ELEX

The early game is rough, like really rough. Everything kills you and its a slog to move anywhere, but once you get into it and get your first levels and new wepons, the game is really fun honestly.

This game runs perfectly on Steam Deck.
At first, it may seem a somewhat generic RPG with 3 opposing and different factions to support, undermine, or join. That is actually still the feeling many hours into the game - the combat and enemies are uninspired, overtuned, and usually offer little reward compared to completing tasks for people - and surprisingly that is where the game shines!
NPCs will lie to you in this game and it isnt obvious, they have their own plans and some task outcomes effect other NPCs and their tasks for you. Plenty of tasks/missions/quests have multiple solutions, and you get a jetpack almost immediately.
Its a decent and unique RPG, I just wish the combat was better tuned and exciting.

Janky. Slow. Tedious. Prepare for that. Amazing character progression. Fun lore. Choice and consequence is actually conflicting. Hard to ever feel like you did the right thing. If you like a slow well earned sense of character progression then its a great game. the game is probably objectively mediocre, but subjectively it's
fantastic! I'm gonna play all of their games now...

First off, most criticisms the game received are valid, e.g. clunky combat, weird animations and subpar voice acting. It is certainly a far-from-perfect game.
But this game has its merits and imo is definitely recommendable especially on sale. The RPG elements are what actually drew me into the game. As a forgotten amnesic soldier, you get to choose which faction to side with and learn their abilities accordingly. This is already a big plus because it creates strong immersion. Weapons have a good variety but I don't feel they differ much to give you more choices in combat, but the combat itself is fine for me. Story is well paced, you can feel that the story is progressing while still taking your time to explore different places or doing side quests.
Overall a 7/10 for me, definitely worthing getting on sale when it often gets a 90% discount now in 2025.

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).

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.