Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001)
Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a 2001 role-playing (rpg) video game made by Troika Games and Sierra Entertainment.
Magic and technology share this world in an uneasy truce, and the mechanical age is winning. From a zeppelin wreck you emerge as the presumed reincarnation of an ancient elf, hunted and courted across the industrial city of Tarant and the wilds beyond. Troika's first game, made by Fallout veterans Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson, lets you build a gunslinging technologist or a spell-slinging mage whose powers actively corrode each other's tools. Dialogue bends to intelligence, charisma, even your chosen race. Rough in places, yet few RPGs have imagined a setting this strange or this reactive.
Quick answers
What is Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura about?
Magic and technology share this world in an uneasy truce, and the mechanical age is winning. From a zeppelin wreck you emerge as the presumed reincarnation of an ancient elf, hunted and courted across the industrial city of Tarant and the wilds beyond. Troika's first game, made by Fallout veterans Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson, lets you build a gunslinging technologist or a spell-slinging mage whose powers actively corrode each other's tools. Dialogue bends to intelligence, charisma, even your chosen race. Rough in places, yet few RPGs have imagined a setting this strange or this reactive.
When was Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura released?
Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura was released on 21 August 2001.
Who made Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura?
Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura was made by Troika Games, Sierra Entertainment and Activision.
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Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura in our writing
- Companion guide: The CRPG: The Complete Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games
- Companion guide: Steampunk
A few thoughts on Arcanum: of Steamworks and Magick Obscura
The magic-versus-industry tension is the hook. For books, The Difference Engine and Perdido Street Station chase the same steam-and-sorcery friction. In games, Fallout carries the same designers' gift for build-defined role-play, and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is Troika's other cult classic worth its rough edges.
Epic fantasy where an ancient bloodline decides your fate
Arcanum casts you as the presumed reincarnation of an ancient elf, hunted and courted the moment you set foot in Tarant. That same weight of inherited destiny drives a dragon rider bound to a bloodline he never asked for, a gunslinger chasing a family curse across worlds, a girl marked by moonlight before she can walk, and a young warrior carrying a legacy far older than himself.
Waking up in a new world where everyone already wants a piece of you
Arcanum drops you into a stranger's body and a stranger's legend, both hunted and courted before you understand why. These stories share that same jolt: a young man thrown into a fantasy realm that keeps killing him back to the start, a farm boy whose true origin makes him a target the moment anyone finds out, and a team stepping through a portal into new politics on every mission.
Science fiction that treats technology as a force with its own agenda
Arcanum's mechanical age is winning a quiet war against magic, corroding every spell the moment a machine gets too close. These science fiction worlds treat technology the same way, as a living force with its own momentum: an alternate Victorian London reshaped by a machine no one controls, an eternal steam train across the stars questioning what makes someone human, and a city of soldiers fused with hardware.