The player controls Sareth, the apprentice of the wizard Phenrig, after he is sent to the city of Stonehelm to accompany an expedition trying to retrieve a powerful artifact known as "The Skull of Shadows".

It adds new levels in the single-player campaign, a revamped multiplayer mode, numerous bug-fixes, and adjustments for the console experience.

[1] Enemies are generally difficult to kill in straightforward combat, although characters developed for this purpose may have an easier time.

Developing a character for resilience and strength for melee combat is still possible and completely viable, but even with proper specialization, successful close combat requires careful application of tactics, timing, accuracy, and properly using a range of close-quarters offensive techniques.

Particularly, the player character's ability to kick enemies and knock them back is emphasized by environmental hazards such as spike racks, open fires, and pitfalls being in almost every combat area, which can often end a fight more efficiently than using only weapon attacks.

Although some enemies will drop usable items when killed, looting in Dark Messiah is mostly a fixed affair.

Dark Messiah features a multiplayer mode where opposing teams battle each other and earn points by performing strategic maneuvers across a large map.

Using his almost god-like powers and supported by his fellow wizards, Sar-Elam cast the Demons out of the world into a limbo of eternal fire.

The magic he summoned failed to create a complete prison; the tiniest of flaws remained in the otherwise impervious barrier, a weakness that allowed Demonic influence to seep into the world during times of a lunar eclipse.

Now called the Skull of Shadows, it was spirited away by those loyal to the goddess Mother Asha, creator of the world and source of all magic.

67 years after Sar-Elam's death, his disciple Sar-Shazzar prophesied that a half-demon, half-human child would one day be born; a walker between worlds who would be known as the "Dark Messiah" and would use the relics of the Seventh Dragon to shatter the Demons' prison forever.

969 years after Sar-Elam's death, after the young king Nicolai Griffin was killed by a demon renegade, the demon sovereign, Kha-Beleth impregnated Nicolai's former-fiancée, Isabel Greyhound, and before she could have been saved, she gave birth to the Dark Messiah.

The protagonist of Dark Messiah is a young man named Sareth, who is under the tutelage of the Wizard Phenrig.

Menelag and Phenrig have certain "mutual interests" that involve finding an artifact called the Skull of Shadows.

Stripped of all his belongings, Sareth uses the demon form to fight off the Orc guards as he recovers his items.

Regardless of the player's choice, Sareth discovers Arantir's plans to sacrifice the entire population of Stonehelm in order to permanently seal Kha-Beleth's prison.

If Leanna was rescued in the previous chapter, Sareth may visit the sanctuary in order to purge Xana from his body.

It refined the first-person melee combat of Arx Fatalis with a lesser emphasis on role-playing elements.

However, since then the Bundesprüfstelle has declared, after an examination in February 2008, that the uncensored version of the game, though heavily relying on melee combat and displaying violent content, is not harmful to minors, as equal importance is laid on the setting in a fantasy world and the elaborated storyline.

[4][5] Game Informer praised the PC version for the sheer fun factor and beautiful graphics.

[11] In contrast, GameSpot said that it had many technical issues, repetitive gameplay, predictable story, and poor multiplayer.

[31] In an interview on 15 August 2012, with Dutch gamesite Gamer.nl, Might & Magic creative director Erwan le Breton mentioned they were discussing a possible sequel to Dark Messiah.