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Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny

From PCGamingWiki, the wiki about fixing PC games

This page is for the original game. For the 2013 remake, see Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (2013).

Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny cover
Developers
Attic Entertainment Software
Publishers
Retail (USA) Sir-Tech
Retail (UK) U.S. Gold
Retail (Germany) Fantasy Productions
Digital United Independent Entertainment
Release dates
DOS April 1992
Windows (DOSBox) 2009
macOS (OS X) (DOSBox) June 18, 2013[1]
Linux (DOSBox) March 14, 2014[2]
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer
Pacing Turn-based
Perspectives First-person, Bird's-eye view
Genres RPG
Themes Fantasy
Series Realms of Arkania
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny on HowLongToBeat
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny on MobyGames
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny on Wikipedia
Realms of Arkania
Subseries of The Dark Eye
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny 1992
Realms of Arkania: Star Trail 1994
Realms of Arkania III: Shadows over Riva 1996
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny (2013) 2013
Realms of Arkania: Star Trail (2017) 2017

Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny is a singleplayer first-person and bird's-eye view RPG game in the Realms of Arkania series.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
DRM details are not known
Floppies or CD-ROM. Use DOSBox.
DOS
GamersGate
Icon overlay.png
Trilogy Classic Bundle.
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
GOG.com
DRM-free
Includes Realms of Arkania: Star Trail. Pre-packaged with DOSBox.[3]
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Pre-packaged with DOSBox.[4]
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
The German version needs the manual to answer copy protection questions (see passcodes.pdf for GOG.com).

Essential improvements

Skip intro videos

Skip intro (retail)[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Edit BLADE.BAT.
  3. Delete the intro line.
  4. Save your changes.
Skip intro (GOG.com)[citation needed]
  1. Go to the installation folder.
  2. Edit dosbox_realms1_single.conf.
  3. Go to the end and delete the intro line.
  4. Save your changes.

Use CD music in English version

These steps upgrade the English version with the German version's CD music. This requires the German CD version (GOG.com has both).
This reinstates the copy protection questions; refer to passcodes.pdf in the German version's installation folder for the answers.
Use CD music in English version (GOG.com)[5]
  1. Download and install both the English and German versions of the game to their individual folders.
  2. Go into the English installation folder.
  3. Delete or rename BLADEM.EXE.
  4. Rename BLADE.DAT to SCHICK.DAT.
  5. Rename INTRO_A.OVL to INTRO_E.OVL.
  6. Go to the German installation folder.
  7. Copy the German MUSIC, game.gog, game.inst, INTRO.EXE, SCHICKM.EXE and SOUND.CFG to the English installation folder, replacing existing files when prompted.
  8. In the English installation folder rename SCHICKM.EXE to BLADEM.EXE.
  9. Edit the English version's dosbox_realms1_single.conf.
  10. Make a new line below mount C "..\Realms of Arkania 1".
  11. Add this line: imgmount D "..\Realms of Arkania 1\game.inst" -t iso
  12. Save the changes. The game will now have CD music.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\SOUND.CFG
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Linux <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.
In-game settings are not stored between sessions.

Save game data location

System Location
DOS <path-to-game>\*.GAM
Windows <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
macOS (OS X) $HOME/Library/Application Support/Boxer/Gamebox States/com.game.realms-of-arkania-1/Current.boxerstate/C Realms of Arkania 1.harddisk
<path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
Linux <path-to-game> (mounted in DOSBox)[Note 1]
GAMES.NAM stores save game names; saves can't be accessed if this file is missing.
Generated characters are *.CHR; character files are not needed for loading save games (characters are stored in each save).

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

General settings.
General settings.

Graphics feature State Notes
Widescreen resolution
320x200 only.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
For DOSBox toggle with Alt+ Enter (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS
120+ FPS

Input

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
For DOSBox set in the DOSBox configuration file.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support
For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Controller types

Audio

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
No volume sliders; on/off only.
Surround sound
Subtitles
All dialogue is text-based.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio
Red Book CD audio
German version only (see Use CD music in English version).

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
German
Russian
Fan translation by «ZoG Forum Team».

VR support

3D modes State Notes
vorpX
G3D
Officially supported game, see official vorpx game list.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
DOS video modes MCGA, VGA

System requirements

DOS
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 5.0
Processor (CPU) 386DX/33
System memory (RAM) 4 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 10 MB
Video card (GPU) VGA
Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) XP, Vista
Processor (CPU) 1 GHz
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 150 MB
Video card (GPU) DirectX 7 compatible
macOS (OS X)
Minimum
Operating system (OS) 10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) or later
Processor (CPU) Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz+
System memory (RAM) 1 GB
Hard disk drive (HDD)
Video card (GPU) 64 MB of VRAM


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 File/folder structure within the installation folder reflects the path(s) listed for DOS game data.

References