ELEX

I like that it has allot of verticality with its gameplay. I recommend it for people who enjoy open world games.

After you learn the combat, game is easy and very playable.

Great game but is difficult. You will need to plan out your attributes and skill allocations to ensure you are doing good damage. I don't recommend if you want an easy game, but highly recommend if you're looking for a challenge.

Even with its jank and flaws, with everything that this game has to offer and how much I've enjoyed playing, and I am only 8 or so hours in, it would be the wrong move not to recommend. At the start you are extremely weak but if you work on Duras' quest from the beginning and also get the Thieve's Amulet, you can level up and get enough money for better gear and perks. Finally I'm starting to not be so afraid of encounters in this game. The quests are honestly decently well written, on top of janky but rewarding combat and an extremely nice open world. This game has some technical flaws but it's got so much that it does well that it is absolutely worth the sale price. I haven't been invested in a single player game as much as this one in a long time. Someone said that this is worse than Starfield and man is that reviewer so wrong. Starfield was a massive disappointment and Elex trumps it in so many ways

8 hours in and still getting no where in this game. Just becoming not fun. Following online guides and still getting owned. Having to save scum to do anything in this game sucks.

very reminiscent of Gothic 1 and 2 - just in a Fallout setting. If you liked either of these games, you will like this

A teeny bit of jank, but if you're at all familiar with Gothic-style games, this will feel right at home. The story is engaging, and it just feels fun to explore.

Elex is not an accessible game and doesn't make a great first impression but it deserves more than one chance. Fans of Piranha Games should prepare themselves for more of what they love (but they must accept a strange fantasy & sci-fi mix).

The combat, leveling system based almost entirely on completing quests, godawful stamina system, disappointing lack of enemy loot, and and ridiculous stat requirements for items are terrible, but can mostly be modded out.
The fact that quests give you little to no agency and have you just following orders like a dog with no other choices? You're stuck with that.

I played the entire game on my steam deck and I honestly loved the game, it will definitely go down as one of my all time favorite games. I honestly couldn’t stop playing this game. If you like open world rpg games those is a must try.

Boring exploration, boring dialogue, boring combat and gameplay, boring atmosphere, boring soundtrack,
Worse than Starfield and Fallout 4.

The worst Bytes game I ever played, I tried to give it a chance to explore more of the world to talk with more people, but the game just isn't fun.
I've played and liked to a degree Gothic 2, Gothic 3,
Risen 1-3
Other than Gothic 2 all of bytes games were mediocre but still a decent experience for RPG lovers with good atmosphere, quirky dialogue, fun exploration and passable combat.

This game performs poorly in all aspects, I just don't care for the world, I don't enjoy the combat. I don't enjoy the quests.

I love sci-fi games, but in this game feels like a sandbox game because the quests and dialogue so uninteresting (more so than Starfield) But the exploration feel like a downgrade from Fallout 4 and even Starfield.

When you explore you will not find memorable hand crafted sites or nice small surprises.
The world isn't pretty like Kingdom Come deliverance. And you don't have good quests and dialogue like in The Witcher.
And the world is much less pretty and quirky than Risen 1-3.

A bad experience, 2/10.

Elex is such a messy affair. It's hugely ambitious but janky as all hell. Overall I like it quite a bit, but some people would absolutely hate it. What it has going for it is:

-Big open world with fantastic exploration
-Fully voice acted
-Lots of items, skills, and abilities
-It feels dangerous
-Post apocalyptic atmosphere
-Impactful decisions

And where it suffers is

-Janky/clunky combat
-Extremely slow leveling--I'm 67 hours in and only like level 22
-Uncompelling main character
-Obtuse/difficult to learn systems/progression

Do I recommend it? I'm going to say yes, but only to patient gamers.

Love this game. I hope we can see more. Thank you Developers.

Nah

I loved Risen but this one ... not so much.

