Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is an isometric RPG from 2001 that placed the player in a world straddling fantasy and the industrial revolution – elves and dwarves live here alongside steam engines, steam-powered weapons, and the first automobiles. The central idea of the game is the tension between magic and technology: the more a character focuses on one area, the worse they become at the other, forcing the player to think from the start about which direction their development will take. Character creation is deep and recalls earlier classic CRPGs – a wealth of attributes, skills, and abilities allows the player to build a warrior, a mage, a technician, or anything in between, with these choices also reflected in how the talking inhabitants of individual towns and settlements react to the player.

The game offers a choice between turn-based and real-time combat systems, an open world with numerous side quests, and a strongly branching dialogue structure, where decisions genuinely change the course of the story and relationships with factions divided precisely along the lines of their relationship to magic and technology. The game also includes an extensive crafting and item-improvement system, from alchemical potions to mechanical prosthetics and firearms, so the player can also shape their character through crafting skills. Technically, Arcanum suffered on release from a number of bugs and rough edges that put off some players, but gradual unofficial and official fixes turned it into a stable and playable title. The atmosphere is rounded out by melancholic music and a distinctive humor combining Victorian aesthetics with fantasy tropes, with the world feeling believable precisely because of the tension between the old and the new order.

Even after all these years, Arcanum remains among the cult classics of the genre – its freedom of choice and inventive world are still rated higher today than many more polished but more conventional RPGs. For fans of old-school CRPGs, it still represents a game worth returning to, especially for the way it uncompromisingly confronts the player with the consequences of their own decisions.