The game takes place on the world of , where the sun has mysteriously vanished, plunging the surface into an eternal, lethal winter.

: The underground world is claustrophobic, dark, and highly detailed, featuring lived-in settlements and sprawling, non-linear caverns.

: To survive, the races of the world—Humans, Orcs, Ratmen, Goblins, and Trolls—migrated into the abandoned dwarven mines of Arx .