First look at ELEX: Piranha Bytes and Nordic team up at Gamescom 2015

I set up the appointment for ELEX honestly not sure what to expect. I'm a big fan of Nordic Games and I'm not the only one that's heard of Piranha Bytes titles such as Risen and Gothic, but I really didn't know much else aside from ELEX other than that it sounded sort of cool. They arranged a private room for us with Jenny Pankratz of Piranha Bytes to give us a glimpse of the game and tell us much more about their plans and vision for it.

One thing about Jenny that was clear was her passion for the game. She and her group of friends that have known each other for many years have created their own game engine, which they have updated and improved over the years. While the game is still in pre-alpha, the landscapes within ELEX were truly breathtaking. The game does need some polishing, but I've seen worse looking games go up for sale that didn't sound half as interesting as ELEX. What sets ELEX apart from a lot of games, both AAA and indie, were the ideas behind it and what they hope to do by the time the game is released. They hope to deliver a game to the player that will allow them to explore the game without restriction. Quests won't be required to discover something, nor do players need to avoid wandering due to the storyline. They also want the player to be able to make decisions that they feel are right for them, without being labeled as good or evil. Decisions and dialogue options can be noble or cold, but they don't always mean they will be seen the way players hope they will be. As with titles like The Witcher, decisions will alter how the story proceeds. However, the decisions in ELEXmight change the story and other characters may no longer support the main character and leave them in the dust. Players will be able to work with each NPCs on personal quest lines to learn more about them. This should make players think before they act and attempt to understand the person or group they are dealing with. Plus they want the players to consider the actions they take on the battlefield as well as in dialogues. For example, bringing a knife to a gun fight is a bad idea. Just so, bringing a bow and arrow to fight a robot will spell certain death for the character.

The premise is not exactly a new one, but it comes with unique components that DON'T involve zombies in the post apocalypse. The world, much like our own, is hit my a meteor that decimated the world, leaving very little in tact. The meteor disperses a substance,ELEX, throughout the world and changes it forever. ELEX is an element with many properties that can be used to craft items such as weapons and armor. It can also be consumed for magical benefits, but after consuming so much initially one loses their emotions. After further abuse the user will face degeneration or mutation. The game begins many years after this catastrophe, and in that time all the flora and fauna in the world was altered from the exposure to the ELEX bringing mutants of all types. The humans that survived found their own way to make it in the new world, but not all did it the same way. Some humans try to live in harmony with nature, but they aren't your wood elf types, these are more barbaric group known as the Berserks, that found a way to change ELEX into mana to give them magical abilities. This group of people tends to use older methods of warfare such as sword and shield, but with magic in their arsenal. On the other end of the spectrum are the Clerics. This group avoids consuming ELEX, but uses it to create advanced technology such as robots and weapons.

Right off the bat you have humans that have dedicated themselves to nature, then another that will bring you up close with technology that enters the realm of sci-fi. There is another faction, called the Outlaws, that are savage bandits that might closely resemble the bandits in the Mad Max films. They prefer using automatic weapons, and spend their days pillaging, stealing, and ravaging all in their path.

Finally you have the Albs. This faction is also skilled with magic, purely logical, but they have their eye on world domination. Through the abuse of ELEX, they are devoid of emotion and have lost what made them human. Their goal is to control the ELEX, and the other factions and free people of the world. This, of course, might make them both unlikable and feared by the other races in the world. The character role the player will assume is that of an Alb commander. The character was sent on a mission to the south but crash lands in a medieval forest. After awakening, he has been without ELEX for so long that he is feeling emotions for the first time in his life. The game will use this new emotion to explore a morals system that isn't good vs. evil, but more human vs. synthetic. The decisions the player makes will either call on the more human emotions, or a complete logical or rational decision. As mentioned before, these decisions may not necessarily be good or evil, especially considering that the ethics will vary based on the faction you choose to follow. Emotions might range from anger or passion to joy and kindness, and the rational decisions might be wise or cold.

On top of probably having the other factions hating him, the character also has not reached his destination and thus has failed his mission. In the cold eyes of the Albs, the character must die. This means our main character may very well have the rest of the world against him, as well as be forced to face new-found emotions. The player will start completely alone, and will attempt to join the free people of the world to survive. At first, players may not be thrilled by the fact that they are forced to start with a set character. It's true, players won't be able to pick a race and there will be no multiplayer, but the game is attempting to tell a story that can lead in many different directions. Players will be happy to know that they are completely free to make the decision of which faction they join, thus changing this cold Alb into a very different person, and a much different combatant.

On top of the different factions that you might meet, are wide varieties of climate zones and terrain. Players will visit the coast, the mountains, European-like forests, fields, deserts and arctic regions, all full with remnants of the world before the meteor strike. Players will see old ruins of buildings, power lines, factories, etc. that were once a part of the infrastructure of a world very much like the one we live in, but are now reminders of what was. Each area may house different factions, plus mutated animals and plants to contend with. Players will be given a massive continent to explore freely, enemies won't scale to level, there is a jet pack to allow the character to reach great heights (A system the call vertical exploration.), few cut scenes to distract you from the open and immersive world, and most importantly: No load times once you are within the game. We can all look forward to an open world that was handcrafted and fine-tuned for exploration. Every chest will be filled by the developers, and players can find information or remnants of the past throughout the continent to learn what the people and land have been through before and after its destruction.

The developers expect around 70 hours of gameplay, and with the incentive to replay to see different endings and other factions, all the exploration and the story that comes with it, along with the passion the developers have pumped into this game, there's good cause to be excited about ELEX.

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ELEX will be releasing on PC and current gen consoles during Winter of 2016/2017.

All screen captures, like the game, are from the pre-alpha build. If you want to learn more about ELEX, visit the community at http://community.elexgame.com/forum.php