I think I am roughly 50-60% through this game at writing this examination, I can confidently say that if you can forgive the "Eurojank" of Piranhabytes' games, you'll enjoy this RPG. I am a huge fan of the original Gothic from the same studio. I got partway through Gothic 2 before I discovered their spiritual successor, Risen. It was while playing Risen 1 that I learned about Elex 1. I got Elex 1 around launch of the game, tried the opening hours of the game, and proceeded to uninstall the game. This game is frustratingly difficult, in similar ways to modern day Fromsoftware games. While the movement in those games is more refined, most of the late game bosses in their games become absolutely stupid difficult, depending on the boss. I would say the difficult in Elex stems more from the janky combat. It is leaps and bounds better than how it worked in Gothic 1, same with the controls, but there are still some questionable decisions made in this entry. 38 hours in, I am finally feeling confident taking on the "weaker" enemies without a companion to distract them. I will say if you are a fan of the older Piranhabytes (PB) series, you will thoroughly enjoy this game. If you are not familiar with this developer, I would recommend watching or reading one tutorial guide to help you get started. Don't watch much more than that or you will spoil a lot of the great world building that PB has created for this game. The immersive open world and Old World documents and audio logs you find in the world while exploring, as well as the monsters, mutants, and hostile factions you run into really make the world feel alive. As far as I know, there are three main factions you can join (you can only commit to one in a single playthrough as far as I know.) This review is getting a bit all over the place, so I think I will wrap it up. I'm enjoying my time in this game. It is a game that I recommend taking your time in, because you are going to die a lot, especially in the first hours of the game if you don't accept help from the first companion offered to you. This is a game, like previous games by this developer where if you see a skull by an enemy's health bar, you best head around it or in a different direction. All in all I give this game, so far, a 4/5.

super dope rpg.

I really wanted to like this game. It's got some interesting elements, but the fact that it basically throws you in the deep end immediately, combined with absolutely crap controls meant that I lost interest after the 10th time I died to a basic normal enemy because I did jack all damage to it, while it was taking 20-25% of my health in a single attack. Not to mention that I could clearly be out of melee range, and somehow magically the enemy would manage to still land an attack.

It's just... not fun.

Review

To get this out of the way, this is the first piranha bytes game since risen 1 that is actually decent. But there is a reason why piranha bytes studios closed. They keep making the same mistake over and over again which is proven in this game again.

Gameplay
Instead of going back to any type of combat system like in gothic 1-2 or risen 1, they went ahead and improved the combat from risen 3. It changed now but overall, the gameplay is more akin to that game. You have many options to choose but more is not always better. If you have two different magic systems, three factions and their unique ranged and melee weapons you are bound to have issues.
First the melee combat which initially feels very sluggish. Sluggish does not equal for me as being bad, but just being more punishing for failing. The problem is the stamina meter which makes the melee combat atrocious. You deplete it but it does not constantly regenerate if you stop doing any movements. You need to wait 2-3 seconds until it starts to regenerate. If you get it this stops. If you try to block or dodge, it drains. You can dash out a single combo and a special attack but then you are screwed as you dont have any stamina left. Not to mention that later, if you fight multiple enemies, some will stand afar and shoot at you with laser weapons.

Second is the ranged and magic combat. The ranged combat initially works decently. You later get very strong bows or guns which is just way too powerful. Reminds me of the flintlock from risen 2 and 3 on crack. Makes most fights trivial, aside when enemies have ranged weapons too. The magic works in the same way, although I only used the clerics psy powers. They had a weapon that throws small black holes at enemy. I literally only used this weapon as soon as i got it for the entirety of the game.

This just speaks volumes that the combat is absolutely not balanced. There is a reason this game offers difficulty selections which I solely see as a failure from the developers to balance the game on their own. This time you have stat points that do nothing except to enable you to be able to wield specific weapons or train skills. Skill check is not based not on a specific ability but their overarching topic. For example, if you try to threaten someone with your combat experience you can either have enough abilities in ranged or melee combat category. Many of the early game weapons have incredible high requirements. If you go to the first village and try to buy a weapon that is better than the one you are using, you atleast need to gain 3-4 levels and focus solely on the requirements. Weapons have two of those. Meaning if you want to use bows you not only need dexterity but also strength, same with melee weapons.

