01.01 Dark Messiah Element Demo, XBox 360 version, available on Live.

08.11 Arkane Studios recruits

Do you feel like trying something new? Do you value your creativity? Tired of being a numbered resource? Do you want to join a fully international and multicultural team working on ambitious and innovative projects? Then let’s meet!

After our first two successful titles (Arx Fatalis™ and Dark Messiah of Might and Magic) we are currently in pre-production for our next AAA title «The Crossing», (PC and Xbox 360)

and we are looking for talented people to join our team in Lyon, France.

Current openings include:

Character Designer (Freelance)

Level Designers

Game Programmers

System Programmers

Senior Environment Artist

Props Artist

Please apply through our website address.

24.10 Arx Fatalis v1.18 Patch

This 1.18 version will allow player already owning Arx Fatalis to benefit from the latest improvements included in the "Collector Edition", especially the compatibility with the latest hardware configurations.

Fix list:

v1.18

- Fixed D3D texture creation that triggered white textured objects / Characters on recent hardware configurations.

- Fixed a crash on TNL Bump Mapping management.

- Fixed several memory leaks.

- Fixed the text font not being displayed on recent hardware configurations.

- Fixed a specific crash on spells use.

- Tweaked the Fireball spell damage rule, to make it less powerful & more balanced.

- Fixed a bug where the game would quit if the ESC key was pressed during the New Game fade to black.

French, English, German, Italian and Russian version of the files can be downloaded on those sites:

Gamespot.com


Gamershell.com

Filefront.com

Jeuxvideopc.com

24.10 Dark Messiah on Steam

Arkane Studios' award winning Action-RPG game is now available on Steam.

You can get it here.

23.10 Arkane Studios’ New Forum on its Website Goes Live

Arkane Studios is proud to reveal their new forum.  It will continue to be updated with the latest news, and will allow us to answer all your questions. Also, it will allow us to discuss and share with our fans.


And feel free to send your feedback.

Link to the forum here.

18.10 Arx Fatalis Collector Edition

Elektrogames and Arkane Studios proudly present ARX FATALIS – COLLECTOR EDITION.

To celebrate the fifth anniversary of the game, the new version of this worldwide acclaimed Action-RPG will provide the following new features:

- An updated version of the game, compatible with the latest hardware configurations

- The Arx Fatalis « making-of »

- The Strategy Guide

- The Art Of Arx Fatalis

Don’t miss this incredible edition on the 20th of October (in France only in the beginning).

01.10 Arx Fatalis comes to Steam

You can get it here.

27.09 New address for the French studio

The brand new officies of the French developper are now located on the two last floors of the Nobel building, located at:

99 Cours Gambetta, 69003 Lyon, France.

Check the map for more details.

01.07 Arkane Studios wants you !

For interested applicants, the selection process will start with map creation tests and then through interviews. Only applicants who have been selected based on their map creations, will be called to interview. The recruitment process will take place from July 2007 until September 2007.
The jobs are planned to start in the Fall of 2007, and are based in Lyon, France. Wages will be decided upon the experience of each candidate.


“Level Design” Test 

In Arkane Studios, a Level Designer is in charge of map building, setting up game mecanics and difficulty tweaking.


Recrutment steps:

1 - Choose the map type where you feel more confident (solo or multi). Create your map and submit it before July 22nd for the multi, and before July 30th for the solo. A first selection group will be made, based on this map.

2 - If you’ve passed the first selection process, you will be asked to make the second map. If you’ve first made the solo map, you will be asked to send the multi map before August 31st. If you’ve first made the multi map, you will be asked to send the solo map before August 31st.

Make your map and submit it before July 22nd. 


Tips :

You have to show game play intentions, don’t focus on visual aspects. Even if the attention brought to the overall quality is important, the main focus is the game experience. Do not hesitate to use Hammer entities in another way than their original one. Creativity and originality of the map will be our criteria to analyze and evaluate your work. 


Here are the rules: 


For the Solo map:

1 - Map must be made with “Half Life 2™" engine and will use no other resources than those inside “Half Life 2™" and “Half Life 2 Episode One™"

2 - The playing time must not exceed 5 minutes.

3 - The map must take place in a single building, with entry from the roof top, circulation inside the building and an exit on the ground floor.

