Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura

Last updated: January 10, 2026

Overview

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura is a groundbreaking role-playing game that merges Tolkienian high fantasy with Victorian-era steampunk, creating a unique world where “magic and technology hold equal sway, and an adventurer might just as easily wield a flintlock pistol as a flaming sword.”¹ Released in August 2001, it was the debut title from Troika Games, a studio founded by former Interplay Entertainment developers Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason D. Anderson—the core creative team behind the original Fallout games.² The game “directly continues the role-playing tradition of Fallout games, creating a similar RPG experience in its own original world.”³

The game is set in a fantasy realm that has undergone an industrial revolution, pitting “technological devices such as steam engines and pistols against ancient ways of magic.”⁴ This magic/technology dichotomy forms the central mechanical and thematic tension of the game, as “technology and magic do not mix in our game because they are polar opposites with respect to natural physical law.”⁵ Players can create characters ranging from “Half-Orc Air Elementalists to Human Pirates and Dwarven Shotgun-wielding Necromancers,”⁶ with unprecedented freedom allowing them to kill any NPC—including major quest characters—and still complete the game.⁷

Despite launching with numerous technical issues—a hallmark of Troika’s ambitious projects—Arcanum earned critical acclaim and multiple awards, including PC Gamer’s Role-Playing Game of the Year.² It “retains a cult following similar to its cousin Fallout 1, and is additionally often very favorably compared to Baldur’s Gate II and Planescape: Torment.”⁸ The game remains beloved by RPG enthusiasts who appreciate its “phenomenally well-written” narrative and extraordinary character creation depth, even if “its comparatively mediocre level design, poor balance, myriad bugs and clunky combat severely hamper its enjoyability.”⁹

Game Info

Developer: Troika Games² Designer: Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, Jason D. Anderson² Publisher: Sierra On-Line² Engine: Custom 2D Engine¹⁰ Platforms: Windows² Release Year: 2001 Series: Arcanum Protagonist: The Living One Sierra Lineage: Sierra Published

Story Summary

The story begins dramatically aboard the IFS Zephyr, a passenger airship traveling across the continent of Arcanum. Without warning, the Zephyr is attacked by two mysterious figures in flying machines and crashes into a mountainside, leaving only the player character as a survivor.¹¹ A dying gnome with his last breath utters “find the boy” and presses a silver ring into the player’s hands, setting in motion an epic adventure across a world in turmoil.¹² This crash site serves as the starting point for what becomes one of the most open-ended RPG narratives ever created.

The player, dubbed “The Living One,” soon discovers they have become entangled in the religious beliefs of the Panarii faith, whose scriptures prophesy that “The Living One shall be reborn on wings of fire.”¹³ This mysterious identity, combined with the gnome’s cryptic dying words, leads the player across the industrialized cities and magical wilderness of Arcanum. The investigation eventually reveals a conspiracy involving the powerful industrialist Gilbert Bates—a character who serves as a clear reference to Bill Gates¹⁴—the ancient elven civilization, and a threat that reaches beyond the mortal world into the realm known as the Void.

The narrative encompasses political intrigue between the technological and magical factions, racial tensions between humans, elves, dwarves, and other races, and philosophical questions about progress and tradition. The main antagonist, Kerghan, is notably complex—he “explains his motives in great detail, invoking the arguments that even several of the hero’s followers find to be legitimate.”⁸ The game can be completed in remarkably different ways: entirely pacifist, entirely violent, or through diplomacy, and under specific conditions, the final confrontation with Kerghan can even be resolved without combat.²

The game world features an in-game date system beginning on January 1, 1885, and contains “vast amounts of political backstory in the game’s libraries, newspapers, and legends.”⁸ Newspapers feature headlines like “Technology Protest Claims 3 Lives,” reflecting the world’s ongoing conflict between tradition and progress.¹⁵

Gameplay

Interface and Controls

Arcanum employs an isometric perspective with a tile-based graphical system featuring real-time lighting effects and a day/night cycle.¹⁵ The interface uses mouse-driven controls with keyboard shortcuts, designed so that “nothing important is more than two mouse clicks away.”⁵ The game offers three distinct combat modes: real-time, semi-turn-based, and fully turn-based, switchable with the spacebar.³ Combat in real-time mode was criticized as “too fast and confusing,” while turn-based combat could feel “too slow and plodding.”¹⁵

Structure and Progression

The game world is entirely open from nearly the beginning, allowing players to “walk anywhere in the world.”⁷ The main quest can be pursued in various orders, with multiple entry points and contingencies built into every quest to account for the unprecedented player freedom.⁷ Characters earn experience points primarily based on damage inflicted rather than kills, and gain one character point per level (two on levels divisible by five), reaching a maximum of 64 character points at level 50.¹⁶

Major Locations:

• Crash Site – Starting location after the Zephyr disaster
• Shrouded Hills – First town encountered
• Tarant – Major industrial city and technological hub
• Caladon – Elegant capital with political intrigue
• Qintarra – Elven forest city
• The Wheel Clan – Dwarven underground settlement
• Tulla – Hidden city of mages
• Isle of Despair – Penal colony (a reference to Black Isle Studios)¹⁷
• Vendigroth Ruins – Ancient technological civilization’s remains
• The Void – Extra-dimensional final area

Puzzles and Mechanics

The central gameplay mechanic is the magic/technology aptitude system, where “the more an inhabitant knows of magic, the less they’re able to use a technology-based item effectively.”¹ This creates meaningful character building choices—players must commit to one path or the other. Magic is tied to fatigue instead of mana, and dwarves “make lousy magicians because it costs them twice as much Fatigue as any other race to cast a spell.”¹⁸

Character creation offers extraordinary depth with 8 playable races (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Gnome, Half-Elf, Half-Orc, Half-Ogre), 64 character backgrounds, 16 colleges of magic with 80 total spells, and 8 technology disciplines with 7 degrees each, allowing 56 different schematics for item creation.¹⁶¹⁹ Female characters are limited to only four races (Human, Elf, Half-Elf, and Half-Orc).²⁰ The game features extensive dialogue trees where responses and options change based on character stats—notably, “This entire game is rewritten for you if your intelligence score is very low (even the journal is rewritten), much like Fallout 2.”²¹

NPCs follow realistic day/night schedules, store inventories change daily with random items from preset pools, and almost every object in the world can be damaged and destroyed—“meaning the player can break down doors or even walls if he is missing a key to a room.”⁵

Reception

Contemporary Reviews

Arcanum received generally positive reviews upon release, with critics praising its ambition and depth while noting significant technical problems. GameSpot awarded 7.3/10, calling it a “captivating and immersive role-playing experience” while lamenting that “there’s nothing flattering about the dated, washed-out, low-resolution graphics.”² IGN gave 8.7/10, noting that “the story is rich and complex.”² PC Gamer US awarded 90/100 and their Editor’s Choice Award, stating that “Arcanum greatly exceeded our expectations, optimizing everything we hold dear about roleplaying on the computer.”²

GameSpy scored it 89/100, while GameZone gave 90/100 with an Editor’s Choice designation.² Next Generation magazine’s Carla Hacker awarded 4/5 stars, describing it as “an in-depth and engaging role-playing game that deviates from the traditional fantasy setting.”² Computer Games Magazine named it their Best Role-Playing Game of 2001 (tied with Wizardry 8) and awarded Best Writing, calling it “phenomenally well-written.”² The Electric Playground declared it “the most diverse and open-ended RPG to date.”²

However, some reviewers were less impressed. RPGamer’s Simon Seamann gave only 2.0/5, stating that “in many ways, the battle system is Arcanum’s biggest failure” while acknowledging that “Arcanum practically oozes flavor, between the setting, Industrial Revolution-style dialogue, and general description of the environment.”²² GameRevolution gave a B- grade.² Game Informer scored it 6.75/10.²

Modern Assessment

Modern retrospectives have been mixed but often favorable. One comprehensive fan review described Arcanum as “a failed masterpiece”³—a sentiment echoed by many who appreciate the game’s ambition despite its flaws. RPGreats noted that it was “among first to do it legitimately well, providing a rewarding, fun and substantially differing experience depending on what character you begin with and what choices you make throughout,” though it “stops well short of the heights of greatness that the Fallout games reached.”⁹

A Grindingcast retrospective rated it 75/100, describing it as “what Fallout 3 would have been if the series had maintained the 2D style” and calling it “an above-average RPG, but with flaws that prevent it from reaching its full potential.”¹⁹ The soundtrack was recognized in 2012 when Forbes listed it among the 12 best video game soundtracks of all time based on reader votes.²

Aggregate Scores:

• Metacritic: 81/100²
• GameRankings: 78%²
• MobyGames Critics Average: 79%¹⁷
• IMDb: 8.9/10 (461 ratings)²³
• Discogs (Soundtrack): 4.57/5²⁴
• Amazon Customer Reviews: 3.8/5 stars (149 ratings)¹

Development

Origins

Troika Games was founded in April 1998 by Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson after they departed Interplay Entertainment, “dissatisfied with company direction.”⁹ The three had been instrumental in creating the original Fallout, and sought to continue making deep, open-ended role-playing games. Their vision for Arcanum was to create “a world which contains a story rather than a story set in a world,”⁵ emphasizing player agency and systemic interaction.

The concept merged fantasy with the Industrial Revolution, creating what designer Tim Cain described as a setting where “technology has been rising for 70 years, and magic is in decline.”⁵ The team drew inspiration from various sources, ultimately creating what fans describe as having “a steampunk meets Fallout meets Lord of the Rings meets Shadowrun feel.”¹⁰

Production

Development proceeded with a remarkably small team—developer Chad Moore revealed that “it was a monumental achievement by a very small group of devs (there were only 10 of us!)”⁷ The developers “started thinking about the sequel while they were still working on the first part,”²⁵ planning a 3D follow-up that would never materialize.

The game’s open-ended design created significant scripting challenges. “Every quest had multiple entry points, dependencies, and contingencies” due to the design philosophy that players could “kill any NPC—which included major quest NPCs and followers.”⁷ Additional writing was contracted to Edward R. G. Mortimer, described by Tim Cain as “a designer from the Judges Guild—a company that made modules for D&D and AD&D back in the 70’s and early 80’s. Mortimer wrote some really good modules for them, so Tim contracted him to do some additional writing for Arcanum.”⁷

Public beta testing commenced in September 2000,² with an initially planned release of “September 2000”⁵ that was ultimately pushed to August 2001.

Development Credits:²⁶

• Project Leaders: Jason D. Anderson, Leonard Boyarsky, Timothy Cain
• Designers: Sissie Chang, Tiffany Chu, Scott Jacobson, Cynthia Komm
• Composer: Ben Houge
• Voice Direction: Chad Moore, Jeff Pobst, Leonard Boyarsky²⁷
• Voice Recording: Waves Sound Recorders, Los Angeles, CA²⁶
• Music Recording: Studio X, Seattle, WA⁴
• Cover Art: Glenn Fabry²⁸

Technical Achievements

The game featured a custom 2D engine with several notable capabilities: dynamic lighting with shadows, a full day/night cycle, destructible environments, and both real-time and turn-based combat modes.⁵ The lighting system allowed players to affect the environment—“streetlights can be shot out and have hit points”²⁹—and windows could be used as exits.²⁹

The game shipped with WorldEdit, an editor allowing players to create custom maps, campaigns, and NPCs.² A free mod pack containing six new adventures was released on January 7, 2002.¹⁷

Technical Specifications

CD-ROM Version:³⁰

• OS: Windows 95/98/2000/ME
• Processor: Pentium II 300 MHz (Pentium III 500 MHz recommended)
• RAM: 64 MB (256 MB recommended)
• Video: DirectX compatible 8 MB video card (16 MB recommended)
• CD-ROM: 4X
• Disk Space: 1.2 GB
• Sound: Windows compatible sound card
• Optional: IPX/TCP/IP, 33.6 Kbps modem for multiplayer

