Elex (2017)
Elex is a 2017 role-playing (rpg) video game made by Piranha Bytes and THQ Nordic.
A meteor ended Magalan's future and left behind Elex, a raw substance that fuels machines, powers magic, or rewrites flesh into something new. From the Gothic team at Piranha Bytes, this is a stubborn open-world RPG that drops you in as Jax, a fallen commander, and refuses to hold your hand. Berserkers burn technology to grow forests, Clerics worship a war-god through plasma rifles, Outlaws answer to nobody. A jetpack lets you scale the whole hand-built map from the first hour. Combat punishes you early, and the faction choices weigh heavier than the loot.
Quick answers
What is Elex about?
A meteor ended Magalan's future and left behind Elex, a raw substance that fuels machines, powers magic, or rewrites flesh into something new. From the Gothic team at Piranha Bytes, this is a stubborn open-world RPG that drops you in as Jax, a fallen commander, and refuses to hold your hand. Berserkers burn technology to grow forests, Clerics worship a war-god through plasma rifles, Outlaws answer to nobody. A jetpack lets you scale the whole hand-built map from the first hour. Combat punishes you early, and the faction choices weigh heavier than the loot.
When was Elex released?
Elex was released on 17 October 2017.
Who made Elex?
Elex was made by Piranha Bytes and THQ Nordic.
Similar games
Explore Elex guides
Elex in our writing
- Companion guide: The European RPG: Gothic, The Witcher and the Continental School
- Companion guide: Post-Apocalyptic RPGs: From Wasteland to Fallout and Every Ruin Between
A few thoughts on Elex
The obvious next stop is Piranha Bytes' own Gothic, cut from the same cloth of clumsy but rewarding exploration. For post-apocalyptic factions that judge every choice, Fallout: New Vegas fits perfectly, and Horizon Zero Dawn scratches the primitive-tribes-meet-lost-technology itch. On record, Muse's Simulation Theory mirrors the game's synth-slick science-fantasy mood.
Industrial and electronic music that sounds like machinery gone feral
Elex runs on a substance that fuels tech, powers magic and rewrites flesh all at once, and this music channels that same overloaded, mechanical unease. Black Holes and Revelations, Simulation Theory, The Fat of the Land, Deltron 3030 and Irrlicht all lean into cold synths, distorted beats and a sense that the machines have taken over the mood.
Broken worlds split between factions who all think they're right
On Magalan, Berserkers burn technology while Clerics worship a war-god through plasma rifles, and neither side doubts its own cause. House of the Dragon, Game of Thrones, Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Boys all build the same kind of splintered world, where every faction has a genuine reason to distrust the others and no easy side to root for.
Weathered protagonists surviving landscapes that have already fallen apart
Jax is a fallen commander crossing a hand-built wasteland where the old order is gone and nobody agrees on what replaces it. Half-Life 2, The Last of Us, Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War (2018) and The Witcher 3 all follow that same kind of worn-down survivor, moving through a world well past its prime toward whatever comes next.
Stories about a body rewritten by something bigger than it can hold
Elex is a substance that can rebuild flesh into something else entirely, for better or worse, and these picks share that same body-altering premise. Ghost in the Shell, Galaxy Express 999, Repo! The Genetic Opera and The Time Traveler's Wife all follow characters whose bodies or lives are reshaped by a force they never fully chose.