4 - Player progression must be linear.

5 - The map must offer 2 or 3 puzzles.

6 - The map must have a scenario with one or two objectives for the player. 


For the Multi map:

1 - Map must be made with “Half Life 2™ Deathmatch” engine and will use no other resources than those inside “Half Life 2™" and “Half Life 2 Episode One™".

2 - The game mode must be “Team Deathmatch” mode.

3 - Number of players must be limited to 5 vs 5.

4 - Both teams must have different objectives (such as “Wolfenstein Enemy Territory™”).

5 - One of the objectives must bring a real modification in the map and in its pace.

6 - The Physgun, Rocket Launcher and the Combine Machine Gun are prohibited.


“Environmental Level Design” test 

In Arkane Studios, the Environment Level Designer is in charge of creating visual elements, architecture and lights in the maps. They realise the graphical and aesthetic aspects of the map.
Make your map and submit it before the 22th of Jully. 


Here are the rules:

1 - Getting to the end of the map must not exceed 3 minutes.

2 - Map must take place in a modern urban environment.

3 - The player will start in a small garden or abandoned area. From here, he will access a desert street. From the street, he will enter a building where he will move towards the upper floors and access a point where he will have a clear view over the starting point of the map.

4 - Map must be made with “Half Life 2™” or “Counter-Strike Source™” engine and will use no other resources than those inside those two games.

5 - The map must not include NPCs. 

Interviews:

For those who will be selected, according to their maps, an interview will be organized with Studio's Director, a Game Designer, aLevel Designer and the Lead Artits. During this interview, we will be talking about your experience and your map. We will also evaluate your English level.


Delivering your maps to us:

In order to deliver your maps, you will have to send an E-mail to the following address: jobs@arkane-studios.com including:

- A FTP site where you will leave the BSP and VMF files of your maps.

- Your First name, Last name, Address and Phone Number

The files must be named in this manner:

LD_SOLO_yourname.bsp for solo maps in Game Design Test.

LD_MULTI_yourname.bsp for multi maps in Game Design Test.

ENVLD_yourname.bsp for Environment maps in Environmental Game Design Test.

In addition to those files, you may add a text file where you can describe the work you’ve done as well as all other details you might consider useful to us. 


Thank you and good luck.

26.04 FMX 07

Arkane Studios will be at this event, which is the 12th International Conference on Animation, Effects, Realtime and content.

For more details, check the official website.

24.04 Edge Magazine:Arkane “Making History”

Check out April’s Edge magazine, on shelves now, to see “how the men behind Dark Messiah and City 17 are planning to invent a new kind of gaming, rebuild Paris, and abolish the Renaissance.”

05.04 Arkane Studios visits Mod Party 4

The Mod Party, organized by PiTrust and PMods, gathers every year the mods developers community.

The goal of this event is to highlight creations through the presentation of modified maps from video games such as Battlefield2, Unreal Tournament 2004, Half-Life 2, Quake 4 or Far Cry.

This Mod Party 4 will take place in Paris, April 14th and 15th 2007, at the OPERA cyber-room.

For more information, please check this site

If you want to meet with Arkane Studios during this event, please contact us on this E-mail

28.02 Arkane's new game

14.02 Dark Messiah Honored by German Gamers

By the way, I don't know if you've already heard it, but Dark Messiah of Might & Magic has won the GameStar Award for Best Action Game 2006.

The GameStar Awards are Germany's most prestigious computer game awards, given out annually in a festive evening gala in Munich with more than 200 guests.

The event was earlier this month. It's a reader's choice award - winners are elected by the readers of GameStar, Germany's biggest PC gaming magazine.

Dark Messiah bested games such as Battlefield 2142, Prey and Splinter Cell: Double Agent and turned out to be the gamer's favorite in 2006.

Arkane wishes to thank the German gaming public!

14.02 The Secrets of Melee Combat

If you've ever wondered the challenges of designing first-person melee
combat, be sure to attend Raphael Colantonio's GDC talk on March 7th in
San Francisco.

The game's director goes step-by-step on how the design worked. The game was released Autumn of 2006, and Colantonio describes starting with the
intuitive idea for combat, the mistakes and successes along the way, happy
accidents, Randy Smith's consultation, creating a special vocabulary, and
how the combat system finally worked out in the end.

