ELEX

ELEX is Piranha Bytes doing what Piranha Bytes does: cramming a massive, hand-crafted open world full of weirdos, monsters that will one-shot you at level 2, and faction politics that actually have teeth. The setting is the planet Magalan, where a meteor impact introduced a substance called Elex that either fuels technology, enables magic, or gets you addicted depending on which faction you side with. You have the coldly rational Albs, the survivalist Berserkers who rejected technology for magic, the gun-toting Outlaws, and the Clerics who worship machines. Picking a side reshapes your build and your story, and the faction writing is genuinely the best thing the game has going for it. The world feels lived-in rather than set-dressed. Combat is the game's most divisive feature, and honestly the criticism is fair. Early on, a wolf can and will cave your skull in while you flail uselessly. The stamina system punishes button-mashing, and hit detection has the looseness you expect from a studio that never quite nailed the feel of a melee swing. Stick with it past the first few hours and the combat clicks into something functional if not graceful. Ranged builds and hybrid magic-tech builds are the more forgiving paths. The jetpack, though, is genuinely inspired: it adds vertical mobility and exploration freedom in a way that makes traversal feel distinct from every other open-world RPG on the market. Where ELEX earns its cult reputation is in companion depth and consequence. Jax, the protagonist, starts as an emotionless Alb soldier and his emotional arc is tracked through a coldness meter that actually affects dialogue options and companion approval. Companions will leave you if you make decisions they disagree with, and some of those departures hurt because the writing earns the attachment. Choices around Elex consumption, faction allegiance, and mission outcomes ripple outward in ways that smaller studios rarely budget the time for. There are filler fetch quests here, yes, and I will not pretend otherwise, but the main questlines and companion arcs justify wading through them. The production values are clearly limited. Animations are stiff, lip-sync is approximate, some voice acting performances live in a delightfully awkward valley. The UI feels dated and inventory management is a chore. Metacritic clocked it at 67 and the mixed Steam reviews reflect real frustrations from players who bounced off the rough edges. But if you have played Gothic, Risen, or any previous Piranha Bytes game, you already know the contract: tolerate the jank, receive a densely authored world that most AAA studios would not have the nerve to build. ELEX rewards patience and punishes the expectation that it will hold your hand. If the faction system, the jetpack exploration, and a protagonist arc built around reclaiming humanity sound compelling enough to outweigh the rough presentation, this one will stick with you well past the credits. Monika, Scout Team