ARX INSANITY is a remaster and immersive sim mod for Arx Fatalis. Improved gameplay, remastered HD graphics, revision, enhanced lighting and atmospheres, expanded universe, new quests, remastered soundtrack, original music, overhauled sounds, environmental effects and thousands of features. Adding new elements inspired by Arkane and Looking-Glass games, you can play with a variety of new approaches and choices.
This mod is still based in the original Arx Engine and it uses Arx Libertatis. One of the goals is to get the most out of the Arx Engine and AL features overcoming the challenges involved in overhauling the original game directly.
Thanks to everyone who joined our event! We received a lot of interesting questions. Initially, we planned to answer 10 questions, but due to your participation, we ended up selecting and answering 36 questions.
This was the first of three upcoming Discord events for the community. Stay tuned for the next one, and thanks again! We had a lot of fun answering your questions.
Answer: The status is TBD (To be determined/announced). It is difficult to specify a release date at this point due to several factors. The scale of work required is immense, and unfortunately, due to our commitments to other jobs and real-life obligations, the development process has been prolonged and complex, we can't predict how it will run, sometimes it's paused or hard. Additionally, the lack of spare time to work, our real-life responsibilities or sometimes working as a solo dev is the issue. We plan to announce a real release date only once the testing phases are over. Despite the current difficulties, we are hopeful that the project will be completed within the next two years at a polished and ready state.
Answer: I plan to release constant patches and updates for the base mod to address any issues players might encounter post-release. Our first goal is to polish and fix the mod as much as possible. Once the mod is in a well-polished state, I may add new content or small quests based on the unused/cut content from Insanity. However, these additions will come later, after I take a small break from Arx Fatalis haha. But another important thing is that we are planning special and limited time events, e. g. Christmas, Halloween and Arx Anniversary with exclusive contents.
Answer: Yes, if everything goes well, the final version will be available in English, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Polish, and Portuguese (Thanks to the job of our amazing translators), though speech and dubbing will only be supported in English.
Answer: The reason was simply: my love and passion for Arx Fatalis. This game changed my life radically. You know, still working on this after so many years and thousands of dev hours must mean something. It started as a mod with some new difficulties with minor additions. The name 'Insanity' comes from this: I created the Nightmare mode with tons of rats and strong NPCs (a secret difficulty in the demo, actually), and I thought, 'Oh, this is extremely insane and hardcore to play,' so I called this difficulty 'Insanity'. Later, I added more content like the Miguel's Fight Arena, new lighting, and scripts. Then I decided to remaster it and create serious quality textures, it became an ambitious project. I thought: "This will be hard to develop, very ambitious, this is insane", what should I call the project? Mmm... insane, insanity. Yes, let's call it Arx Insanity. A bit silly story but this name recalls the difficulty modes but also and the hardcore tasks of a project of these dimensions'.
Answer: We're about 60-70% done, if I can put it that way. My goal is to finish all the pending tasks, including interactive/immersive-sim systems, quests, scripts, and textures. I want to fix things, finishing and implementing elements that will directly improve the mod's quality and experience. We've made good progress already; it's playable, but still a bit of a mess as a project. Yes, let's target 2026 and stay motivated to accomplish it.
Answer: Yes, we have new narratives, quests and characters in Arx Insanity. There are many new NPCs in the levels. One of the strong points is the game lore, we expanded the Arx universe and even made it more cohesive, making it even more interesting and deep. I can confidently say it's now more fascinating than ever, logical and realistic. We also resolved some plot holes and narrative issues from the original game. I've always respected the original lore and based my work on what Raphael Colantonio (Arx Fatalis director) shared publicly, providing us with new interesting information we never knew. Some questions will be answered in the mod, but new ones will also arise.
Answer: Well, the final version will be a bit different from what we saw in the last demo release. We have new features, improvements everywhere, and updated weapon models. However, I want to hold off on releasing those contents until the full mod is available. This way, you'll get to experience something new, just like with the first demo versions. Spoiling the changes and additions with a new release would diminish part of the experience for the full release. But of course, we can show progress and stream on Discord.
