn some very cool stuff.
One thing I do not like is that there are quest markers, so you can always look up exactly where you need to go. You can disable these, but unfortunately, the dialogue does not give you enough clues on its own to find these places. I have read that this is the case in the game's original language of German, but in English, the quest markers are pretty much mandatory.
The other amazing thing about ELEX are the game's quests. As I already mentioned, this is a huge game, with something in the neighborhood of 500 quests. But what's amazing is that one, most of these quests are tightly woven into the game's over-arching themes and stories, and two, how much freedom they give to the player. one of the issues that I have with many open world RPGs (looking at you Skyrim/Oblivion) is that they are basically sandboxes more than games. The player can go around, and engage in a lot of stuff that's sort of unrelated to the other stuff. The main quest might have to with Oblivion gates and the invasion from Hell, but almost nothing else in the world is tied to that. Even in towns next to Oblivion gates, NPCs barely mention them, and most send you off on some unrelated quest. That's when people aren't just looting dungeons for uniques and gold. But in ELEX, most quests are related to the other things going on in the world, which gives them added depth. For example, one of the Berserkers in charge of a World-Heart at the frontier sends you to find a junior member of his team who went off with a patrol and never came back. When you locate him, you learn that the patrol was ambushed and killed, and he doesn't want to go back, because he is sick and tired of Berserker laws. What he actually wants to do is escape to the Outlaws camp in Tavar and make money. So you can help him find enough weapons/equipment to go to Tavar, or to force him to return to the Berserker camp. The crux of the matter is that each of these decisions can have consequences later on, to how the factions react to you, and how their future develops. So this is just a minor quest, but you can see how it's tied to so many things going on.
The other thing that is really impressive is the amount of choice you have in quests. Many can be done in entirely different ways, by siding with different people, using force vs skill-checks vs money. Many NPCs will lie to you, try to use you, but even then, you can get interesting results. There was one NPCs that got me into a lot of trouble with his BS, but eventually, by not giving up on him, I obtained a lot of experience, money, and even access to an underground criminal organization. Choices also often have consequences. Almost all NPCs can be killed, which can then lead to different outcomes in the game. For example, I told a high up Berserker about a group of Separatist Albs that I discovered, who wanted to make peace with the Free People. This guy told me that he would send emissaries to speak with them, but later on, I found out that these "emissaries" actually killed the separatists. I got really pissed, and we had a fight, and I killed him. Then, because I killed him, the Berserkers refused to accept me into their faction, and even prohibited me from trading in their town, until I made reparations and a bunch of other quests to get into their good graces again. Stuff like this really makes you feel like you a part of a real world.
The writing is not great per se, but fairly functional. It's nothing like Witcher 3, but it gives you enough to be immersed in the world. There are a lot of plot twists and interesting things to find out as the story goes on, but this is a game about exploration, tons of cool quests, and leading your character from a complete weakling into a fearsome avatar, not about a great story.
One final negative I should mention is the gating. Piranha Bytes games always had strong gating elements, in that while they are open worlds, the difficulty of monsters and enemies in certain parts of the map naturally gates those areas off until you are much stronger. This is OK in my opinion, and is actually preferable to the alternative, where you can go anywhere right off the bat and enemies scale with you. However, while games like Gothic, Gothic 2 and Risen 1 are gated in a logical way, with some areas being more fit for newbies, and other become progressively more difficult, ELEX has really weird gating. In pretty much any part of the world, you can find low level weak enemies, and a little distance beyond them, some monstrosity that you shouldn't even look at for another 20 levels. So you are never quite sure which areas are safe and can easily walk into your death. In addition, this element creates situations at certain points in the game, where you have a ton of open quests, but almost all of them are too difficult to tackle at that time, and you have to spend time to try to find stuff that actually allows you to progress. This part could've definitely been implemented better.
In conclusion, ELEX is by no means perfect, and it has a lot of very prominent flaws. The combat system is not very good and could've used more resources and time. The graphics are pretty but by no means cutting edge. The difficulty of combat, and the way the player starts as an absolute weakling is sure to turn off some players after they get abused in their early fights. The gating system is not for everyone. The mixing together of various settings and concepts such as magic and technology is sure to turn off some people as well. The loot tables could be better, with less toilet paper and cigarettes, and more, well... loot. But if you look past these things, and are prepared for a more old-school, hardcore RPG experience, what lies underneath is an amazing massive RPG with some of the best exploration and quests that you will ever find in the genre.
