Piranha Bytes is the long-running German developer of the Gothic and Risen series, so you should hopefully have an idea of what you’re getting into with ELEX. The positives: a third-person RPG with a massive open world, multiple factions with complex interactions, quests with multiple solutions, and stat-driven gameplay. The downside: slow progression, unforgiving difficulty, repetitive structure, clunky animations, and passable writing at best. Their games have a passionate fan base and, when the positives outweigh the negatives, it’s not difficult to see why. Their adherence to dated mechanics can make certain elements enjoyably classic, especially in light of the streamlined RPGs of recent years, but it feels frustratingly anachronistic just as often.

You control commander “Jax”, part of a militant faction of elex-consuming humans called “Alb” that arose after a comet destroyed the planet of Magalan, introducing the titular element to the surface. Stripped of emotions and serving a hive mind, his mission to the Edan region ends with his ship shot down, his brother appearing suspiciously quickly to execute him for failure, and a tumble from a cliff into the wilds below. Regaining consciousness several days later, with the elex out of his system and looking a tad more human, he sets out into a massive world in which most factions would kill him if they knew his true identity. It’s a great premise for the adventure but it limits the amount of control the player has over a lot of dialogue. Jax is often cold and confrontational, and it felt like I was trying to moderate his attitude rather than define it, often unable to tell for sure what the outcome would be.

As someone who enjoys playing as established characters in RPGs, I’d normally not care. However, major end- decisions game are based on your “cold” level (a sliding scale from empathetic human to clinical machine). Unless you take the most sympathetic approach to every encounter and turn down most quests with negative consequences, you can end up with a limited number of choices during the final confrontation. Everything preceding the ending is fantastic however; conversations and quests have multiple outcomes and, more impressively, far reaching consequences beyond the immediate encounter. Every major and minor faction has members scattered throughout the world that you can assist to increase your standing within that faction – a necessity when you are looking to gather allies or join them and advance in ran – and there are also faction members openly or covertly operating with other settlements that can be aided to undermine that faction.


The jetpack is introduced in the opening hour and remains a vital part of exploration and evading attacks.

Adding another layer of complexity, each faction has their own laws or principles. The nature-loving Berserkers despise old-world and elex-powered machinery; the “free” Outlaws only value profit, power and loyalty; the machine-worshipping Clerics do everything to please their god “Calaan”. Balancing the needs of your chosen faction is a full-time job and any time you choose to help an individual over the collective, you’ll end up annoying faction leaders. On the upside, each faction behaves in a consistent and often entertaining manner. I had no love for the Outlaws but was thrilled to discover that my attempts to deceive them wherever possible resulted in the death of numerous quest-givers, either as punishment for my actions or due to internal power struggles I had initiated.

If you annoy a faction enough, they'll become hostile to you in the world. However, as this is a Piranha Bytes game, you’re more than welcome to butcher most NPCs but the end-game is made that much easier with allies (even if only out of convenience). Going lone-wolf is tough and it’s wise to join one of the three major factions for the training and equipment perks on offer early on. Your choice of faction will shape your combat options as each has a distinct speciality. If you’re looking to focus on melee and magic, the Berserkers have you covered. For high-tech ranged weaponry and PSI-powers, the Clerics are the best bet. For all round combat and a reliance on chem boosts, pick the Outlaws.

The faction-system does have one downside - progressing the primary quest often hinges on resolving factional issues and this structure inevitably feels repetitive. You’ll go to a faction settlement, take up a myriad of quests, please the leaders, move the next settlement and repeat.


There are plenty of interiors to explore, offering up hidden documents, containers full of loot, and rare legendary weapon. Unfortunately, the rewards rarely feel worth it as the game drags on.

You’ll also want (need) to find companions quickly, if only to give enemies someone else to target. They represent every faction and sub-faction, with individual quests to boost loyalty, plenty of incidental quips while exploring, and the occasional unique interaction during dialogue. Although you can only take one companion at a time (you'll get a few extra temporary companions), there are specific quests and end-game events that draw in all your companions so it’s worth your while to court them all.

When you’re not dealing with post-apocalyptic societal issues, you’ll be out in the mutant-filled wilderness and have to deal with the brutal combat. It’s better than their previous games but that’s not saying much. Melee combat involves light and strong attacks, blocks, parries and rolls, with every combat move draining a stamina metre. It works but looks awfully stilted, and going up against more than one enemy was usually suicide; expect to spend a lot of time luring and kiting enemies (and hope you don’t back up into another encounter). Unfortunately, the melee combat also does a great job of highlighting bugs.