I need to give credit that this type of RPG is rare to see. There are not many that have that many options, albeit with awful balancing. What is absolutely great about this game are the quests. Not only are there many of those, most of them have unique premises and many different outcomes. The game encourages you to fail quests to receive different ones or different rewards. The factions feel distinct from each other and are very credible. This is probably the most quest heavy piranha bytes rpg that also delivers a high quality of quests at the same time. The game offers therefore a high replay value as you not only have three different endings depending on your morale stat but also different questlines and outcomes depending on your factions and decisions. This is the aspect for me that the game was enjoyable. Combat was there and serviceable, but the quests where fun to accomplish. They felt valuable due to their high xp gain and storylines. Without the map markers you would feel lost, again its due to the world that is too big for this kind of developer to design.

Story
The post apocalyptic premise is nothing new, aside the fact that the meteor which destroyed earth also delivered a resource that has magical properties but also creates mutations and other side effects. It deals how the people of the planet use the properties with their unique twist. Your character is actually this time part of one of the more villainous factions. You lost your power and need to regain power, either back to your old self or for revenge. The story is also expanded by old audio logs and diaries which offer a truly immersive experience. The main character is a though guy, not being very sarcastic but never a dislikeable person like in risen 2 and 3.

Sound
While not as good as risen 1, the soundtrack is absolutely serviceable or even good at times. Its not that memorable but very immersive. Sound effects are just okay.

Graphics
Huge improvement, despite being the same engine as risen 3. No bloom or lens flares. Flora and fauna looks great, handcrafted open world game. Long highways have cracks in them, broken to pieces over time like used rubber. Characters don’t make exaggerated movements during dialogues anymore. Every faction has their distinct region and style. Hard to see that this is actually not from a very big developer.

Conclusion/TL;DR
Piranha Bytes showed time and time again that they are unwilling to go back to their good combat systems and improve them. What we got is a game that again tried everything and failed. Less miserable than in risen 3, which is quite impressive as the content in this game is huge. The reason why this game is still good is that while the combat is serviceable at best and unbalanced and broken at worst, the high-quality quests are really fun to solve. Exploring is daunting at first but due to map markers and constant strings of quest that lead you to new places who in turn have new quests to offer makes for a very, or even good rpg experience.

K

It is literally Gothic with plasma rifles. The game is hard AF, however, once you become masterful with the combat engine, the game gets a bit easier. It is also pretty damn funny in parts. Best single player game I have played in a while.

I really liked the game.
However, if you are not a Gothic veteran, be warned. There is a quite strong survival aspect, so combats, namely early when you are naked, and armed just with a club, will be difficult. You better run or hide once you see anything that looks dangerous. Also, the resources are tight and you have to make sure you do not waste.
Also, the character improvement does not rely on leveling only. You can get stronger by consuming elex potions, that you can create yourself once you learn Chemistry skill. Elex can be bought about everywhere and if you have enough money (you certainly do not) you can in theory max all of your attributes and buy all skills at level one. The best way to make money is to learn Animal trophies skill, the sooner the better.
Once you get stronger, the combat is not that difficult but if you are not careful, you can be killed when outnumbered, even if you have the best equipment possible and combat skills maxed. Which feels realistic.
The spirit of Gothic games is there and if you liked them, you will probably like this game as well.

ELEX is one of those rare games that manages to deliver a great experience despite its clunky mechanics and unpolished aspects. While it stumbles in areas like combat, skill design, and it has some dubious story choices, it excels in world-building, character development, and delivering a unique sense of exploration.

1. Story, World-Building, and Exploration
One of ELEX's strongest qualities lies in its world and characters rather than its central story. The overarching plot isn't particularly interesting and may not pull you in, but the lore, setting, and characters more than make up for it.
The companions are unique and interesting, each with their quirks and complexities that make them stand out. For example, traveling with Arx is absolutely hilarious as his grumpy personality and comments during conversations and exploration are really out of pocket but come out in a natural and fitting way. Even the NPCs are layered and feel authentic, though many are unapologetically self-serving, but it is fitting as it is a reflection of the apocalyptic world they inhabit.
Unlike many open-world games, ELEX avoids the pitfall of creating a vast, empty and boring map. Locations are varied and distinct, making exploration feel rewarding and natural. The game also encourages and rewards curiosity by hiding supplies, lore-filled notes, or valuable gear in locations off the beaten path. This isn’t a game where you’re mindlessly checking off icons on a map; instead, you’re going to genuinely enjoy exploring each house, factory or dome you come across.
The game’s three factions are another highlight. They’re all radically different, and you’ll probably find reasons to both love and hate them. They’re well fleshed out and I found all of them to provide interesting skills and equipment that shine in their own way. My only complaint here is that the faction choice doesn’t make that much of an impact story-wise besides some extra quests for that specific faction.
 