ELEX came out in October, to little fanfare. As expected, most gaming websites (with the notable exception of Eurogamer) gave it terrible marks, as they tend to do to games from studios that have no power over their advertising funding. If only they had such critical acumen when it came to a big studio for once, but that's a different topic. Having read people's reviews on Steam and other places early on, I got a distinctly different vibe about the quality of the game, and bought it in late October. It proved to be an excellent decision. I just finished the game yesterday, after two months of dedicated gaming. My final save-game was about 78 hours long, and Steam had me playing it for 141 hours. What I will say up-front, before going into the details, is that the mainstream media is completely wrong about ELEX, and this is a rough-around-the-edges gem that while being very flawed in some ways, is in others simply outstanding, and deserves attention from any hardcore RPG fan.
ELEX takes place on the planet of Magalan, an Earth-like world that got to about our modern level of development and technology when it was struck by a massive comet. The impact and its aftermath wiped out most of the population, leaving behind a post-apocalyptic world littered with the ruins of civilization. On top of that, the comet contained the eponymous ELEX, a substance that has many strange characteristics. The strike of the comet spread this ELEX throughout Magalan.
There were some survivors though, and over time, they organized themselves into four distinct factions. There are the nature loving and technology hating Berserkers, who have learned to transform ELEX into another substance called Mana, which gives them the power to use magic. Following their early leaders, they set the goal of terraforming Magalan with their special plants, the World-Hearts, which suck out ELEX from the ground, and change it into Mana, while at the same time allowing plant-life to thrive in those areas. The Berserkers live around a set of strict Laws, which prohibit the use of any technology, among other things.
Then, there are the Clerics, who interestingly worship their god Calaan but also worship technology. They use plasma rifles and military Mechs, and strive to learn new things, but at the same time, their society revolves around their religion. The Clerics use ELEX to power their weapons and machines.
The third faction that the player can join are the Outlaws, who are a bunch of freedom loving maniacs straight out of a Mad Max movie, and whose main motivation seems to be profit. Unlike the first two factions, these guys do not impose any kind of strict rules but are quite likely to stab you in the back when you aren't looking. The Outlaws use ELEX to create drugs/stims, which they then shoot themselves up with for varying effects.
The fourth faction are the Albs, the bad guys. These were originally Clerics who then decided that worshipping Calaan went against pure logic and reason, and set out to form their own splinter faction with an emphasis on clear thinking without any emotion. They started eating ELEX to enhance their physical and mental powers, and aimed to evolve into something higher. Over time, as generations passed since the comet hit, they turned into cold, emotionless robot-like people, who routinely waged war and did terrible things to everyone else on Magalan.
This was in addition to other factions fighting regularly among themselves.
I realize that reading these descriptions might make a person think it's a hopeless hodge-podge of ideas, but the thing is, it works perfectly in the game. Everything gels well together and makes perfect sense. When you see the barren desert in which the Outlaws live, you understand why the Berserkers are trying to terraform things. When you deal with the heavy hand of Berserker or Cleric society and their constant laws and regulations, you begin to value the lawless freedom of the Outlaw Fort. When you run from various monsters because your pipe is not very effective against them, you will be prepared to worship Calaan and his mother to gain access to the advanced Cleric technology. It might sound weird at high level, but in the detailed workings of Magalan, the whole lore comes together in a very elegant way.
As the game begins, you play the role of Jax, a famous (or perhaps infamous) Alb Commander, a skinhead looking asshole hopped up on ELEX (which also makes your skin white, hence Albs - Albinos), sent on a highly critical mission from the Alb Stronghold behind the enemy lines, into the lands of the Free People (Berserkers, Clerics, Outlaws). Jax is flying his Raider, a futuristic airplane, but things quickly go south. For unknown reasons to be discovered later, he is betrayed and shot down over the Berserker lands. As he gets out of the Raider, he is immediately surrounded by his brother Kallax and other Albs, as if they were waiting for him, and sentenced to execution for his failure of the mission. He is shot on the spot, but manages to survive. As he is lying unconscious for several days, the ELEX drains out of his body, so that by the time he comes to, he is no longer the emotionless robot, but instead, more or less a regular human, able to make independent decisions for the first time in his life. And so the game begins.
From the opening moment, you are physically free to go anywhere in the entire huge world. There is only one small catch: most of the world is populated by deadly, vicious creatures, from the indigenous wildlife to the mutated monsters to the various bandits, reavers and Albs, who are all too happy to kill you. Unlike other open world games, you start as an absolute weakling, and there is no level scaling of any kind. You will die quite a lot. Survival depends on two things, your character's progression in terms of gaining new skills/attributes/weapons/equipment, and your knowledge of the combat system. Upgrading your weapons and armor over the course of the game is essential, because ELEX uses a hard armor system, meaning armor is not a percentage but a fixed value. So if the enemy has an armor of 40 and your weapon does 41, your hits will do 1 damage, and killing it will take 2 years. Don't worry though, it will kill you way before that. Once you build your character up enough, then player skill comes into play, because the combat system is actually quite involved.
