Piranha Bytes and Nordic Games have teamed up to create ELEX, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi RPG with giant mechs and magic that will follow in the footsteps of the Gothic series by focusing on open world exploration and meaningful choices.

It was announced almost exactly a year ago, but the reason I'm mentioning it now is because the official website finally went live and brought with it a few more tidbits of information.

For starters, we now know there will be three different approaches towards weaponry: you will have your brute-force implements such as axes, swords and maces; sci-fi plasma rifles, flamethrowers and rocket launches; and finally, actual actual magic, as if that will ever be cooler than a flamethrower!

Much like the Gothic and Risen series there will be no pre-set class for you to choose, you will need to advance your skills by finding experienced teachers throughout the world, and then probably doing a dozen chores for them in order to bring down the obscene prices. There will also be numerous factions for you to befriend or antagonize, as well as a whole host of characters whose opinion of you will be based on your actions, one of my favorite features from the Gothic/Risen series.

The devs better make sure we can pilot these things!

The open-world exploration is back as well, but its greatly improved this time around through the addition of (hopefully) controllable mechs, and best of all, a jetpack so you don't have to make a 5 minute detour because there's a chest-high wall blocking your path. I'd imagine there's going to be some sort of limitation to how long you can fly around, but its still a jetpack and that combined with a flamethrower is all I can really ask from a game!

While that is all fairly exciting stuff I do need to add a bit of a disclaimer here. Both Nordic Games and Piranha Bytes have the best of intentions with their games, but the end-result has been mediocre more often than a success, with even Risen 1 (my personal favorite of theirs) being a buggy mess on release. I'm not trying to say ELEX is going to be bad, that would be silly since we know so little of it right now, but rather that you should temper your excitement a bit lest you find yourself disappointed.

I couldn't find any official trailer, but I did discover this presentation from last year's Gamescom, so if you're interested in learning more about ELEX that would be a good place to start: