Arx Fatalis

An underground world you can experiment with

Arx Fatalis is a first-person role-playing game set beneath a world that has lost its sun. Humans and other peoples occupy caves, mines and settlements under increasing pressure, while the threat of Akbaa drives the central quest. Character skills cover different approaches, including weapons, stealth and magic.

Spellcasting is especially distinctive: the original game asks you to draw runes with the mouse and combine them into spells. Exploration, puzzles and choices are part of the same adventure. It suits players interested in interacting with a place and experimenting with their character rather than following only a sequence of battles.

Arx Libertatis · original game publisher description

The released engine on modern platforms

Arx Libertatis is based on Arkane’s released Arx Fatalis source code. It runs the original game using a maintained native engine; the commercial world, dialogue and other assets still come from the game data. The project also supports the PC demo, which is a different content scope from a full installation.

Its renderer uses OpenGL, while sound uses OpenAL. The published documentation separates ordinary installation from compiling the engine and optional development tools, so players choosing a release package do not need to treat the entire compiler dependency list as a play checklist.

Arx Libertatis · project documentation

Choose the correct PC data set

Use the full PC version or a supported demo, following the data guide for the language-specific PAK files. The Xbox edition is not a substitute. On case-sensitive systems, filename case matters; the arx-install-data helper can install resources, normalize names and check that the required files are present.

If the game cannot find its resources, arx --list-dirs shows the locations it searches. The engine also checks beside the executable. This is more useful than copying another set of files into an arbitrary folder and hoping the launcher will discover it.

Arx Libertatis · project documentation · Arx Libertatis · original game data guide

Know where the engine stores your adventure

Configuration and save files live in the platform’s user directories, separate from the original data. The README identifies Saved Games on modern Windows, Application Support on macOS and the corresponding user directories on Linux. Keep those files when moving an installation. The project also includes a save tool for specific older-build issues; use its documented purpose instead of treating it as a general save converter.

Arx Libertatis · project documentation