Which is a very good thing, judging from the quality of the beta build. The recent release of a nearly feature-complete press beta shows that Arx Fatalis is on track to finally make it into stores at the end of this month. JoWood Productions has cleared up the business end of things by purchasing Ravensburger, and Arkane Studios is doing its part by wrapping up more than two years of hard work on the game in question.
The character creation process allows for fine-tuning.īut now the wait is almost over. The RPG glut earlier this year (Morrowind, Might and Magic IX, and Neverwinter Nights made for a busy spring and summer on their own) may have made the delays a blessing in disguise, although a lot of people were understandably agitated over having to postpone their assignation with a game following in the footsteps of the much-beloved Ultima Underworld duo. That didn't happen, due to an unfortunate mixture of technical issues and the financial troubles of the game's original publisher, Ravensburger Interactive. We were supposed to be knickers-deep in Arkane Studios' subterranean first-person role-playing epic last spring, or at the very least doing some serious dungeon delving by the time the fireworks went off on the Fourth of July. Arx Fatalis has been a long time in coming.