Unfortunately, although the combat system is very ambitious and complex, it could have used another several months of work, at least. As it is, it feels very uneven and rough, and will at times frustrate the player. There are melee and ranged combat. As is typical for Piranha Bytes games, the melee combat is the interesting one, as ranged combat is quite simplistic. You get your bow/crossbow/shotgun/plasma rifle, and just shoot. There is no cover system or any in-depth mechanics there, so I would advise people to play melee. The melee part of the combat revolves around defensive moves and offensive combos. You can hold up your weapon or shield to block enemy blows. Shield works better for this, since weapon block only blocks half damage on two handed weapons and powerful blows. There is also a timed parry, but it's pretty bugged right now, and only works sometimes. You can also roll out of the way, which will avoid damage from any kind of attack. On offense, spamming attacks as in other RPGs will not work here at all, because there is a timing system involved. The initial attack does little damage, but if you time follow up strikes in sequence, each subsequent strike will do more and more damage. Landing several of these in a row will build up your combo bar, and allow you to unleash a special attack, which does really heavy damage. What ties all of these things together and makes the combat system quite challenging is the stamina bar. Every action, be it blocking, dodging, or attacking, takes up stamina. So the key element of combat is managing your stamina pool. If you overcommit to attack and drain your stamina, now you can't roll out of the way of the enemy's massive counter-attack. Conversely, if you keep blocking with your shield or weapon for too long, your stamina will be gone, and you won't be able to attack. This is especially an issue in early game, when your stamina pool is very low. The problems with combat in ELEX is that each element is usually uneven in some way. For instance, the hitboxes are sometimes kind of off, so an enemy might swing very far from you and still manage to hit you. I already mentioned the timed parry being broken. Sometimes you have to roll too much, bringing back terrible memories of Witcher 2. All in all, the combat is still more interesting and involved in my opinion than the melee combat in Elder Scrolls games, but it feels like with more development time (or perhaps some mods later on), it could be much better.
The exploration, on the other hand, is just amazing. You have a huge, very interesting world, with more verticality than any other game I've ever played. You can be walking on some plateau, and suddenly find yourself staring down at the valley beneath your feet which might be a good 1000 feet below or more. The entire world of Magalan is filled with mountains, mesas, towers, cliffs, and other elevations which make it a pleasure to get around and explore. What really helps here is the player's jet-pack. This was another feature that I was very skeptical about before playing, as it seemed gimmicky and subject to player exploits. But Piranha Bytes managed to implement it just about perfectly. The jet-pack has a very limited supply of fuel (which regenerates on its own), so that it only allows for very limited bursts of flight. This can be helpful for getting up steep elevations that you can't climb normally, or for gently dropping down a massive chasm, but you can't use it to fly around. It also cannot be abused during combat, since most enemies have ranged attacks.
In addition to the verticality, the world consists of completely different regions, which bring a lot of distinct flavors. The Berserker region of Edan is a lush jungle, overgrown with plant-life. The region of Tavar where the Outlaws are based is a dry desert straight out of a Mad Max movie. The Clerics live in a mountain region full of lava called Ignadon. There is also Abessa, a shared region between the Free People which is a mix of highlands and plains. Up north where the Albs are based you have the snowy lands of Xacor. On top of that, what makes the world so interesting are the ever-present ruins of the dead civilization, wiped out by the comet. Everywhere you go, there are half destroyed buildings, remains of old massive highways, overgrown and in some cases fallen phone towers, abandoned tanks and humvees, remains of modern cars and parking lots, and other remnants of a world like ours, gone forever. I have never played a game with quite that feeling, and in some ways, it almost feels more Fallout than Fallout.
You can also find all kinds of interesting stuff as you explore. The downside is that most of what you will find will be worthless trash. Here, I feel like the developers could have placed more valuable stuff around, but they went with the true post-apocalyptic approach, and you will be at times frustrated when finding an out of the way safe, and hacking it open, you will be reward with two rolls of soft toilet paper. But here and there, there will be some great stuff. Occasionally you will come across a unique weapon, or some old notes and audio recordings from people before the comet or sometimes, after. These notes will sometimes seem useless, but actually, they often have to do with what's going on in the game. When you combine them together, they will often give you hints about some of the game's overarching story-lines that you cannot get in any other way. There are even some quest-lines that have to do with collecting various map pieces, photographs and hints around the world, and putting them together to learn some very cool stuff.
