Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

Game devs, indie and AAA alike, need to study this game.

If like me, you have a soft spot for Source engine games, you'll hopefully enjoy Dark Messiah as much as I did. Right off the bat, I could see how the developers went from this to later make the Dishonored games. The game makes extensive (sometimes a slightly too much) use of the physics engine, with plenty of spikes, pits & fires to kick enemies into (the kick is ridiculously strong). There are also plenty of planks & ropes to snap / cut that will send barrels & other objects crashing into enemies, its ridiculously fun. The melee combat in this game also gets lots of praise, and whilst I personally found it clunky & unappealing to begin with, I eventually got the hang of it. Its immensely satisfying cleaving an enemy in two. The full body first person whilst clunky at first, really sells the weight of the melee combat (although I had to up the FOV using commands - it was too low and you can't change it in a menu which is disappointing). |There are a handful of ways to pla his game which really adds to the replayability. I haven't touched the magic system much yet, but that also seems rather fun, with some interesting animations.

The variety of enemies & environments in this game actually really surprised me, and I found that they cropped up throughout the game at a rate which kept things feeling fresh. The handful of miniboss type enemies the game throws at you were all original and fun too. Dark Messiah is also not a ridiculously long game either, which certainly prevents it from getting boring. The story however isn't super interesting, with most characters being rather dull. There are a few choices however that do affect your abilities and add reasons to replay the game. Another thing I really liked about this game was that the exploration and puzzles were left down to me: the game didn't flash glowing arrows in the direction to go - it let me find it myself (and yes sometimes that means getting a bit lost but that's okay -the feeling of working it out for yourself is much better). This design philosophy is definitely something I wish modern games would go back to. There are also almost no cutscenes - I viewed almost the entire game through the player character's eyes which also really upped the immersion.

One of the biggest problems here are the numerous technical issues with this almost 20 year old game. I had numerous crashes at the start of the game, and I had to look online and replace the game's executable file with one that had been tweaked to work on modern systems. Also, I played parts of the game with it looking far worse than it should have because for whatever reason the graphics settings would change to low every time I booted up the game.

Overall, whilst Dark Messiah is an older title with some issues, the gameplay is still incredibly fun and doesn't unnecessarily hold your hand. Its a little rough around the edges and its in quite a few ways dated (presentation in particular), but if a newer gamer wanted to experience a fun older game that lets the player approach combat and explore how they want to, then I would recommend this.

Honestly one of my favorite games of all time to this day, however the recent issues with crashing and getting it to start are fucking ridiculous

An underrated good game.

난 이 게임을 많이 좋아해요!!!!

Crashes are there, but not that frequent. The gameplay is fun but not refined. I wasn't expecting the see the Ubisoft logo. It is still an interesting game and can really use a remake. It had a lot of potential in it. Still, at its current state, it still can be fun to play

A timeless classic that I constantly revisit because it has mechanics that you will not find in all the new games made in Unreal Engine.

Source Engine was fantastic in that it allowed physics based interactions so you can throw enemies off cliffs, throw barrels into enemies to knock them down, put fire or ice on the ground to deal damage, or light the tip of your arrow on fire if you hold it near a torch.

The game is a blast and you can beat it in a night, highly recommend coming and seeing why its great.

Genuinely the most fun combat in a video game i've seen so far.

The horrible story makes it 20x better.

Truly a junk masterpiece

This game is a busted mess that regularly crashes, but the kick alone sells the entire game.

Horrendous save system and dated combat. I still would have finished the game, but it is just too much of a headache with constant crashes and aforementioned save system.

Perfect...perfect everything down to the last minute detail, besides the 15 crashes I have had.

the crystal cutscene crashes the game

10/10

Mighty cool.. and magically bulshit expirience to be honest, in terms of technical aspect, i will say the game is 50/50, game is kinda cool, cobat... jst ok, dnt belive people says this is an ultimete 1rst person combat system or watever, the combat is mediocre, its kinda fun, but kinda clunky as well, yeah better the skyrim at least, not thats much better to be honest. Story telling is epic, cutscence are really good in therms of which particular and how they show things.
Overall reviev: to play the game you need to be kinda enthusiast

Never before have I died so often so early in a game - most of the times by falling down somewhere.
I only got to the quest "Follow the ghoul".
What a bullsh*t quest - I just hate this stupid type of parkour elements in an RPG.
Melee combat is also a PITA, although to be fair I haven't gotten that far into the game...
What a shame, as otherwise this game looked really promising...

