Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

in this game you are that rat ♥♥♥♥♥ jerry and everybody else is tom. why stab a guy 10 times when you can make him slip on ice into another dude which makes both of them fall off a cliff and die? why shoot a guy with a bow and arrow when the kick button is screaming at you to boot another mans head directly into a wall of spikes that people oh so kindly keep setting up even though this is a dungeon made by spiders? funny ragdolls, stupid story, cool secrets, annoying crashes, best ice spell theres ever been in any game

Great game but you might need to follow this guide (very easy to do) to prevent the game from crashing after the tutorial:
Really cool game where you can play as an actual battlemage and it feels awesome. You can cast an ice spell on the ground, make enemies slip and finish them off with your weapon. A lot of fun stuff to do with how good the physics are in this game.
The rope mechanic is also really really cool. You can shoot a rope with your bow on almost every wooden surface and climb it. A ton of secrets to find this way, especially if you're creative. Was going to fight a cyclops and open a gate but did some shooting with the rope and managed to skip the entire fight by jumping from rope to rope.
Highly recommend everyone to play this game

You need the 4GB RAM patcher to avoid crashes and some command lines, these helped fix all the crashes: -width 3840 -height 2160 -dxlevel 90 -novid +datacachesize "128" -console +map_background none
(Make sure to change the width and height values to your resolution)
That aside, Dark Messiah is a ton of fun, cheesy writing, questionable dialogue at times and a good amount of bugs, whether this is because I'm running it on modern hardware and Windows 11 I'm not sure.
What the game does well is the world, exploring and all the different ways you can take on combat encounters and such. The atmosphere and visuals have aged like wine.

I had a few softlocks so make sure to save often, vaulting and climbing ropes and ladders have causes me the most deaths in game due to inconsistencies.
All these issues weren't dealbreakers to me, if you like what Dark Messiah does I recommend you check out Enderal.

Download the mod manager, the advanced SDK and the restoration mod and you'll get it to work on modern systems. Took me 20 minutes, worth it for this one of a kind game, though it can be a bit difficult.

Even though Dark Messiah of Might & Magic was released back in 2006, it still outshines many modern games in its genre. Its combat system and dynamic physics made me question the standards of action RPGs even today. While the story follows a mostly linear path, the inclusion of optional objectives adds just enough flexibility to keep things engaging. I went in with modest expectations, but the game delivered far more than I anticipated. In 2025, Dark Messiah stands as a bold and experimental title—one that dared to combine mechanics, immersion, and environmental design in ways that still feel fresh.

Might & Magic: Dark Messiah
made by arkane studio back in 2006, this game maxed out the source engine to its limits.
the game takes place in the ubisoft version of might and magic universe(Ashan) your name is sareth and you have a very interesting familiy tree... to say lightly, you are been trained in the arts of might and magic by master phenrig, we get a quest to recover a ancient crystal and deliver it to his friend master menelag, you get two companion as well, kkhhmm the "i can fix her" xana and the "tard wife" leanna, they are representing which way you take the story in the game.
as for the gameplay, absulute master class from arcane, you can build your character whatever you want, warrior, mage, assassin, rogue archer, or the combination of the classes, combining two classes are preferable since there are some enemies which are immune to either physical or magic attack.
the environment can be your friend(or your enemy) as well since it full of potential secret loot/secondary routes, and lehat objects, like spiked fence, weak ceiling, one good kick or arrow shoot and the enemies will be crushed, its all depends on your creativity and ofcourse your timing.
the bad things, while the game is extremly fun i highly suggesting to avoid the hardcore difficulty, in this level the enemies are very tanky, even the assassins special backstab attack wont insta kill a orc warrior, this means the enemy will be reduced to almost no healt, but its still alive and it will alert his nearby friends... which is kinda anticlimactic for a assassin who relies on stealth and surprise attacks.
hardware issues, yes the game is older than most of the current teenage gaming population, you will face the memory limitation issues (4gb max old win xp era) random crashes, etc... but dont worry, there are a easy fix for these problems.
Dark Messiah: Restoration Mod: this mod will fix most of the harware problems, and also have bugfixes and some new restored content as well, the mod is still work in progress.
the mod requires the Dark Messiah: Advanced SDK as well.
and most importantly you need the mod manager, this allows you to put in order which mod loading first.
mod manager--> DM sdk --> restoration mod --> everything else.
i think i said enough, now go meet xana, you will like her :)

This game has no business being as good as it actually is. It's really a diamond in the rough. With limited resources and a huge divergence from the original franchise ubisoft dipped their toes in a murky pond and made an FPS medieval fantasy game and it came out great. This game in many ways reminds me of skyrim and I've no doubt that if they had just stuck with it, and continued refining it they could have made a game like that many years before bethesda ever did.
I don't think that the activision/ubisoft of today could make a game like this. Too risky, not good for investors, but maybe someday some of their game developers will split off, make their own company and do it.