14.02 American gamers say: Dark Messiah!

Consumer site IGN's loyal readers have selected Arkane Studios' Dark Messiah as the 2006 PC Action Game of the Year.

24.01 And now, the rest of the story...

1up Show Segment...

19.01 Arkane Austin Looks for Good Programmers

Arkane Studios has a unique opportunity in their Austin office.  We’re looking to hire programmers.  These programmers will work on our upcoming crossplayer FPS, The Crossing.

12.01 Cover story: Games for Windows magazine features The Crossing

If the 1UP show piqued your interest for details about The Crossing, look no further than the exclusive cover story that tells all.  Games for Windows magazine features 7 pages of pictures, developer dialogs, and details about the new project from Arkane Studios.  The January 19th issue is on newsstands now.

23.12 New Arkane Game Titled on 1UP Show

If you’re wondering what game Arkane Studios is working on next, tune in to The 1UP Show from Ziff Davis.  The fall season finale episode (#60, which airs December 22nd) will have a sneak-peek teaser of our next big project.  Be sure to tune in then.

12.12 Dark Messiah critically acclaimed in US and UK

The reviews are in, and here's what some of the game press had to say.

Game Informer said: "From start to finish, the adventure is an amazing experience that demands respect both for its overall excellence and its entirely unique gameplay."

Games Radar's reaction was: "We also had a devilishly good time creating workplace accidents for guards and creepy enemies."

While in the UK, PC Gamer said: "There's really nothing that can match Dark Messiah's combat. The mixture of weaponry and convincingly cause-and-effect physics really does take first-person fighting to new places."

Worth Playing added: "It is a graphically glorious, murderously marvelous first-person fantasy action game that no self-respecting FPS fan should overlook."

PC Format found it: "An outstanding experience. It manages to create a constant sense of threat, includes some stunning set-pieces, and introduces a cast of breathtaking beasts, all within a combat system that is one of the most versatile and violent we have ever seen."

Eurogamer said: "You will remember the sheer joy of mutilating the orcish, undead and assorted monstrous hordes in a variety of imaginative ways. When mass slaughter is as imaginative as this, it can't help but be memorable."

While IGN noted that: "Dark Messiah is definitely a pretty game."

Gamespy concluded: "During its shining moments, the game transforms the typically bumbling exercise that is first-person melee combat into a sublime experience."

12.12 Arkane CEO on Gamasutra

In this exclusive Gamasutra interview, Raphael Colantonio, the CEO of Arkane Studios speaks  about his start in the industry, the difference between working in France and the US, and the passion that drives him and the company on.

Read all the interview here :
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20061211/kumar_01.shtml

29.11 Dark Messiah: Raving reviews across Europe !

One month after its worldwide release , Dark Messiah is critically acclaimed across all Europe. Here is a shot list of DM scores in the main European countries :