Answer: Probably the most disappointing cut was a level that included a small part of the outside world, there is already a prototype, but the result was not what I expected, and it was a total failure. I’ve added thousands of contents, systems, and scripts. I'm constantly adding new features, finishing pending tasks, and improving what's already been made. The mod is all about working, adding, fixing, and polishing. A large part of the goal is to fix and polish even the original game, bringing a definitive version of Arx Fatalis (which was full of bugs and issues). I try to perfect everything that was already there and provide a smoothest experience. More cut content for instance, 'The witches', they were new entities intended to expand the universe, but in the end, I removed them because some things didn’t work, and I wanted to save development time. Maybe you may remember a giant spider in the first early modDB banners, it was actually an in-game screenshot, we had this giant spider and it was some kind of boss fight in the early game (2nd level), also we had giant spiders in other levels that were removed. There was also a new level full of black beasts, a level for some type of sewers and another with The Outsider from Dishonored. This last level was made to test and learn the Arx script engine, but ultimately, I wanted the mod to stay faithful to Arx and maintain a serious tone.
Answer: We respect the vision of the original art director of Arx Fatalis, and our Arx Insanity 3D artist (SimonMT) keeps this in mind while enjoying creative freedom in most of his designs. When developing new concepts, we aim to ensure that the original Arx feeling is preserved, with a historical look and fixes to issues and details found in the vanilla designs. We avoid going too far into crazy fantasy for these designs (As Raf once advised me). We strive for a balance between historical accuracy and fantasy. Some weapons feature original designs, while others take a more realistic approach or are purely fantastical (though these are very few). Additionally, some designs faithfully respect the original look of the weapons while improving and remastering certain details.
Answer: I can tell you, if there were 1 or 2 additional people working the same amount as I do, the mod would already be done and released. Alternatively, if I had enough financial support to focus solely on development, even just enough to survive in poor conditions, I could dedicate 100% of my time to the mod, which would speed things up significantly. In that scenario, the mod would probably be completely finished by now. But as it stands, we all have to survive and work in real life to support ourselves. Unfortunately, my job and responsibilities don't allow me to work on the project as much as I would like.
Answer: We're looking for help with NPC texturing, animals, clothes, armors, programming (Arx Libertatis and experience in C++ for implementations), level and general texturing (1k-2k at least), and scripting (capable of building advanced and interactive systems for the mod and debugging them). Everyone is welcome to join and help in the development!.
Answer: First, I assess how plausible the idea is. We can all have great ideas and concepts, but I need to ensure they can fit into the game not just in terms of lore or assets, but also within the engine itself. Is the idea possible to script and program? How should it work? Later, it needs to be tested. Sometimes implementing ideas in the game is very complex. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. What doesn't work is usually discarded and removed. In rare cases, an idea may be implemented in the future if it's plausible but hard to manage at the specific moment it was conceived.
Answer: Things I wanted to implement but couldn't include are handmade levels, new animations, armors, and NPC models. There are also a lot of discarded contents that were in progress but failed. For instance, I recently cut the 'kick' feature, which allowed us to hit enemies with our feet and even make them fall from heights. In practice, it was a failure, and there were technical issues with animations and the engine. Sometimes NPCs would go out of bounds or break their behaviors in very strange ways. I might revisit that feature later, but for now, it's discarded. Other concepts like explosive bombs when thrown and various new behaviors were also discarded.
Answer: Immersive sims are definitely my type of games. They embody a deep philosophy and respect for the player. Arx Insanity draws inspiration from these experiences. For instance, I found a lot of inspiration from games like Thief, Ultima Underworld, Deus Ex, System Shock, Dishonored, Prey, and even Deathloop. These games share similar values, designs, and feelings. It's amazing how all the new immersive sim mechanics in Arx Insanity fit seamlessly into the game due to the genre's nature. I highly recommend playing any game classified in this genre; you'll enjoy a bold and quality experience, allowing you to experiment and play your way.
Answer: That's another good question. Everything in game development requires a lot of time and dedication (when you work on small details), but I believe there are better ways I should use to optimize tasks and improve efficiency. Danae, at times was slow, laggy, and prone to crashing. A modern and practical editor would be perfect in my opinion, and could also inspire others to create their own content. Making and testing scripts usually is a slow process in the project, so, to reduce testing time, I created a testing directory with 16x16px and 32x32px textures, I can re-test in 3-5 seconds so the issue is the work itself. However, scripting sometimes doesn't work as expected or presents complications, requiring analysis and problem-solving to achieve the desired result, "challenges" are my personal time wasters and my enemies, but they're satisfactory when achieved.
Answer: Arx Insanity is intended to be a single-player experience that overhauls every aspect of the game. Multiplayer mode is not currently in the plans and I've never aimed for that. However, who knows? If the opportunity arises in the future, I might consider contributing to it.
Answer: Yes, I plan 6 different endings for Am Shaegar based on the player's actions throughout the game. Also introducing new side-endings for Alia, and even Enoill Calpale's fate can be altered in six different ways. Additionally, without giving away too much, there's a big cliffhanger in the game you don't expect.