Companions are a must if you’re looking to survive any encounter with more than one foe. If you don’t have any, consider leading the hyper-aggressive enemies back to friendly guards.

For all the complexity in the dialogue, faction and quest interactions, I never once ran into issues. The game recorded and referenced my decisions perfectly, provided alternative dialogue when I had already collected a key item or killed off a key character, and never pulled me out of the game world. Melee combat, on the other hand, was a nightmare of mutated creatures clipping through the environment, getting stuck halfway down the side of a slope, smacking me through cover, or engaging in an endless stun-lock combo out of the blue.

Ranged combat (which includes guns, magic and PSI powers) fairs a bit better, yet low starting damage and limited ammunition force you into melee early on. The shooting is passable, playing out like a clunky third-person shooter of the mid-2000s (think Mass Effect 1 but slightly worse). Ranged enemies, however, are absolute bastards throughout. Even after shifting the difficulty to easy, I once found myself in an unwinnable encounter with a pair of bandits, one wielding a rocket launcher, the other flamethrower. Both weapons could stun-lock my character and they’d finish me off before I could recover.


Never fight mutants close to rocks, trees, cliffs or any other geometrically complex terrain for that matter.

The extreme combat difficulty ensures that progress feels excruciatingly slow at first. I spent over a dozen hours running from anything that stood higher than my character’s waist. You get plenty of attribute points per level but skill and gear requirements are high, and you’ll need to find trainers to invest ability points. That said, the six skill-trees (three general and one per faction) only offer between one to three points in each skill. This ensures learning a new ability always feels impactful; there are new combat moves to learn, crafting skills that let you modify or create your own gear, and the total number of ability points invested in a skill-tree opens up new dialogue options.

When forced into combat, you can (and probably should) game the system. Enemies have ridiculous aggression ranges and will stalk you across huge distances (beware of leading them to fragile NPCs unless it’s to your benefit). I completed numerous tough quests by luring high-level enemies into one another before darting away with my jetpack, returning to finish off the survivors (and even that was a tall order). These moments always left a smile on my face, a rarity in contrast to the lengthy sessions spent contemplating flinging my controller into a cushion (I recommend it over a wall). There are a couple arena-style boss fights that’ll put your skills to the test, so just make sure you’re stocked up on supplies when tackling primary quests.


Although not always technically impressive, there are some great vistas in ELEX begging to be explored.

Presentation is a mixed bag, with some passable writing backed up by solid voice acting and great music offset by inconsistent visuals and truly awful animations. History has shown that any game with a jetpack requires smooth animations and precision movement to make the most of that feature; and Elex offers neither. Simply roaming the world on foot looks fine (there’s a surprisingly smooth climbing animation) but combat and platforming feel stiff and imprecise – I often swung through enemies or missed a small ledge when scaling a cliff or structure.

When exploring Magalan between dusk and dawn, light from the low-lying sun or the two moons really add to the atmosphere. The green forests and plains of Edan and Abessa are the most striking, with detailed environments and beautiful vistas; I was always happy to return after a stint in the frozen Xacor, Tavar desert, or volcanic wasteland of Ignadon. The game can look like a remastered last-gen title in spots, with rough textures and simple geometry, especially obvious in barren areas with repeated structures. For the most part, the world remained a joy to explore thanks to the incredible soundtrack from Björn Pankratz and ambient audio. While exploring the world often had me thinking back to Fallout: New Vegas, it also served to highlight some problems in Elex’s approach to world-building. Every ruin has an ancient document or audio recording that adds to a backstory of government and corporate conspiracies, but they were rarely interesting, found out of order, and scattered too thin to keep me engaged.

Piranha Bytes’ games cater to a particular fan base and the complexity of its systems and stat-heavy gameplay is a real draw in comparison to many modern, streamlined RPGs; however, these complex gameplay systems come at the expense of other elements. In the case of ELEX, it’s the slow progression, clunky combat, stiff animations and inconsistent visuals. Would I recommend it? If you’re a fan of their previous games, it’s one of the best offerings in years. If you’ve never played one of their games before, go in with caution. It can be an incredibly rewarding experience if you have the patience but there are serious caveats.