ELEX

Lore & Background

The game's story follows Jax, an Alb Commander whose aircraft is shot down, causing most of the Elex to clear from his body and leaving him weak but free-minded. He becomes involved in conflicts among the factions of Magalan: the Berserkers, who reject technology and purify Elex into Mana; the Outlaws, who seek profit and use Elex for drugs; and the Clerics, who worship a god called Calaan and are technologically advanced. These Free People fight each other but share a common enemy, the Albs—ex-Clerics who consume Elex directly, losing emotions and skin pigmentation, and serve the Hybrid.

Jax discovers through audio logs and old documents that the pre-impact government had secretly commissioned Operation Calaan, a project to send select people into space on a rocket nicknamed 'Calaan,' which later became mythologized as a deity by the Clerics. The operation failed and the rocket never launched. Confronting the Hybrid, Jax learns it is actually Dr. Dawkins, the former leader of Operation Calaan, who survived the comet blast in a protective chamber and was influenced by an alien species speaking through Elex. After defeating the Hybrid, a strange shape appears in the sky as Jax prepares for the aliens' arrival.

Reader's Guide

ELEX is significant as a distinctive entry in the action role-playing genre, blending science fiction and fantasy elements in a post-apocalyptic setting. Its open world, third-person perspective, and interconnected quest system that supports player choices offer a complex narrative experience. The game's factions—Berserkers, Clerics, and Outlaws—provide varied gameplay styles, from magic to technology, while the protagonist's moral choices between cold logic and emotional altruism shape the story. Despite receiving mixed or average reviews on Metacritic, ELEX developed a dedicated following and led to a direct sequel, ELEX 2, announced in June 2021 and released in March 2022. The game's legacy lies in its uncompromising design and the depth of its world-building, which explores themes of resource conflict, evolution, and alien intervention.

Did You Know?

• ELEX was announced during Gamescom 2015, where Piranha Bytes and Nordic Games confirmed their partnership.
• The game's protagonist, Jax, is an Alb Commander who loses most of his Elex after his aircraft is shot down.
• The Hybrid is revealed to be Dr. Dawkins, the former leader of the failed Operation Calaan.
• A sequel, ELEX 2, was announced in June 2021 and released in March 2022.

The Shattered World of Magalan

When a comet struck the planet Magalan, it didn't just destroy civilization—it unleashed a mysterious, extraordinarily potent substance called Elex into the environment. The survivors who endured the cataclysm fractured into competing factions, each developing a distinct philosophy around how to harness the resource. The Berserkers spurn all technology, channeling Elex into a form they call Mana through enormous terraforming organisms known as World Hearts, which they believe mend the wounded earth. The Outlaws care little for ideology; they scavenge whatever scrap they can find, weaponize it, and synthesize Elex into potent drugs to fuel their pursuit of profit and personal liberty. The Clerics, the most technologically sophisticated of the three, anchor their society in faith in a deity called Calaan and believe their religious framework is the key to restoring the world. Beneath all three, however, lurks a darker force: the Albs, former Clerics who abandoned their faith to consume Elex directly, sacrificing their emotions and skin pigmentation for raw power under the blind command of an entity called the Hybrid.

Jax and the Hybrid's Gambit

The story follows Jax, an Alb Commander whose aircraft is shot down over a mountain, leaving him unconscious for days. During that time, most of the Elex drains from his system, stripping his enhanced abilities and freeing his mind from the Hybrid's influence. Waking weak and disoriented in unfamiliar territory, Jax sets out to uncover who attacked him and what became of his former life. Along the way, he stumbles upon audio logs and archived documents revealing that Magalan's pre-impact government had foreseen the comet and secretly commissioned Operation Calaan, a last-ditch evacuation led by Dr. Dawkins aboard a rocket the Clerics would later deify. The mission collapsed under mismanagement and panic; the vehicle never left the ground. The Hybrid's true identity is eventually unmasked as Dawkins himself, sealed in a protective chamber during the blast and subsequently corrupted by Elex. A mysterious alien species communicated through the substance, instructing him to amass all Elex so the Albs could evolve and survive. Though Jax ultimately defeats the Hybrid, the dying entity fires an unknown signal into space, and a vast, unidentifiable shape materializes overhead—leaving Jax to prepare the world for an arrival no one can yet name.

Blades, Bullets, and Branching Paths

ELEX casts the player as a third-person protagonist navigating a sprawling post-apocalyptic open world where futuristic locations sit alongside medieval-style settings. Combat blends swords and firearms from the outset, with magical abilities unlocking later in the progression. Mutated creatures populate the hostile landscape, and the interconnected quest system ensures that player decisions ripple across faction relationships and story outcomes. A central design pillar is allegiance: the player may pledge loyalty to the Berserkers, the Clerics, or the Outlaws, each offering a fundamentally different relationship with Elex and with the world's problems. The narrative further branches based on whether Jax retains his cold, logical Alb identity or embraces a more emotional, altruistic path by siding with the Free People on ideological grounds. The game has been described as edgy, dark, uncompromising, and complex—a characterization that captures the tonal blend of science fiction and fantasy woven throughout its environments and storytelling.

From Gamescom Announcement to Sequel

Piranha Bytes and Nordic Games first confirmed their partnership on ELEX at Gamescom 2015, where the project also earned a cover feature in the German publication GameStar. The studio developed the title using its proprietary Genome game engine. THQ Nordic handled publishing, and the game launched worldwide on 17 October 2017 across PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Windows. Despite the ambitious scope, critical reception landed in the mixed or average range on Metacritic, a result that tempered expectations for the studio's next move. Nevertheless, the foundation proved durable enough to sustain a follow-up: in June 2021, THQ Nordic and Piranha Bytes announced ELEX 2 as a direct sequel. It arrived in March 2022, expanding platform availability to include PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S alongside the original-generation hardware and PC, signaling the studio's intent to keep building on the Magalan universe it had established.