Answer: First, I need to mention this, I love watching people and fans playing Arx Insanity in their streams and videos!, I really love that and it's like a precious reward for me after all the time and hard work in the project, it is sacred to me. Related to the work: building and overhauling visual environments, write lore or seeing something progress well, this motivates me to finish the task.
Answer: Yes, Arx Insanity will have Easter eggs and secrets, some of them related to the game itself, others hidden or referencing other games. I hope that someday people will discover all of them! I think there will be a large number.
Answer: In terms of size and locations don't expect too much, because Arx Insanity takes place in the same locations as the original, but we have new levels like the Miguel's Fight Arena, the meditation room, the council room and a misterious level I don't want to spoil right now, the exploration is deeper and exteded, in terms of features and gameplay it's a brand new experience, you'll have more fun with the game than you did with some elements in Arx and I'm sure you will be more immersed than ever in this universe.
Answer: I can say there's really a lot of new text and lore. We've introduced a rich variety of new books and expanded the universe, delving into details about races, underground life, and sincere words from inhabitants. We explore how mines were built, provide deeper insights into characters through their diaries, and emphasize lore as one of the mod's strongest features, but not just story or text, we can see new in-game events that will show you something visually.
Answer: Yes, this is the Am Shaegar' chambers yet but now it has a system for upgrades, his room could be improved with some cool things as multiple storage, fortniture, deco or even some pets but those upgrades are expensive in-game!.
Answer: I can't reveal too much yet, but you'll have the opportunity to assist the cult and join Akbaa when he asks you to. Depending on your actions, you can take different paths that will significantly impact the world. This will lead to 6 different endings, some of which are related to Noden, Akbaa, Sylib, and Shaegar. These characters will interact with you in various ways based on your decisions.
Answer: I don't want to spoil details, but ok, we'll introduce new lore, books, and visual narratives/events that will provide deeper insights into them.
Answer: Alchemy weapons are crafted using reactives and various ingredients, similar to potions. You'll need some points in object knowledge skill to access these features. The goal is to enable survival and efficiency for those who specialize as alchemists, essentially creating a new gameplay class with offensive, defensive, and even creative recipes.
Answer: Dwarven lore has been expanded and their location overhauled, hmm you'll never know until you play Insanity for the first time...
Answer: I remember this character, his name is Alessandro and yes it was streamed on Discord, it was an initial test but several people is requesting to keep him in the game, probably he will reincarnate as some guard officer or some alchemical herbalist... And with a good quality voice acting.
Answer: I had no prior knowledge or skills when I started this project; everything I've learned and improved upon has been through the process of developing Arx Insanity. I'm happy of how far the project has come in terms of results and progress, it's been a significant personal achievement for me.
Answer: Yes, they have different aim times and stats, but the new 'weight system' introduces another layer. Agility will vary depending on our equipment. Maces have an exclusive bonus: they can effectively damage heavy armors, making them particularly effective against armored mercenaries or Ylsides.
Answer: Yes, this is something many of us have always wanted. They will have their cameo appearances and even their own quests.
Answer: Stepashhhh CODEX... Stepash CODEX!... Ssssssssh.
Answer: I'm aiming to address this and make it easier for everyone through new quests, mechanics, and features. One of my goals is to achieve the maximum XP in a single playthrough without resorting to excessive farming, cheats or exploiting bugs and to be more gameplay focused. For example, players can earn XP by unlocking doors, disarming traps but now also reverse-engineering mechanisms used against enemies, get XP twice (Disarming and later reverse-engineering) and it's fun when playing.
Answer: Yes, you will be able to forge four different types of mithril weapons, and we'll also have an armor forge for crafting mithril armor. As a bonus, there is a very rare and unique secret weapon in the game made from this material.
Answer: Yes, there are plans to expand the enchanment system with variety and multiple ingredients, even combinations of them.
Answer: The original design and concept is still there but this beast will have some subtle variations in the gameplay, I can say it will be some kind of nemesis character for Am Shaegar.
Answer: All of the crypt levels were radically changed in gameplay, lore etc, so you will have a very different version, new puzzles, challenges, traps and even the enemies feel different here, vanilla puzzles are changed too for a fresh experience. I can say it's now a very frightening and hazardous place, with new enemies and monsters (Something new like that flying creature in the demo).
Firstly, I'd like to say hi and thank everyone who has shown their support and love to Arx Insanity over the years. We're thrilled to be a community of over 1200 members on Discord and that fact holds great significance for us. If you're interested in becoming a part of our community, engaging in discussions about Arx, or keeping track of Arx Insanity's internal updates, we invite you to join the Arx Insanity Discord Server.
