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With the many elements of RPGs being spread across different genres like sprinklings of an meteor across a planet, it's becoming harder to find games that remain pure in their RPG sensibilities. Look at how Assassin's Creed has gone from stealthy-stabbing sim to a level-gated RPG-lite, or even Elden Ring which takes RPG-style progression and merges it with its own 'Souls-like' formula. For better or worse, RPGs tend to be diluted and merged into other types of games.
Whatever happened to those sprawling old-school RPGs, filled with meaningful choices, player agency and a world so systemic that on the map screen you can actually see NPCs and travelling merchants moving across it? They're a rare item, which is precisely why Piranha Bytes' ELEX II could be one of the most distinctive ones out in 2022.
Set in a post-apocalyptic future on a planet where humanity has fragmented into several conflicting factions, ELEX II casts you as Jax - a hero who from an RPG perspective is just the right amount of generic that he won't feel 'out of character' with any of the abilities and skills you can endow him with (check out our feature on some of the crazy builds you can create for Jax).
Those builds reflect the game's unique and shamelessly chaotic blending of sci-fi and fantasy. This is a world populated by creatures ranging from trolls and ice-beasts to mutated people and giant velociraptors. The factions (which you can read more on here) are equally wild in their variety. In the Morkons, the Outlaws and the Berserkers, for instance, you have three factions that wouldn't look amiss in the mythos' of Mad Max, Fallout and a more traditional fantasy RPG respectively.
ELEX II smashes different styles and themes together like something from a box filled with blocks from several differently-themed Lego sets. It may not be subtle, and it's about as refined as the endless F-bombs dropped by the game's grumpy NPCs, but at a time when sprawling open-world games tend to take themselves oh so very seriously, it's a breath of fresh air. For a certain kind of person, there's a real charm to a game where all the dialogue sounds like it's plucked from an 80s B-movie.
Underpinning this silliness however, is a serious RPG foundation. Beyond the eclectic combat abilities, which will open up and close off to you depending on which faction you join, ELEX II really does let you play your way. Strapped for cash and struggling in battle? Then sneak your way into peoples' homes at night and rob them blind, or perhaps head to Crater City where there is no law against stealing (though your victims might object - violently).
Whether you want to play a bounty hunter, a reclusive survivalist living off the land, or an explorer of the vast world of Magalan, ELEX II offers enough roleplaying depth to cater to these fantasies. It's the kind of freedom we haven't seen in a long time, and the kind of freedom Piranha Bytes has specialised in for decades. True to the developer's roots, enemies don't scale as you level up either, which means that you need to approach each new creature cautiously, patiently learning the dangers each one poses.
This isn't a world that adapts to you or mollycoddles you with level-scaling and easily learned insta-kills, but one that invites you to learn its often weird ways and find your place in it - whether that's out in the wilderness, in a death cult, or at the head of an army staving off an alien invasion.
There's a story in ELEX II too of course, but player agency takes precedence. Sometimes, all we want are the systems and RPG tools to forge our own stories, however batshit they may be, and ELEX II will happily oblige.
You can grab ELEX II now on PC, PS4/PS5 and Xbox One/Series.