*UK*

PC Gamer: 88%

PC Zone 84/100

PC Format 88/100

Games TM 8/10

Gamesradar 9/10

CVG 8.4/10

Eurogamer.uk  8/10

*Germany*

GameStar: 90%

PC Action 92/100

PC Games 82/100

PC Powerplay 90/100

Eurogamer.de  9/10

Gamona.de 93/100

www.4players.de 85/100

looki.de  86/100

Gamecaptain.de : 8.6/10

Gamepilot.de: 9/10

Gamebasis.de: 9.1/10

pc-universe.de: 8.9 /10

gamaxx.de: 8.9 / 10

*France*

Joystick: 8/10

CanardPC: 8/10

PC jeux 89/100

Jeux Video magazine  17/20

Jeuxvideo.com 17/20

JeuxActu.com  17/20

Micromania  18/20

*Spain*

Micromania 99/100

Computer Hoy Juegos 9.05/10

Meristation  9/10

UltimaGame: 9.5 /10

3D Juegos: 9.2/10

*Austria*

Gamers.at  92/100

WCM 9/10

Gamesfire.at: 8.9 /10

*Benelux*

PC Gameplay 90/100

Gunk magazine 90/100

Move X Games 4.5/5

Playerone 17/20

Telenet 87/100

Gamespot.be 81/100

*Italy*

GMC 90/100

Jack  90/100

Gamesradar.it  90/100

Mtv.it  5/5

Gamestar.it: 82%

Evereye.it: 9/10

Overgame.it: 9/10

*Scandinavia*

PC Player Danemark 9/10

PC Gamer Sweden 89/100

Gamereactor.dk  9/10

Gamereactor.no  8/10

05.10 Dark Messiah coming to Steam

Valve announced that it has partnered with Ubisoft to bring Dark Messiah to the Steam online distribution service when the product is launched worldwide end of October 2006.
"I am a long-time fan of the Might & Magic franchise," said Gabe Newell, president and co-founder of Valve. "Valve is delighted to have Dark Messiah of Might & Magic on Steam's growing list of new releases for the holiday season. But, more importantly, I just can't wait to play it."

The single player demo is already available on Steam

08.08 Dark Messiah demo available now

The demo for Dark Messiah of Might & Magic is now available to download! The system requirements for the demo are:

• Windows® XP


• AMD Athlon™ or Pentium® 2.2 GHz (3 GHz recommended)


• 512 MB RAM (1 GB recommended)


• 128 MB DirectX® 9-compatible video card (256MB recommended)


• DirectX 9 compatible sound card


• DirectX 9 or higher


• 3 GB free hard disc space


• Supported Video Cards: NVIDIA® GeForce™ FX/6/7 families, ATI® Radeon™ 9/X families (laptop versions of these cards are not fully supported)

The demo weighs in at 1.4gb - here are some mirror download links:

3DGamers

Jolt.co.uk

GamersHell

Boomtown

Worthplaying

Espace.ch

PeerFactor

Gamezone

Filecloud

Filefront

Flashwar.ch

26.05 Dark Messiah takes Best PC Game

G4TV awarded Dark Messiah their Best PC Game for E3 2006.  In addition, G4 also nominated Dark Messiah for Best Overall Game.
Click here to watch the video.

26.05 Dark Messiah among the Best Action Games for 1UP

The editors of 1UP.com, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Computer Gaming World, and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine have placed their votes for the best games at the 2006 E3 show.
Dark Messiah is among the  runner’s up for the Best Action Game.
More details here.

24.05 Gamespot Gives Dark Messiah Four Nominations

Consumer mega-site Gamespot found Dark Messiah finalist in four award categories for E3 2006.  “Dark Messiah is not to be discounted,” said Greg Kasavin, editor-in-chief of Gamespot.  “We haven't seen first-person combat this good since Condemned: Criminal Origins, and Dark Messiah seems to have a lot more going for it than its brutal good looks. Look to GameSpot for further coverage on this one.”

Finalist for the Best Action Adventure Game

Finalist for the Best Surprise of the Show

Finalist for the Best PC Game

Finalist for the Game of the Show

24.05 Dark Messiah takes Best Action/Adventure Game

Voodoo Extreme awarded Dark Messiah their Best Action/Adventure Game of E3 2006, saying the game “…delivers cutting edge graphics plus also innovative hack-n-slash style gameplay. Coupled with cool physic effects, Dark Messiah really came out of nowhere and knocked our socks off.”  Click here to see the list.

12.05 New E3 demo video of Dark Messiah

Ubisoft just released a 7 minutes HD video presenting the E3 demo. 

You can download it here (395 Megas) : 

Download it on 3DGamers

Download it on Fileshack

11.05 E3 trailer of Dark Messiah

The E3 trailer for Dark Messiah is now live. Click here to see the trailer  (3,5 Mb):

http://media.ubi.com/emea/Dark_Messiah/video/DM_E3_trailer_s.wmv

05.05 “Dark Messiah of Might and Magic” Rises at E3 2006

Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, the AAA title in development from Arkane Studios, and published by Ubisoft, will be demonstrated for the 2006 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) May 10–12, 2006 at the Los Angeles Convention Center in Los Angeles.

Discover a new breed of PC game that will redefine the Action-RPG genre. Powered by an enhanced version of the Source engine from Valve, the second chapter in the new Might & Magic® franchise allows players to experience ferocious combat as an expert warrior, mage, or assassin using a vast array of devastating weapons against vicious creatures in a captivating fantasy environment.