2. The Gameplay
ELEX doesn’t hold your hand, and this tough-love approach to gameplay is both a strength and a weakness, depending on who you might ask. Personally, I enjoyed it. You begin the game as a weak character, with even basic enemies posing a serious threat to your survival. This difficulty encourages approaches you might’ve not considered in other RPGs. You’ll find yourself using the environment to your advantage, you’ll bait enemies into traps or lure them toward NPCs for help. At times, you might even find yourself running for survival. It’s a tough start, but it makes getting stronger feel so much more rewarding.

3. The Combat
The best word to describe combat: jank. You’ll be dealing with a lot of issues such as:
• Enemies hitting you from absurd ranges or weird angles.
• Fighting on slopes (good luck landing a hit on uneven ground).
• Controls being unresponsive, one frequent example is when you’re drinking a potion and suddenly you can’t turn around, being stuck in an awkward strafing animation.
Ranged combat is better, but it doesn’t redeem the overall experience. It’s not unplayable, but it’s definitely the weakest part of the game.

4. The Skill System and the UI
The skill system could’ve been so much better. Outside of faction-specific skills, most of the trees are just boring stat boosts or generic utility like lockpicking or skinning animals. It feels like a missed opportunity to add more interesting gameplay choices.
The UI also leaves much to be desired. It’s bland and feels like minimal effort was put into it. Managing menus is a pain, and the trading screen, in particular, is chaotic, lumping most items together into a disorganized mess with the exception of weapons and armors.
 
5. The Cold System
Instead of the usual Good vs. Evil morality system, ELEX uses a Cold System, which measures how emotional or detached your character is. In theory, it sounds cool but it’s kind of a mess. You’re going to be forced to pick options you don’t agree with just to balance your “Cold” level, because it affects outcomes later in the game. It feels forced and takes away from the roleplaying experience.

TLDR
ELEX is janky, clunky, and downright frustrating at times but that’s part of its charm. The world-building, exploration, and characters are great, and even though the game has its flaws, it’s still a pretty nice experience.

GG

I've tried multiple times to give this game a good try but each time I am turned off by the artificially inflated difficulty in the beginning with little to know guidance. The combat in the game feels janky, unimpactful, and down right unfair in some instances. The amount of times I accidentally dodge/roll is outrageous and feels as if the game detects that faster than any attacks or defensive moves that I try to put out.

Voice-acting is below average, and that's being nice. The main character sounds like a cardboard box trying its hand at acting. The story is sub-par and would be bearable if it didn't throw you headlong into a world filled with "skull" level enemies. It feels like the game wanted to be an MMORPG but didn't have the budget. Hell, barely had the budget to create what it is now.

It's not worth it if you actually want to enjoy a long-form story played out with good actors and supporting environments. I recommend this for people who want to feel like they are pulling teeth to enjoy a game.

I wasn't too interested at first. Some of the mechanics seemed really tragic to me (e.g. upgrading a weapon will make it impossible to use it, as it also dramatically increases the minimum requirements for using it).

As time went on, I discovered the classic gameplay style of all Piranha Bytes games (I'm sad to see them end).

In the end I actually enjoyed the game, but there are definitely bugs. Several times I managed to fall out into the environment outside of the game, or the inability to get up after sleeping and had to laod the game.

Overall, I'd give it about a 7/10, or even an 8/10 for fans of Gothic and Risen.

P.S. Using the jetpack is downright addictive.