One thing I do not like is that there are quest markers, so you can always look up exactly where you need to go. You can disable these, but unfortunately, the dialogue does not give you enough clues on its own to find these places. I have read that this is the case in the game's original language of German, but in English, the quest markers are pretty much mandatory.
The other amazing thing about ELEX are the game's quests. As I already mentioned, this is a huge game, with something in the neighborhood of 500 quests. But what's amazing is that one, most of these quests are tightly woven into the game's over-arching themes and stories, and two, how much freedom they give to the player. one of the issues that I have with many open world RPGs (looking at you Skyrim/Oblivion) is that they are basically sandboxes more than games. The player can go around, and engage in a lot of stuff that's sort of unrelated to the other stuff. The main quest might have to with Oblivion gates and the invasion from Hell, but almost nothing else in the world is tied to that. Even in towns next to Oblivion gates, NPCs barely mention them, and most send you off on some unrelated quest. That's when people aren't just looting dungeons for uniques and gold. But in ELEX, most quests are related to the other things going on in the world, which gives them added depth. For example, one of the Berserkers in charge of a World-Heart at the frontier sends you to find a junior member of his team who went off with a patrol and never came back. When you locate him, you learn that the patrol was ambushed and killed, and he doesn't want to go back, because he is sick and tired of Berserker laws. What he actually wants to do is escape to the Outlaws camp in Tavar and make money. So you can help him find enough weapons/equipment to go to Tavar, or to force him to return to the Berserker camp. The crux of the matter is that each of these decisions can have consequences later on, to how the factions react to you, and how their future develops. So this is just a minor quest, but you can see how it's tied to so many things going on.
The other thing that is really impressive is the amount of choice you have in quests. Many can be done in entirely different ways, by siding with different people, using force vs skill-checks vs money. Many NPCs will lie to you, try to use you, but even then, you can get interesting results. There was one NPCs that got me into a lot of trouble with his BS, but eventually, by not giving up on him, I obtained a lot of experience, money, and even access to an underground criminal organization. Choices also often have consequences. Almost all NPCs can be killed, which can then lead to different outcomes in the game. For example, I told a high up Berserker about a group of Separatist Albs that I discovered, who wanted to make peace with the Free People. This guy told me that he would send emissaries to speak with them, but later on, I found out that these "emissaries" actually killed the separatists. I got really pissed, and we had a fight, and I killed him. Then, because I killed him, the Berserkers refused to accept me into their faction, and even prohibited me from trading in their town, until I made reparations and a bunch of other quests to get into their good graces again. Stuff like this really makes you feel like you a part of a real world.
The writing is not great per se, but fairly functional. It's nothing like Witcher 3, but it gives you enough to be immersed in the world. There are a lot of plot twists and interesting things to find out as the story goes on, but this is a game about exploration, tons of cool quests, and leading your character from a complete weakling into a fearsome avatar, not about a great story.
One final negative I should mention is the gating. Piranha Bytes games always had strong gating elements, in that while they are open worlds, the difficulty of monsters and enemies in certain parts of the map naturally gates those areas off until you are much stronger. This is OK in my opinion, and is actually preferable to the alternative, where you can go anywhere right off the bat and enemies scale with you. However, while games like Gothic, Gothic 2 and Risen 1 are gated in a logical way, with some areas being more fit for newbies, and other become progressively more difficult, ELEX has really weird gating. In pretty much any part of the world, you can find low level weak enemies, and a little distance beyond them, some monstrosity that you shouldn't even look at for another 20 levels. So you are never quite sure which areas are safe and can easily walk into your death. In addition, this element creates situations at certain points in the game, where you have a ton of open quests, but almost all of them are too difficult to tackle at that time, and you have to spend time to try to find stuff that actually allows you to progress. This part could've definitely been implemented better.
In conclusion, ELEX is by no means perfect, and it has a lot of very prominent flaws. The combat system is not very good and could've used more resources and time. The graphics are pretty but by no means cutting edge. The difficulty of combat, and the way the player starts as an absolute weakling is sure to turn off some players after they get abused in their early fights. The gating system is not for everyone. The mixing together of various settings and concepts such as magic and technology is sure to turn off some people as well. The loot tables could be better, with less toilet paper and cigarettes, and more, well... loot. But if you look past these things, and are prepared for a more old-school, hardcore RPG experience, what lies underneath is an amazing massive RPG with some of the best exploration and quests that you will ever find in the genre.
