Dark Messiah of Might & Magic

Here I am in 2026 trying this game for the 1st time and having a blast. Is it that good? or have things become that bad? Anyway, back to making necromancers slip off cliffs.

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.

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.

My top game from Arkane, with Arx Fatalis.
Ubisoft, you should make a remake, or a sequel. It was the good old days : Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, 3D Rayman, and this AWESOME game. Stop your ♥♥♥♥♥♥ modern licenses and bring back this gem

Dishonored started here
Most people interested by this game today will fall into two groups: the ones that played the old Heroes or M&M RPGs, and Immersive Sim-fans. I'm both, and while there is absolutely nothing here for the first group (it was just Ubisoft trying to capitalize on an established trademark), there is plenty for the second group.
While Arx Fatalis is a different kind of beast, in Dark Messiah you'll find the true beggining of Arkane's trademark brand of Im-Sim. Its gameplay brings a lot of Dishonored vibes, from the character movement and attacks to the magic skills. I prefer to play those games as a melee/stealth assassin and felt immediately at home.
Sure it's not exactly Dishonored lite. Dark Messiah put less emphasis on magic skills, and more on environmental interaction. No "pacific" or "chaos" choices here, you'll do a lot of killing, but the amount of ways you have to deal with your enemies is impressive. Yes, the meme is real, kicking is overpowered and trivializes some sections, but others are a masterclass in using the environment to deal with enemies. Playing on Hard was great, because the enemies stayed strong the whole game. Although I still fought plenty of "fair" battles, most of the time I was forced to look for alternative methods. Many rather cheesy, but it was fun anyway.
Now, there is a fundamental difference that puts Dark Messiah some steps lower than Dishonored and predecessors such as Deus Ex in the "Im-Sim classics" scale: the game is strictly linear. No sprawling maps with alternative routes, no branching narrative, no dialogue choices. There are secrets to be found here and there, if you look a bit further than the main road. But overall it plays as a corridor shooter that throws you into one set piece after another. It's just pieces that you have many ways to fit in the overarching, static puzzle.
There are some other annoying aspects. The story is meh and gives you almost zero time to get interested in it and involved with characters before throwing you into the action. The portrait of the "romantic interests" is cringeworthy in its teenager-ness. The physics and engine are far from polished, I had frequent troubles with mantling, impaling, hitboxes and the like. And I will never understand people's obsession with scripted sequences and boss battles that force you into rigid strategies.
Those annoyances could be in fact good for some, but ruin the game for others. I just decided to quicksave/godmode my way out of the most boring parts and still managed to get a lot of fun from the "normal" gameplay. The game still looks good for a 2006 game and demanded very few tweaks to work properly. Look at the pcgamingwiki for "Large Address Aware", I had no crashes whatsoever with it. Look around also for "enhanced controls" to tweak some keys and to initializing options to deal with stutter or crashes.

This game is like, what if Oblivion was a linear game with funni ragdoll physics from half-life 2 and made on Source engine, this game is fantastic and very goofy, i love it!
I recommend doing a Kick only run, the kicking mechanic is so satisfying and kicking people out of the window is so funny.