Graphics:³¹

• Resolution: 800x600 native, 16-bit color
• Lighting: Dynamic real-time lighting with shadows
• Day/Night Cycle: Yes

Cut Content

A sequel titled “Journey to the Centre of Arcanum” was planned using Valve’s Source Engine but was cancelled “due to disputes between Sierra and Valve.”² The planned sequel would have featured the player character being “hired by the wife of Franklin Payne, known from the first part. Her husband built a large machine capable of drilling deep into the earth and went on an expedition in it to search for the remains of ancient civilizations.”²⁵ The game was to take place largely underground and was inspired by Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth, featuring “underground civilizations, dinosaurs, and special ore that would enable crafting items where magic and technology could be combined without conflict.”²⁵

Troika Games dissolved on September 30, 2005, ending any possibility of an official sequel.²

Version History

Version	Date	Platform	Notes
1.0	August 21, 2001	Windows	Initial North American release2
1.0	August 24, 2001	Windows	European release2
1.0.7.4	October 2001	Windows	Final official patch2
Collector’s Edition	October 1, 2001	Windows	Special edition release17
GOG.com	Unknown	Windows	Digital re-release
Steam	August 29, 2016	Windows	Digital re-release32

Unofficial Patches:³³

Version	Date	Creator	Notes
v091225	December 27, 2009	Drog Black Tooth	Major community patch
v2.0.2	August 16, 2019	Drog Black Tooth	Comprehensive fix bundle with high resolution support

Technical Issues

The game launched with numerous compatibility and stability problems—typical of Troika’s ambitious projects. Known issues included incompatibility with Voodoo2 video cards, driver conflicts with nVidia Detonator3, and SecuROM copy protection that “caused conflicts with sound cards and CD-ROM drives.”² Modern systems face additional challenges including “loading screen freezing on multi-core CPUs” and DirectDraw compatibility issues on Windows 8 and later.³⁴

Critical gameplay bugs included Kerghan, the final boss, dealing “very small melee damage due to bug,”⁸ and the Looking Glass Rifle damage bug that “makes it deal 40-40 damage in unpatched version vs intended 10-30.”⁸ Character-related bugs included “Virgil not dying at the Sobbing Onion”³⁵ and Magnus having “mood swing bugs before patches.”⁸

Community consensus is that “this patch was basically essential to my enjoyment when I played this game”³³—referring to Drog Black Tooth’s Unofficial Arcanum Patch, which “eliminates loads of bugs, inconsistencies, and discrepancies. Restores, adds, changes, and improves some content.”³³

Easter Eggs and Trivia

Arcanum contains numerous references and hidden content:¹⁷

• Bill Gates Reference: The character Gilbert Bates is “a clear allusion to Microsoft founder” Bill Gates, with rival Cedric Appleby referencing Steve Jobs and Apple.¹⁷
• Black Isle Studios Reference: When asking about “Isle of Despair” location, NPCs respond “You mean the Black Isle? I’m not quite sure…”—referencing Troika’s former colleagues at Interplay’s Black Isle Studios.¹⁷
• Fallout Reference: In Tulla, there is a reference involving “a student in mechanized armor who ventured into the Wastes.”¹⁷
• Monty Python Reference: The Stillwater giant quest contains a reference to Monty Python and the Holy Grail.¹⁷
• The Fog Reference: The Elizabeth Dane ship mentioned to Prince Auguste Farad references John Carpenter’s film The Fog, and was later referenced again in Troika’s Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines.³⁶
• Hidden Fan Graveyard: A graveyard at coordinates W: 1060 S: 809 contains tombstones dedicated to “Arcanum’s most diehard fans.”¹⁷
• Recipe in Manual: The manual includes “Grandma Cookhill’s Three Bowl Bread recipe” following a Fallout tradition.¹⁷
• Left-Handed Characters: “Everyone in Arcanum is left-handed.”²⁶
• Zephyr Design: The Zephyr airship interior was “designed like Titanic.”⁸

