The Longest Journey

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The Longest Journey

Developers
	Funcom
Engines
	Stark
	ResidualVM
	ScummVM
Release dates
Windows	November 19, 1999
Reception
Metacritic	91
Taxonomy
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Cinematic camera
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Adventure
Art styles	Realistic, Pre-rendered graphics
Themes	Europe, Sci-fi, Fantasy, Medieval
Series	The Longest Journey

The Longest Journey
The Longest Journey	1999
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey	2006
Dreamfall Chapters	2014

Key points

Can be played on ScummVM.

Performance is fairly poor on modern operating systems, with multiple issues with the way that the game window is rendered and movie compatibility.

Fixes listed on this article make the game playable, but the experience is relatively unfriendly.

General information

Official forums

Official forums support section

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GamersGate
GOG.com		1.42; includes manual, wallpapers, guide, soundtrack, avatars, and artwork
Green Man Gaming
Humble Store
Steam		1.61

Demos are available from ScummVM.

GOG.com and Steam

Both digital releases of the game have major compatibility issues and require tweaking to get around them.

Retail

4 CD-ROMs, a 2 CD as well as a DVD re-release has been made.

Essential improvements

Patches

Patch 1.61 adds an external configuration tool along with some bug fixes. This patch is for retail releases only.

Steam version already includes this patch.

Patch can be forced on other versions by using an archive utility to extract the files. Just to have audio, you must convert iss files to ogg (audio only) format using vorbis codec and rename format to ovs. That's working!

The only problem is the lack of character encoding other than the English version.

Peixoto's patch

Allows high resolution and super sampling anti aliasing

Fixes the white square over the quit game dialog

Works with the GOG and DVD versions, but not with the original 3 CDs version

Game-specific utilities

ScummVM

You can run The Longest Journey with ScummVM regular builds. Daily builds are no longer required as of October 2021; however, be wary of any remaining issues. This remains the only way to run the game on OS X, Linux, and other operating systems. Link here.

The Longest Journey HD mod

The Longest Journey HD mod is an AI upscale mod for TLJ. The mod includes neural network upscaled backgrounds and sprites, redrawn user interface and it works on all modern systems without any issues of the original game.

This mod uses ResidualVM framework to load new assets. The development of ResidualVM has been stopped, and the project's functionality is now a part of ScummVM. ResidualVM remains a working solution, but if any bugs occur when running the mod (e.g. incorrect word wrapping in menus with "..." replacing parts of labels), try using one of the latest ScummVM daily builds instead.

The download link can be found here.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Funcom\TLJ <path-to-game>\
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/6310/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	%APPDATA%\Funcom\TLJ <path-to-game>\Save %APPDATA%\The Longest Journey\Save
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/6310/pfx/

Save game data location can be changed, see change save game data location.

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

ScummVM 2.1+ supports cloud saves on third-party cloud storage services. See the ScummVM documentation for details.

Video

Launcher options

In-game options

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Controller types

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Voice, Music, Sound Effects
Surround sound
Subtitles		Some subtitles mismatch audio.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German				Retail only; download for digital releases.
Italian				Retail only.
Polish				Retail and GOG.com only.
Spanish				Retail only. Download: Text, videos and voices.

Issues fixed

Movie and graphics problems

Issue with not being able to view the Bink-encoded movies.

Issue with not being able to display a game window (black screen).

The fixes work for most people, but others have persistent problems and cannot get the game to work properly

Versions prior to 1.61 do not have a separate Configure.exe utility.

(These versions have options presented when the game is launched instead.)

Fix: High Performance Power Plan
This fix only applies to laptops. Change the power settings to 'High Performance' in the Control Panel.

Crash at Police Station

On some graphics cards, the game will crash upon entering the Police Station.

Fix: GOG.com version
Download PoliceStationCrashPatch.zip. Extract 01.Xarc from PoliceStationCrashPatch.zip and copy it to <path-to-game>\32\01, overwriting the existing file.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DirectDraw

Executable	PPC	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows				Use ScummVM for 64-bit support.
macOS (OS X)				Use ScummVM.
Linux				Use ScummVM.

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Cutscenes	Bink Video, Smacker Video Technology

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95	98, ME, 2000, XP
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium 166 MHz	Intel Pentium II 266 MHz
System memory (RAM)	32 MB	64 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	300 MB	2 GB
Video card (GPU)	640x480 SVGA high colour (16bit) video card 2 MB of VRAM	3D accelarator card (Direct 3D compatible) 4 MB of VRAM