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ELEX - Review @ Eurogamer

by Hiddenx, 2017-10-18 19:24:08

Eurogamer has reviewed ELEX:

Elex review

Tomorrowind.

Hokey, uneven and janky, Elex is nonetheless a compelling throwback to a time before open worlds became choose your own to-do lists.

Without being signed up to work on a big franchise, or having successfully developed one of its own over the course of 20 toilsome years, it can be tough for a studio to launch a new 3D open world RPG in a landscape dominated by Witchers, Mass Effects, Fallouts and Elder Scrolls. Piranha Bytes know this better than most, having birthed the revered Gothic series, only to see its legacy undermined by ongoing tangles over rights. It's not been plain sailing for the studio's subsequent Risen trilogy either, as a decade-long tsunami of icon-drenched Ubi-likes has rather altered perceptions as to what an open world RPG can and should be.

[...]

One can't help but wonder what game might one day arise were Piranha Bytes ever given the development resources of Bethesda, because with less than a quarter of the numbers that worked full-time on making Fallout 4, Piranha Bytes have cobbled together an RPG that in some areas comes close to matching it. Yes, Elex is far, far scrappier overall, the lore is clumsy and unconvincing, and there's enough grit in the combat, presentation and parts of the narrative to have you running for the nearest GOTY Edition chart-topping RPG. But, if you give Elex the benefit of the doubt, it's many freedoms will start to win you over - to the point that on completion you may subsequently find yourself thumbing through this developer's undervalued back catalogue before cracking the seal on the Next Big Thing.

Information about

ELEX

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Post-Apoc
Genre: Action-RPG
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release: Released


Details