ELEX

Elex is like that weird casserole your friend insists you try — it's a mix of sci-fi, medieval fantasy, and post-apocalyptic survival that really shouldn't work, but somehow kind of does? Imagine you’re a jetpack-wearing barbarian who has to save the world while choosing between swords, laser guns, and a grumpy attitude. The game’s world is massive and gritty, filled with bizarre characters and unexpected laughs (sometimes at the game’s expense). The combat can be clunky, the story intense yet unintentionally hilarious, and bugs show up like old friends.
In short: it's a beautifully messy RPG that feels like Skyrim and Fallout got lost on the way to a Renaissance fair. You’ll love it if you like games that are a little rough around the edges but full of hear and jetpacks.

It's horribly janky with some questionable design choices. The combat and enemy ai is the worst I've seen in 20 years of gaming. Attributes are a joke and serve only to gate-keep you from equipping weapons and armor and barely actually affect the stats they are named for, which was confusing. It uses a horrifically implemented stamina system that only YOU are bound to, NOT enemies. Hit detection and hitboxes barely function.
Idk how this mess was approved to be ready to released but I'm glad it was, because it's been one of the best experiences in gaming I've ever played.

Elex feels like an old game. Janky is the right word- so janky it borders on unfriendly.

At first, I hated the game. Killing monsters was impossible and unrewarding. No loot, no level-ups.
Healing is painful and requires resources. The combat design doesn't try to reward skill. It's pointless to try to fight enemies higher level than you or in greater number.

It sucks. If you play it like you're the main character you get your ego checked. Its scary to explore.

That's when I started playing differently. Gearing up in towns, learning from NPCs, making allies to travel with, completing side quests and leveling up by avoiding combat.
That made the game fun. It made me engaged with the world and characters.

I still think the combat sucks, but I believe the story and exploration can carry your experience.
Elex, when looked at from the right perspective, is a fun, janky, slow, and very charming game.

Elex is not an accessible game and doesn't make a great first impression but it deserves more than one chance. Fans of Piranha Games should prepare themselves for more of what they love (but they must accept a strange fantasy & sci-fi mix).

ELEX is one of those rare games that manages to deliver a great experience despite its clunky mechanics and unpolished aspects. While it stumbles in areas like combat, skill design, and it has some dubious story choices, it excels in world-building, character development, and delivering a unique sense of exploration.
1. Story, World-Building, and Exploration
One of ELEX's strongest qualities lies in its world and characters rather than its central story. The overarching plot isn't particularly interesting and may not pull you in, but the lore, setting, and characters more than make up for it.
The companions are unique and interesting, each with their quirks and complexities that make them stand out. For example, traveling with Arx is absolutely hilarious as his grumpy personality and comments during conversations and exploration are really out of pocket but come out in a natural and fitting way. Even the NPCs are layered and feel authentic, though many are unapologetically self-serving, but it is fitting as it is a reflection of the apocalyptic world they inhabit.
Unlike many open-world games, ELEX avoids the pitfall of creating a vast, empty and boring map. Locations are varied and distinct, making exploration feel rewarding and natural. The game also encourages and rewards curiosity by hiding supplies, lore-filled notes, or valuable gear in locations off the beaten path. This isn’t a game where you’re mindlessly checking off icons on a map; instead, you’re going to genuinely enjoy exploring each house, factory or dome you come across.
The game’s three factions are another highlight. They’re all radically different, and you’ll probably find reasons to both love and hate them. They’re well fleshed out and I found all of them to provide interesting skills and equipment that shine in their own way. My only complaint here is that the faction choice doesn’t make that much of an impact story-wise besides some extra quests for that specific faction.
 
2. The Gameplay
ELEX doesn’t hold your hand, and this tough-love approach to gameplay is both a strength and a weakness, depending on who you might ask. Personally, I enjoyed it. You begin the game as a weak character, with even basic enemies posing a serious threat to your survival. This difficulty encourages approaches you might’ve not considered in other RPGs. You’ll find yourself using the environment to your advantage, you’ll bait enemies into traps or lure them toward NPCs for help. At times, you might even find yourself running for survival. It’s a tough start, but it makes getting stronger feel so much more rewarding.
3. The Combat
The best word to describe combat: jank. You’ll be dealing with a lot of issues such as:
• Enemies hitting you from absurd ranges or weird angles.
• Fighting on slopes (good luck landing a hit on uneven ground).
• Controls being unresponsive, one frequent example is when you’re drinking a potion and suddenly you can’t turn around, being stuck in an awkward strafing animation.
Ranged combat is better, but it doesn’t redeem the overall experience. It’s not unplayable, but it’s definitely the weakest part of the game.
4. The Skill System and the UI
The skill system could’ve been so much better. Outside of faction-specific skills, most of the trees are just boring stat boosts or generic utility like lockpicking or skinning animals. It feels like a missed opportunity to add more interesting gameplay choices.
The UI also leaves much to be desired. It’s bland and feels like minimal effort was put into it. Managing menus is a pain, and the trading screen, in particular, is chaotic, lumping most items together into a disorganized mess with the exception of weapons and armors.
 