Loading Screen Stories: Developer Chad Moore wrote “An Unfortunate Affair,” which appears on loading screens under the byline “Sir Chadwick Moore.” The story’s characters—Perriman Smythe, Sebastian, Willoughsby, and Lorham—were implemented as recruitable followers and NPCs in the game.⁷

Multiple Endings

The game offers extraordinary flexibility in how it can be completed:

• Pacifist Completion: The game can be completed entirely without violence²
• Violent Completion: Alternatively, every NPC can be killed and the game still completed²
• Kerghan Resolution: The final boss confrontation can be resolved without combat “under certain conditions”²
• Character Aptitude: Different endings based on magic vs. technology alignment

Voice Cast

Character	Voice Actor
Virgil	Rino Romano
Raven	Tasia Valenza
Simeon Tor	Dwight Schultz
Silver Lady	Diane Pershing
K’an Hua	Kay E. Kuter
Z’an Al’urin	Philece Sampler
Loghaire Thunder Stone	Barry Dennen
Kerghan	Jeff Coopwood
Gilbert Bates	Nick Jameson
Magnus	Julian West
Arronax / Gar / Joachim / Nasrudin	Jim Ward
Franklin Payne	Michael J. Gough
Torian Kel	Mark Klastorin
M’in Gorad	Giselle Loren
Geoffrey Tarellond Ashe	Richard Tatum
Narrator	Kay E. Kuter

Voice direction by Chad Moore, Jeff Pobst, and Leonard Boyarsky; recorded at Waves Sound Recorders, Los Angeles, CA.²⁶²⁷

Soundtrack

The soundtrack stands as one of the game’s most celebrated elements. Composed by Ben Houge, who called it “my most significant soundtrack project to date,”⁴ the score comprises “more than 50 minutes of music in total.”⁴ The music concept was “a sort of musical anachronism: a score centered around the styles and textures of Renaissance, medieval, and early music, but performed by a characteristic ensemble of the Victorian era, the string quartet.”⁴

The Seattle Times’ Melinda Bargreen praised it: “The Arcanum suite, recorded by four exceptional string players from the Seattle Symphony, is sophisticated enough to pass muster on its own as an extended string quartet.”⁴ Community members call it “one of the greatest video game soundtracks ever.”³⁷

Recording Credits:³⁸

• Violin I: Leonid Keylin (Seattle Symphony)
• Violin II: Kathy Stern (Seattle Symphony)
• Viola: Vincent Comer (Seattle Symphony)
• Cello: Susan Williams (Seattle Symphony)
• Recording/Mixing: Sam Hofstedt and John Burton at Studio X, Seattle, WA
• Percussion Overdubs: Mike Caviezel at Sierra Studios, Bellevue, WA
• Producers: Ben Houge, Jeff Pobst

The soundtrack was provided on Computer Gaming World’s May 2001 demo CD, and Sierra made sheet music freely available on the official website—“a first of its kind promotional move.”⁴

Legacy

Sales and Commercial Impact

Arcanum performed moderately well commercially. It “debuted at fourth place in NPD Intelect’s latest list of best-selling games” for the week of August 19-25, 2001, with an average retail price of $49.{[}^{r}ef-39]BythefirstweekofNovember2001,thegamehadsold69,522unitsdomestically.{[}^{r}ef-2]Totalsalesreached234,000copiesgenerating$8.8 million in revenue by February 2005.²

Awards:²

• PC Gamer US Role-Playing Game of the Year 2001
• Computer Games Magazine Best Role-Playing Game 2001 (tied with Wizardry 8)
• Computer Games Magazine Best Writing 2001
• IGN Role-Playing Game of the Year 2001
• RPG Vault Role-Playing Game of the Year 2001
• The Electric Playground Role-Playing Game of the Year 2001
• IGN Editors’ Choice
• GameZone Editors’ Choice
• PC Gamer Editor’s Choice Award

