Beginner: Fantasy

Deciding to start with what should be the easiest, you reach out and press Fantasy. The world around you instantly changes, the floor becoming warm sand, and gigantic trees burst before you while a rough ocean appears behind. You take a breath in surprise at how realistic it looks, noticing it even smells like you are on a beach. The sky is clear, with stars just barely appearing against the sun setting.

More words appear, hanging infront of you. First appears the text “You have been marooned on this island. There are many paths to escape, but tread lightly as this place is not uninhabited.” Huh, decent enough backstory, and hopefully allows for a less linear play through. As that text disappears, it is replaced by multiple selections. Apparently this is for customization of your own avatar. It is fairly basic, with two customizations to choose from. The first is which sex you would play as, and the second is race. The list of races each has a basic accompanying description:

• human: hopefully you know what humans are. Play as yourself.
• elf: the long lived agile Forrest dwellers. Play at 75% your height and weight. You make less sound, but are not as strong.
• orc: green skinned warrior race. Play at 125%your height and weight. While you are stronger, you lose stealth and intelligence
• more races available with DLC

You wonder how this all effects the gameplay, figuring at the basics that it would scale the world to the selected race. Looking at the descriptions, at least of those that didn’t require additional purchases, human seemed the most boring but well rounded choice. If you wanted any sort of stealth it would likely behoove you to pick the elf race, and if you wanted more of a brawl orc would be best.