I was pretty disappointed with this game. It was fine for the first 20 minutes, but then you get to the berserker village and things go south fast once the real gameplay begins. I hate that you can only level up if you have a trainer, it's very limiting especially when I have all I need to level up and can't unless I'm in a specific area and I can't stand that you don't get to pick which faction you start with right off the bat.
I couldn't play any further after I found out you can't level up like you would in any other game. It just a bunch of extra work.
The story is mid, honestly. Not gripping at all. It's very basic.

As a risen and two worlds 1-2 enjoyer I can't for the life of me, find any reason to continue on with this game. The voice acting is extremely repulsive, If I wanted to hear lisps and made up accents I'd go play some dnd. There's nothing fun-bad everything is bad. The difficulty is one of it's most interesting things at first, but it's ALL artificially difficult, and doesn't help that progressing requires you to sit through the horrible unintuitive story. Other games, you can run around the woods and level up but in this game you get basically nothing from random fights. The fights are incredibly boring and annoying because although it has trash ai and movement, the enemies still have aimbot just to add fake difficulty
This game could have been saved by being multiplayer or an MMO so that at least you don't have to suffer alone.

Elex is a eurojank made with passion. The main story is nothing special, but where this game shines is in the exploration, side quests and difficulty. The open world is alive and full of surprises; Elex is on the list of one of my favorite open world. If you are thinking buying this game, just do it!.

don't recommend

For RPG enthusiasts

Muito bom

This game is grindy, boring, and super janky. I cannot believe it got a sequel.

yes

Classic good piranhabytes rpg with choices and freedom!

Janky. VA is definitely hit or miss. Punishing early on. However, if you liked the OG Gothic games, this fits the bill. A fun, open world, RPG with the ability to do almost anything. I've only played 7 hours so far, so take this with a grain of salt. I will be updating this once I've gotten further in the game.

Have you thought about joining a faction?

Game manages to seem so much older than released in 2017, could have sworn I was playing something from 2009. Writing was just also so bloody horrible

Plays like Fallout 4 meets Witcher 3, with a big world to explore, interesting factions and world, and a jetpack. The difficulty makes it a fun kind of challenging. It's pretty well optimized too. From the moment you reach the first town, you can feel the absolute pure RPG SOVL radiating from this game. It's from the studio behind timeless genre standards Gothic I, II, and Risen. There's a character interaction somewhere in this game where the playable character quips to an NPC during dialogue, that, and i'm gonna paraphrase here - "let me guess, there's an upper level to the city, and I'm(sic) not allowed?", it hit like a "he said the line" nostalgia reference joke vibe that really drives home that these guys still got it. Definitely worth a try.

Main and side missions are really great
some choices are really hard to make decisions

Combat sucks so hard. People tend to love ranged weapons. but they're much boring than melee combat even the melee combat is very clunky (but at some point, I like it. Or I'd rather say it's acceptable)

In early acts, you just sprint, grab items for missions and go. No fighting monsters because you can't (actually you can but it's really frustrating or take very long time because the balancing/scaling is weird. you deal no damage to enemies until you play decent hours.

I played 2 playthroughs and got all achievements before writing this review
gotta say I kinda like it. also it's my first Piranha Bytes game.

There si so much wrong with this game, when I first finished it I made a 15min voice note to a friend just to get it all off my chest. Elex tries to be every single successful RPG at once, but somehow takes the worst of them to create a unique mix of "why the fuck would you do this".
I still recommend playing it, because it'll make you love your fav RPGs even more because it shows you just how badly things can be implemented and that most decisions should in fact be made consciously and thoroughly tested. And sometimes you just gotta ask yourself "if every other game dev has decided not to do this, there was probably a reason so maybe we shouldn't do it either" or "maybe we should just pick one". All systems are half-assed and had they chosen one or two and really focused on those it would have been an amazing game, but instead we get half-assed interaction,s half-assed character design, half-assed world/level design, half-assed character development, half-assed factions and half-assed skill trees.

Story
The story is the only thing that kept me playing as I really wanted to know where it all goes and it is the one thing I would say is pretty cool. Sure it follows the "save the world"-trope, but it is worth exploring.