Official Modules

The game shipped with WorldEdit and the Vormantown module, “a standalone mini adventure that came with the game. In that particular one you are tasked to solve problems dwarves and elves are having.”³⁹ Additional official modules were released:³⁹

• Buried Secrets
• Deathmatch
• Dusty Dunes
• Hellgate
• Time
• Woodmir Race
• The Lost Dungeon of Souls (described as “ridiculously tough” and “bit Diablo-like”)³⁹

Fan Projects

The community has maintained Arcanum through extensive patching and modding. The Unofficial Arcanum Patch by Drog Black Tooth became the standard way to play, fixing critical bugs and adding high resolution support.³³ The Terra-Arcanum fan community continues to host guides, tools, and discussions.⁴⁰

The Multiverse Edition mod goes beyond patching: “It’s not merely a patching project. It’s a true mod.”⁴¹ Modern compatibility guides help players run the game on Windows 10 and 11 with proper DirectDraw fixes, though these are “not compatible with Steam overlay.”³¹

Official WON multiplayer servers were shut down on November 1, 2008.¹⁷

Related Publications

• Official Strategy Guide: Prima Games, 240 pages, published August 30, 2000, rated 4.7/5 stars. Described as providing “great breakdown of the character builds and how to proceed on each quest.”⁴²
• Manual: Includes gameplay instructions, lore, and “Grandma Cookhill’s Three Bowl Bread recipe”¹⁷
• Quick Reference Card: Available as PDF³⁰
• World Map: Included with game³⁰

Critical Perspective

Arcanum represents one of the most ambitious attempts to create a truly open-ended role-playing experience, “since their inception, CRPGs have tried with varying degrees of success to create an open-ended, choice-driven roleplaying experience. Arcanum: of Steamworks & Magick Obscura is among first to do it legitimately well.”⁹ Its influence can be seen in later RPGs that emphasized player freedom and consequence.

The game’s troubled technical state became emblematic of Troika’s legacy—“Troika’s games were full of great ideas, but they all debuted in a technical state that left a lot to be desired.”²⁵ This pattern would repeat with Temple of Elemental Evil (2003) and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004), all games that achieved cult status despite significant launch problems.

The magic/technology dichotomy—where “This magic/technology dichotomy divides Arcanum as forcefully as religion split England under Charles I”⁴³—created meaningful mechanical tension but also balance issues. Critics noted that “the game is so unbalanced that the purported ‘Use magic or technology’ system may as well be ‘use magic or die.‘”⁴³ Despite this, the concept influenced later games exploring similar themes.

As one fan summarized: “At the end of the day Arcanum is one of those ever so rare games. The ones that are flawed, but for every flaw there is also something that overrides it. And makes you forgot all the flaws.”³ Twenty years later, the game continues to attract new players and inspire deep affection from its dedicated community.

Downloads

Purchase / Digital Stores

• GOG.com
• Steam

Download / Preservation

• Internet Archive – Soundtrack

Patches & Mods

• Unofficial Arcanum Patch v2.0.2 – ModDB

Manuals & Extras

• Manual PDF – Sierra Help (4.7 MB)
• Quick Reference Card PDF (277 KB)
• Map PDF (253 KB)

Series Continuity

Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura was intended as the first entry in a franchise, but remained a standalone title after Troika Games closed in 2005. The planned sequel “Journey to the Centre of Arcanum” never progressed beyond the concept phase.²⁵ The game exists as a singular achievement—an ambitious fusion of fantasy and steampunk that, despite its flaws, created a world rich enough to support the extensive lore found in its libraries, newspapers, and legends.

The spiritual lineage connects to Fallout (1997) and Fallout 2 (1998) through shared developers and design philosophy. Troika’s later titles—The Temple of Elemental Evil (2003) and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (2004)—continued the studio’s pattern of ambitious, deeply-flawed-yet-beloved role-playing games.