We feel it's crucial to be honest and forthcoming about the current state of the mod and its development. Your unwavering support and anticipation for the game have meant a great deal to us over the years
We believe in being direct and transparent with you. At present, the Arx Insanity development team has disbanded, with the majority of its members having departed from the project. As a consequence, the official releases are now on hold, and the release date is yet to be determined (TBD).
We understand that this news might be disappointing, but we want to be open about the current state of affairs. Despite the setback, we deeply appreciate the support you've shown us throughout this journey. We will keep you informed about any future developments, and we thank you for your understanding and patience during this time.
Over time, several members made the decision to leave the project due to various reasons, including personal commitments, changes in their private lives, a loss of interest in the project, or a desire to invest their time in other endeavors. These departures have had a cumulative impact on the project, reaching a critical point over the past years and months.
At present, we have a significantly reduced team with only 2 or 3 members actively involved in the main development. The limited work and time has inevitably affected the pace of progress.
We had set multiple dates in mind, including testing phases to ensure a stable and polished release experience for the public. We were genuinely confident about these release plans. However, the unexpected departure of team members and the subsequent lack of staff have overwhelmed us. Despite our best efforts to work swiftly and meet the announced dates, the reality of the situation has made it difficult to achieve those targets. The sheer amount of work that needs to be done, coupled with the limited team size, has resulted in an overwhelming and unmanageable workload in recent months.
We are fully committed to bringing this project to a proper and successful conclusion, realizing the vision we set out to achieve. While the project has become ambitious with various ideas and add-ons, we understand that it's time to prioritize and focus on accomplishing those essential elements to ensure decent results. To ensure a smoother and faster development process, we have made the decision not to introduce any new delays, unexpected ideas, or major changes from this point onward, allowing us to concentrate on completing the core aspects of the game.
*At this time, we're unable to provide an estimated release date for the public version or testing phases. The game still requires completion and polishing, and we want to ensure a high-quality experience before making it available to the public, Managing time and schedules has been difficult, especially with team members having other commitments like work. Additionally, relying on voluntary contributions and pending assets has introduced further complexities into the development process, We acknowledge that we rushed the previous release date announcements due to the community's requests for official dates. However, unforeseen complications arose during development, causing delays and subpar results. This, coupled with personal stress, has impacted the progress.
The current situation has led to a crisis within the team. Dealing with difficulties, lack of personnel, time constraints and RL work or activities can be incredibly challenging. The overwhelming nature of the development process, combined with the burden of working alone on the mod for most of the time, has added to the complexity.
I want to extend my heartfelt apologies for the delays and challenges we've faced during the development of Arx Insanity. I feel deeply frustrated and even a bit ashamed that things haven't progressed as smoothly as we had hoped,I've decided to prioritize my peace of mind and creativity, and I will be continuing the development at my own pace, I believe that approaching the project with passion and without pressure will lead to a better result in the long run. Though my available time is limited to around 2 or 3 hours a day, I promise to make a dedicated effort to move forward steadily.
I want to take a moment to give a special shout-out to my dear friend Bjarky, our talented Art Director and Lead 3D Artist. Bjarky's incredible dedication and hard work on creating stunning weapons and 3D models for the game have earned him the well-deserved position he holds, his passion and unwavering enthusiasm have been a tremendous source of inspiration for me. Witnessing his boundless energy and creativity in action has motivated me to keep pushing forward with the mod. His contributions have truly transformed the project, bringing in fresh perspectives and designs for weapons and models.
Well the crypts are one of the levels that were totally changed and we still working on it, some of the changes and addons are:
We have decided not to create a low-resource version due to the substantial growth and the addition of intricate details to the environments and textures, making such a version would mean compromising a significant amount of content from the full version. We will see later if we implement more quality options, allowing users with older hardware to have access to the mod. Currently, the mod consumes a total of 4-6GB VRAM, which can be challenging to translate into a simplified version. However, we believe that Arx Insanity should take at least a small leap forward, as hardware has advanced significantly. If we resurrect the plans for this version in the future... we will see, but it's cancelled at the moment.
Thank you for your unwavering support and understanding. We're fully committed to delivering a good experience for you in Arx Insanity. This journey has been a learning process, and thanks to the perspective shared by your friend Saggi, we are more inspired than ever to infuse this project with passion and love. It's a big journey and we get experiences from the beginning so we want to still giving love to Arx and we are dedicated to finishing this project with our goals. We periodically post in our discord server, if you didn't join yet you can do it now here.