Characters
They took the most boring topes there are and made a character out of each one. And of course they all belong to the faction with the exact same tropes. Women are horribly designed, have zero personality beyond their trope, no depth, no surprises, barely any development. I'm sure they wanted to go for Dragon Age, but forgot the fact that romances, factions and decisions should have at least a tiny bit of depth. There needs to be somehting to explore, something to grow instead it's incredibly flat and no real attachment happens. But really, the worst is the women. This would have been okay 30 years ago and it makes me qonder if the character designers have ever met a woman or actually talked to one (and listened).

World
They wanted to be Skyrim, but simply failed. Sure it's fine to have harder areas, but it's weird to face a lvl 30 creature 1 minute after you started playing. That is not the kind of "innovativeand unexpected" making it interesting. there's a reason this never happens unless you HAVE to die first and it's always clearly part of a tutorial. There is fuckall logic to where what lvl creatures are other than "if it's big, you should probably leave it alone". There is a 0% chance to discover much without dying quickly until you're a certain level and have certain equipment, but from that point it is insanely easy. Lie enemies you were afraid of for hours are suddenly a piece of cake. It's also easy to exploit certain enemy movements and obvious glitches, once you know you'll spend a shitton of ammo, but get rewarded well. It is harsh and frustrating or extremely easy there is no in between.

Factions
Clishé. That's all. Exactly what you'd expect in a half-technology half-nature world. You'll decide based on the benefits you get, which is fine. But damn these factions are incredibly boring and questiong is for the sake of questing, not because you'd actually care much.

RPG-elements
As said, take all your fav RPGs, think of the worst parts of it, mix them up and you'll get ELEX. The only thing I really appreciated was the fast travel system.

Visuals
Though it is not the standard you'd expect it was still pretty and overall nicely done. Creature design is absolutely fine.

Audio
Makes zero sense. You'll see a dude pissing into a river 30 feet away from you and hear it like he's standing next to you in the same volume as the person actually standing next to you is talking. Volumes are completely random which takes away from the immersiveness. Otherwise audio design/soundtrack is fine, but nothing incredible either.

I absolutely hate this game, but still finished it, did all quests I could and tried to explore every little bit of the world (once it was safe to do so). I guess sometimes a gme is so bad (though functional, better than any EA title at release) you gotta finish it anyways (and then rant to a friend about it for 15 minutes straight).

What.
Seriously?

And please stop saying magalan

The game is clunky. The story obtuse. Gameplay not idea, much like many of the other piranha bytes games. And yet I enjoy it. It is fun to play.

A very good RPG with deep world-building & challenging difficulty which makes you truly think about your actions. I consider it a hidden gem.

great older game

Very cool, and very rough around the edges. Swords, lasers and sorcery. The sci-fi Gothic.

One of, if not the most punishing titles in the Piranha Bytes collection. One of my favorite developer groups since my youth. This game is is the classic PB recipe of factions, retold through a sci-fi lens. The themes are exactly what you expect from a PB title. What most people don't expect is that the developers intentionally opted to retain the original control schemes and mechanics of their other titles. For those who remember the titles of the early nineties, this is a masterpiece. For those who never knew how difficult games were "back in the day", this is a monstrosity of a game, nearly unplayable for how difficult it is. For those who do remember using the numpad to fly, pressing tab to change stances and targeting with the control key; this will take you back and those skills you mastered as a kid will once again shine through (once you dust them off and polish off the rust anyways).

Strong game, if you are aware from the start, that this is not a AAA game. It has some issues you have to find your ways to deal with, before you can fully enjoy it. For me mainly melee gameplay was the biggest issue, so I had a few tough hours before I got my hands on a bow.

It's alright, play Risen 1 instead if you're looking for a PB game.

Its gud

I will leave the cat here, so that everybody who passes by can pet it and give it a thumbs up and awards.
　　　 　　／＞　　フ
　　　 　　| 　_　 _ l
　 　　 　／` ミ＿xノ
　　 　 /　　　 　 |
　　　 /　 ヽ　　 ﾉ
　 　 │　　|　|　|
　／￣|　　 |　|　|
　| (￣ヽ＿_ヽ_)__)
　＼二つ