References

Footnotes

1. Amazon – Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura – product description, customer reviews, publication date ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. Wikipedia – Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura – release dates, developers, publishers, review scores, awards, sales data, trivia ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵ ↩¹⁶ ↩¹⁷ ↩¹⁸ ↩¹⁹ ↩²⁰ ↩²¹ ↩²² ↩²³ ↩²⁴ ↩²⁵ ↩²⁶ ↩²⁷ ↩²⁸ ↩²⁹ ↩³⁰ ↩³¹ ↩³²

3. MobyGames – User Review by Unicorn Lynx – gameplay analysis, Fallout comparison ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

4. Ben Houge – Arcanum Soundtrack – composer notes, recording details, Seattle Times quote ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

5. Internet Archive – Tim Cain Interview (2000) – design philosophy, technical features, release plans ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

6. Amazon Customer Review – Mike M. – character creation variety quote ↩

7. Reddit – Chad Moore Interview – team size, design philosophy, Edward Mortimer details ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

8. TV Tropes – Arcanum YMMV – bugs, trivia, cultural references ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

9. RPGreats – Arcanum Review – retrospective analysis, studio history ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

10. Destructoid Archive – Best Overlooked RPG – genre analysis, technical issues, setting description ↩ ↩²

11. Lilura1 – Arcanum Walkthrough – opening sequence, gameplay mechanics ↩

12. [Consolidated Sources] – dying gnome quote “find the boy” ↩

13. Lilura1 – Arcanum Walkthrough – Panarii prophecy quote ↩

14. Grindingcast – Arcanum Review – Gill Bates reference ↩

15. Eurogamer Archive – Arcanum Preview – graphics critique, newspaper headline, technical details ↩ ↩² ↩³

16. IGN – Arcanum Walkthrough – character points, races, level cap ↩ ↩²

17. MobyGames – Arcanum Main Page – trivia, easter eggs, bugs, multiplayer shutdown ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

18. Metzomagic – Arcanum Walkthrough – dwarf magic penalty ↩

19. Grindingcast – Arcanum Review – spell count, schematic count, rating ↩ ↩²

20. RPGnet – Arcanum Review – female race restrictions ↩

21. eBay – Arcanum Listing – low intelligence dialogue rewrite ↩

22. RPGamer Archive – Arcanum Review – battle system critique, flavor praise ↩

23. IMDb – Arcanum Search Results – user rating ↩

24. Discogs – Arcanum Soundtrack – soundtrack rating ↩

25. Game Pressure – Tim Cain Sequel Interview – sequel plans, Source engine, plot details ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

26. MobyGames Archive – Arcanum Credits – full credits, trivia, recording location ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

27. Behind The Voice Actors – Arcanum – voice cast, voice directors ↩ ↩²

28. ComicArtFans Archive – Glenn Fabry Gallery – cover artist credit ↩

29. GameSpot – Arcanum Preview – destructible objects, lighting system ↩ ↩²

30. Sierra Help – Arcanum Help – system requirements, downloadable resources ↩ ↩² ↩³

31. Steam Community – UAP Guide – resolution details, Windows compatibility ↩ ↩²

32. Steam Store – Arcanum Search – Steam release date ↩

33. ModDB – Unofficial Arcanum Patch – patch details, community quotes ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

34. PCGamingWiki – Arcanum – technical issues, system requirements ↩

35. GameBanshee – UAP Release News – Virgil bug, patch creator notes ↩

36. GameFAQs – Arcanum Trivia – Elizabeth Dane reference ↩

37. Steam Community – Arcanum Soundtrack Mod – community soundtrack praise ↩

38. Internet Archive – Arcanum Soundtrack – complete recording credits, track listing ↩

39. GOG Forum Archive – Vormantown Module – module descriptions, player experiences ↩ ↩² ↩³

40. Terra-Arcanum – Manual Index – game mechanics reference ↩

41. Arcanum Fandom Wiki – Modding and Patches – Multiverse edition description ↩

42. Amazon – Arcanum Strategy Guide – guide details, customer reviews ↩

43. [Consolidated Sources – DailyRadar/Amazon Reviews] – magic/technology dichotomy quotes, balance criticism ↩ ↩²