Hello everyone, some months have passed since the last demo patch was released and we are still working daily in the Full mod and the next patch.
The patch was expected to be released a month ago but it was delayed due to new implementations and addons that we are finishing, we want to release a major patch instead, some of the upcoming features are:
It's a very requested feature from the community, redo most of the weapons in better quality, after we did and experimented with the implemented bone as a contribution, a lot of you requested to remaster every weapon in the game so now it's happening, thanks to our new 3D artists we have some of the remastered weapons already done, a new Lord Inut's bow is in the works, after that we are done with every weapon from the demo.
The work consists in work the mesh on blender, fix and add details, collision spheres and the required attachments, paint textures and finally make a post-process to make the new weapons fit in the Insanity graphics environment.
As an standalone step we make about 6-7 blood variants for every weapon in 5 different blood colors found in the game, our idea is to have dynamic and real time bloody effects depending on the NPC we fight.
We want to implement new content based on old concept arts, ideas and concepts that Arkane Studios removed back in the days because of their deadline or other reasons.
Early concept art by Arkane Studios, featuring a goblin weapon and a shield.
As you already know, we have brought back the Miguel's Fight Arena, a concept that was completely discarded by Arkane due to the lack of time, we are using unused dialogues, sounds, weapons, skins, puzzles and many things that were lost in the final version.
We experimented remaking the textures for the Am Shaegar faces, our goal was to make them more realistic and the first prototype had very good results, so we decided to implement this feature as official and replace all the Am Shaegar's faces in addition to remake others such as Tizzy, Alia, etc
To download any version click here
Alternate archived site for some countries in Europe
Patch 0.4.71 has been released solving and balancing some issues found in the latest one:
The latest patch is now available in 2 versions, full and patch only. 84 new bugs fixed, requests and new features done, update your demo installation to this latest version to get an improved game and a better experience.
To install the latest version or reshade read the complete updated instructions once again.
Old saved games from old Insanity demo versions/vanilla/libertatis are incompatible with new patches, so start a new game to apply all changes and avoid corrupt scripts or broken games, thank you very much.
There are 2 different downloads available for version 0.4.7:
To download any version click here
Alternate archived site for some countries in Europe
Today our first Discord event ever has started. You can ask whatever you want about Arx Insanity, this includes contents, development, questions for the...
Hello everyone, this post was made to share more work in progress, express a letter, a call for help and share with you the current state of the mod with...
Hello everyone, now we reveal the definitive and final release date for Arx Insanity in addition to the official release calendar. First of all, thank...
Some news about the current development progress and the upcoming patch.
Download only if you have an older demo release previously installed: 0.4.5, 0.4.6 or 0.4.70 (0.4b not supported anymore so you need to reinstall the...
Everything in 1 download. Includes access to 5 levels. Fixes new 84 issues and adds new features, this is a complete demo download so no patches or older...
two years delay again ?
lmfao
well i still do not understand:
-►two years ago you was 100 % sure that Mod will be released in one year.
-►one year ago you told that you need one more year.
-►and one year later (today), you do not just one.. but even other +2
you know this is very suspicious
(seems like pulling for the nose)
It's so sad, I was so excited to see such a huge Arx Fatalis mod made by passionate people :(. Are you guys still working on it or did it completely halt at the moment?
Hello, thanks for your kind of words, we still working hard on it, development sometimes is paused but I still working on it, recently finishing the rebel camp
Rebel Camp is isolated/hidden community,
they have to try not to be seen when they go out , otherwise their existence d be revealed
that means all thier clothes (soldiers) must looks like rags/dirty and everything should looks like worn out/low weapon durability
bc no much new supplies
all as contrast to relatively well supplied Arx city
Great to hear those! Rebel camp... That is a huge ******* area despite being a small part of the campaign. That must been insanely hard work! Thanks for all your efforts. I will be waiting and checking regularly!
you can join discord server
there are updates
sadly im banned in Arx Insanity discord for some unknonwn reason
why im bannned ?
Hi, sorry about that. Our Discord server has internal rules. If you don't respect them, committing a foul will result in a permanent infraction. There is a maximum of 5 infractions, which will lead to a permanent ban as a measure of respect for the community, also some cases of toxicity could lead to a direct permanent ban depending on the moderation criteria
there was actualy one or two (for trivials)
if remeber correctly
can you put here a log with these 5 infarctions
i wanna look at them in detail.
Hey, thanks for all your efforts to keep this masterpiece alive especially after some members are leaving your team! I hope you guys are doing well! I just wondered how are things going on with the latest patch
Thank you very much for your kind of words!