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic is the second game of Arkane Studios, one of the studios that former Looking Glass developers went to after Ion Storm was closed down and the Dues Ex series was bought by Square Enix. After failing to get Arx Fatalis to run on a modern system (and not wanting to go through the trouble of getting it to run), I played this game to see what Arkane did before the Dishonored Series.

Gameplay
The game starts out strong, showcasing its focus on what I can only call "thinking man's melee combat," encouraging the use of objects and structures you find in the environment to kill enemies. Your character, Sereth, is not the knightly-equivalent of John Rambo and you have a limited amount of hitpoints and stamina to fight with, so going mano-a-mano with enemies is a good way to die.

You need to rely on objects in the world to give you an edge: there are walls of spikes and drop-offs that are conveniently placed for you to kick enemies toward, and overhangs and sections of walls and sometimes statues that you can break the supports on to bring crashing down onto enemies. With the gravity gun telekinesis skill, you can pick objects up and throw them at enemies - the game turned Source Engine's physics up to 11.

You also get a rope bow in a shout-out to Thief and most levels have a vertical element to them.

You can also avoid enemies or, with sufficient skill points invested in the right places and with appropriate gear (daggers and bows), quietly assassinate them: it has the core elements of a Deus Ex game, though not executed as well and forgets what it is in the late game when hordes of enemies are thrown at you in less imaginative levels, forcing a first-person style of gameplay.

Story
You play as a young man called Serath who is "a chosen one" sent to retreive an artifact of doom and you are possessed by a seemingly evil spirit, a succubus named Xana who has a scheming and seductive personality who is there to make sure you get the job done.

You are also "assisted" by a human woman named Leanna, but I use the word "assisted" loosely because she rarely gives you any assistance and you are given a few escort missions that fail if she dies. The main plot is only lightly mentioned throughout the game, but true to Arkane's Style, there is a twist to it.

Unfortunately, most characters are just names: you only get to know Xana, who proves to be surprisingly sympathetic (she is the only character who is completely honest with you, she revives you with her demonic powers after being impaled, and she is the only one who is happy to know you have survived). As a result, it was very easy for me to choose the game's "bad" ending.

Visuals
Some parts, especially the catacombs and ruins, are beautifully lit and have strong artistic direction and hold up even in today's world of raytraced graphics; the city areas are passable, but show their age now and were not anything to write home about even for its era. Monsters are well designed, and so are the named human characters, but most of the rest are kind of bland. A mixed bag.

Sound and Music
The voice acting ranges from exceptional in the case of Xana to okay in the case of Leanna to bland in the case of Sereth. The only music in the game is the combat music, which gets repetitive.

Verdict
If you like games made by Looking Glass people, this one is worth a try but I can't recommend it at full price. The early to mid game is strong, but the levels in the late game get longer, more linear, and pad the play-time out by throwing hordes of enemies at you. Aside from Xana, the characters are forgettable.

Had no idea how cool this game would be 😂
Think of a linear oblivion

source game, people complaining about crashes tab out often and especially during loading screens/cutscenes. dont do that

other than that this game is a huge looney tunes fight scene dragged out for multiple hours. feels like an action rpg version of Magicka. incredible.

Classic of gaming, if it hasn't been told you yet- practically the original hack and slash RPG before Skyrim.
Stands on it's own two feet as the pinnacle of "Gameplay before story"
The dev's set out to make something fun, that happened to be set in a franchise.
If you know the franchise, it ties in bits of the history, but it's tangential to the game itself.
Which is all about kicking, slashing, and casting your way through forces that make up your enemies.
A must-buy game if you enjoy first person games in general.

Dark messia of might and magic is ahead of it's time, combat system and physics are even better than in some modern games.

It's Half-lifes 2 source engine but with the power of kicking your enemies off of cliffs "This is Sparta!" style!

This game is just so much fun start to finish.