5. The Cold System
Instead of the usual Good vs. Evil morality system, ELEX uses a Cold System, which measures how emotional or detached your character is. In theory, it sounds cool but it’s kind of a mess. You’re going to be forced to pick options you don’t agree with just to balance your “Cold” level, because it affects outcomes later in the game. It feels forced and takes away from the roleplaying experience.
TLDR
ELEX is janky, clunky, and downright frustrating at times but that’s part of its charm. The world-building, exploration, and characters are great, and even though the game has its flaws, it’s still a pretty nice experience.

I am a veteran of Gothic 1 and 2 plus Risen 1,2 and 3 and I can say that Elex feels very similar to these games - in the good and in the bad.
First I start that I had fun for the most part with this game. Exploring a post apocalypse is a refreshing experience coming from PB, at times it even reminded me of the Fallout series. Exploration is indeed one of the best aspects of this game, the world is nicely crafted and you can discover information about the old world, current world, loot and weapons around every corner. This world truly feels alive and is highly immersive. You also get to use a jetpack to explore vertically, be warned that the controls for it are fiddly and the fuel limit is rather low, plus it takes a while to regenerate fuel (which it does automatically, you don't need anything for that). This made climbing up mountains or building sometimes painful, but still it is a good tool.
Second, quests and side quests. There is a lot to do in a post apocalypse, and the way it is implemented in Elex is very good. The quests are interesting, with a good portion of humour, diversified and can have impact on further quests in the future. This is one of the very few games I know in which it is not advised to just click every dialogue option to see whats behind it, sometimes you piss people off by doing so. E. g. there is an outlaw with a specific name he hates you're told by some other outlaw, if you go to that outlaw and ask him about that name and why he is called like that you have the choice to tell him who called him that or refuse and leave it be. If you decide to not tell him anything, he will send someone to kill a future sidequest quest giver after you did all the work, leaving you empy handed in terms of money. Other dialogue options can change the whole outcome of the alternative ends too, so think before you let Jax say something.
Then there are other aspects of the game which are more mediocre.
I start with the skill system. The system itself is very outdated and confusing too. You got your base stats like Strength, Agility, etc. which you can increase after a level up. HOWEVER these stats alone do nothing, instead they are the requirements to unlock several perks and wield weapons. With every levelup you also gain a learning point to use on skill teachers to unlock perks like more attack damage, a jetpack strike, crafting, more armor, etc. Be warned that some of those perks are straight up useless, like miner or advocate, so take a good look how you want to develop your character in the future.
Having mentioned weapons, balance is a real issue in this game from my point of view. First, even when you find a good weapon, there is a very high chance you cant use it as you dont have the required stats for it. This happened to me multiple times in the game and felt very frustrating. To damage and balance itself, I'll cut it short: At the start of the game you are an increadibly weak glass, well, not even real "cannon" and you need to level up a lot until this changes. Therefore, in mid- and lategame if you skilled and used your points correctly, you may still be easily killed, but you can become a one man army, especially with ranged weapons. E. g. for a quest in relative early game I needed to take down some raptors, it took me 80-90 (!) arrows per raptor to kill them. In late game, they are two-shots. Speaking of that, I brought down the main boss in 7 shots, like 5 seconds. Ironically after that everyone was suprirsed I could take him down and what an epic fight it was, which I found quite amusing. The stamina bar makes things even worse, it feels just weird and out of place. Plus it gives you advantages instead of hindering you, the idea was to make fights more foughtful with stamina management. However, human enemies got a stamina bar too, and it is a widely known tactic to let the NPCs use all their stamina to mindlessly spam them to death. Balance in ranged or melee fights is a real issue here, at the start you are too weak and in the end far too powerful. Also enemies are scattered around the world without any order, it is very possible that you stumble into an area full of weak enemies just to go one step too far and end up dying to one hell of a beast.
The graphics itself are fine and even very good in my opinion, especially the landscape and the little details inside building look very good and highly immersive. Unfortunately, I cannot say the same about animations, which are straight up outdated at this point. They feel like a fighting system from early 2000s, and haveing played Gothic 1 and 2, well... it's really not that far away. So don't expect visually epic fights, but a beautiful world.
There are companions in this game which give overall good sidequests to follow and are interestingly written. However, every single one of them is extremely weak in any fight you pick, acting as basically only a decoy. You can not give them items or weapons and they will perform questionable tactics on the battlefield with low damage, low swing frequency or low rate of fire.
Inventory and crafting is okay. The inventory itself is cumbersome with little filter options, leaving you to browse through all your random trash to trade something. Crafting itself is acceptable, it is not exactly interesting or the peak of gameplay evolution, however it does the job. Creating potions is one of the most important perks of this game to craft potions that will heal you (who would've thought) or potions to permanently increase health, damage, give you EXP, attribute points or learning points.
Overall, if you're into storyline, quests, impactful decisions, a cool setting and a beautiful world, this game is for you. I personally really enjoyed it.

I played the entire game on my steam deck and I honestly loved the game, it will definitely go down as one of my all time favorite games. I honestly couldn’t stop playing this game. If you like open world rpg games those is a must try.