Russian developer shows remake of cult classic Arcanum on Unity engine

The project is already playable, but some elements require refinement.

Some players still remember the role-playing game Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001) from Troika Games. Back then, the authors offered an interesting world and gameplay mechanics.

Developer Andrey “Suvitruf” Apanasik recently published a diary dedicated to his work on the Arcanum remake. He uses the Unity engine for development, as well as modern AI technologies, such as Claude (Fable).

According to the developer, the project in its current state is already playable:

You can start the game, allocate stats, and then proceed through the story, completing quests and so on. The dialogue system works, and it even takes into account parameters that affect various dialogue branches and the outcome of the dialogue itself. For example, conditional “charisma” affects whether you can invite characters to your party or not. The companion system is also implemented, along with some related functionality.

Players will be able to exchange items with companions, change weapons, and “add attachments.” An inventory and loot system were also implemented for this purpose.

The basic combat system “works at least for the character”; they can use spells. NPCs are a bit more complex – for now, they can “only swing weapons”:

Combat is implemented as both turn-based and real-time. Essentially, it was enough to implement one, and the second conceptual one differs only by a flag.

The source code for the “unity-arcanum” project will be published in Suvitruf's repository. Game assets are not included; players will need to find the files for Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura to run it.