This game is a CLASSIC and I couldn't recommend it more! The story is great and while the gameplay IS janky at times, it is still a really good time!

Cant recommend. Went through a gauntlet of unofficial patches to no avail. The game crashes on modern machines. I experienced 7 crashes in 30 minutes.

i enjoyed the very short time i had with it but it crashed 15 or so times in the first 30 minutes

A solid first person RPG, the story is not great, not terrible. For the time when it was released, the gameplay was fun, since you can use the environment via the physics engine. It gave me 11 hours of gameplay to finish the story. If you are into the Heroes V universe, it's a good entry.

Los años no le han hecho ningun favor a lo incosistente que es su jugabilidad, su trama es mas fantastica que los ciclopes y dragones que aparecen

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic is a charming relic of a game which takes the potential of the Source physics engine and combines it with occasionally satisfying melee combat. Using spells and the terrain to create traps for enemies to walk into is a great gameplay loop and almost carries the game to stardom despite how poorly it's aged.

Regardless, I can't recommend this game because running it on a modern machine has some quirks that are quite frustrating to put up with. I experienced ~10 soft crashes over my three hours in the campaign and finally stopped my playthrough when a loading screen kept placing me underneath the map, halting my progress.

The legendary sequel to my favourite Heroes of Might and Magic V, but in a new genre and on a better Source engine. One of the best Role Play games of all years that will never get old

Hard to recommend a game when it keeps crashing every hour or two. Something to do with 32-bit max RAM limitations to 2GB. Even with extension tools, they barely help matters. Most crucially, I don't see why the devs of this game decided to install a RAM limiter in the first place. If another Source Engine game like Half-Life 2 (2 years older than this Source game) can still run very well to this day, what excuse does this game have to function so poorly?

The best kick in gaming, even to this day. Basically a medieval barfight simulator which is indeed a whole lot of fun.

Amazing game, loved it as a kid.

hardest part about the game is picking between the church girl or semen demon waifu

Much better than I expected. Never underestimate the kicking move. Stealth is kinda gimmicky. Stick with melee or magic. I prefer magic because it's flashy.

this game is exactly what you think it is, except its old and clunky

the game is great but for some reason it wont start up anymore (update) i updated my drivers and it runs now and i do think this game is fun. imagine if oblivion was a pure action game instead of an action rpg

Great game. Sadly runs like ass from steam. Would not buy now unless you enjoy CBT and by CBT I mean spending hours applying various patches trying to get it to work (it probably won't)

like the game but the version Steam offers wont launch properly so i'd not advise you to purchase it until they fix the problem

Its a da,mn shame we don't have more games like this, just a good time messing with bad guys.

For $10, there is a LOT to love about the level design, art direction, and combat in the first ~2/3 of the game. Everything takes a pretty substantial nosedive in the final act though, so be prepared for that.

Great old game. Needs the Large Address Aware patch to stop crashes.

What is mightier than the sword?
A well placed kick.

It's just not stable. Frequent CTD so it's unplayable.

Kick everyone and enjoy their falls

The roots of many beloved game mechanics are embedded here. It’s compelling to observe how Arkane Studios has navigated genres—from fantasy and steampunk to “space odyssey”—while preserving a distinctive style: the silent protagonist, supernatural abilities, a diverse arsenal, and immersive worlds that offer multiple ways to play. Just as BioShock can introduce players to the likes of System Shock and Deus Ex, Dishonored and Prey eventually led me to Dark Messiah of Might & Magic.

What’s striking is how time has left the game untouched. In 2024, it still looks and plays with a kind of sprightly vigor. There’s a warmth to it, an inviting sense of adventure that’s neither worn nor weary. It’s a game that feels timeless, offering the same cozy, satisfying experience today as it did upon release.

Any one tryed this on the steam deck

luv Leanna
luv kickin'
'ate Arantir
'ate me dad
simple as

good (cum)

Very good game, story might be on the average side but the gameplay is really fun, one of the best first person melee combat systems I've played. Way ahead of it's time.

Probably a good game but it crashes every five minutes, should've noticed it is a Ubisoft game before buying.

A classic first person rpg with decent combat and talent progression.