$14.99Is Exanima worth it?
Exanima is worth it if…
- you want melee combat that behaves like real physics, not canned animations
- you enjoy dark, oppressive dungeon crawling where the atmosphere does the talking
- you like games that punish carelessness and reward genuine skill
- you have patience for a steep learning curve and a game that explains very little
- you want an arena mode to sharpen your swordsmanship before risking a run
Screenshots
Combat with real weight behind it
Every fight in Exanima runs on real physics: momentum, forces and collisions are always at work, and every nuance of your input matters to the outcome. You swing a weapon by actually moving it, so a sloppy lunge can throw you off balance while a measured strike lands hard. It is not fast or twitchy, it is tactical: button mashing gets you nowhere, and paying attention gets you far. The damage model tracks accurate collisions and locational protection, so where you hit and what armour covers it decides the result. It takes practice, and the skill cap is close to endless. When a fight finally clicks, it is enormously rewarding.
A dark underworld to explore
Exanima is a dungeon crawler set in an original dark, low fantasy world, and the place itself does a lot of the work. The tone is grim and oppressive, with lighting, sound and pacing built to make you feel the emptiness and the dread of what waits around the corner. You explore, fight and survive while piecing together mysteries from what the environment tells you, and the story stays deliberately ambiguous. The setting is the Underworld of Sui Generis, the larger RPG it is a prelude to, some twenty years before its events. It stands as a complete game on its own.
A simulation that fights back
Everything in Exanima is simulated, and that shows in how plans fall apart. Environments are fully interactive, enemies are driven by complex, smart AI, and the physics means a shove, a stumble or a falling object can change a fight in a second. You build a character through customization and skill-based progression, scavenge what gear you can find, and weigh every risk, because the world is unforgiving and does not hold your hand. Roguelike elements mean runs end and you start again, carrying what you have learned. It can be chaotic in the best way: messy, unpredictable, and often darkly funny when it goes wrong.
Learning the hard way
If punishing, deliberate combat is what you are after, this delivers. Like the best of the genre, Exanima asks you to read enemies, manage your spacing and commit to swings you can actually land, and death sends you back to try again with hard-won knowledge. The arena mode exists specifically to hone your combat skills without the stakes of a run, which is where most people learn to stop flailing and start fighting. Progress comes from you, not from numbers: the skill ceiling is practically infinite, and the game warns you plainly that it is different from anything you have likely played. One honest trade-off: the save system is sparse and unforgiving, so a long run can be lost, and that stings.
What should you know before playing?
Can you play it solo?
Yes. Exanima is a singleplayer game through and through: a solo dungeon crawl with an arena mode for practicing combat on the side. There is no multiplayer in the game as it stands, so everything, exploration, fighting and surviving, is on you and your character.
How hard is the combat to learn?
Expect a real adjustment period. Because combat is genuinely physics driven, your character moves and swings with actual momentum, which feels strange at first and nothing like standard action games. The game itself says it may take practice, but that it is hugely rewarding once it clicks. The arena mode is a good place to learn without losing a run over it.
Is the game finished?
No, and it is worth knowing that going in. Exanima is an early access game and has been for a long time, with more features planned, including ranged combat, new arenas and additional game modes. What is there now is a complete and meaningful experience in its own right, but it is a smaller slice of a bigger vision, and development moves slowly.
