The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery

Not to be confused with The Beast Inside.

Gabriel Knight
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers	1993
The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery	1995
Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned	1999
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers - 20th Anniversary Edition	2014

Key points

Can be run under ScummVM.

Setup is 16 bits and won't work on 64 bits OS.

General information

Gabriel Knight Omnipedia - Wiki for the series

Sierra Gamers - Game page on Ken Williams' official website

The Sierra Help Pages - Extensive troubleshooting guide

Hardcore Gaming 101 - Comprehensive feature on the series

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com		Pre-packaged with ScummVM DOSBox version is also available (when using GOG Galaxy).^[1]
Steam

Essential improvements

Patches

The latest official patch for the retail release is 1.11 (GK2PAT). It can be downloaded from The Sierra Help Pages. The digital versions are already patched.

The Sierra Help Pages DOSBox Installer for the retail release allows the whole game to be installed to the hard drive, and removes interlacing from in-game videos. The non-interlaced video patch is also integrated in the GOG.com re-release.

The unofficial Subtitles Patch for the retail release adds English subtitles to the game.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\RESOURCE.CFG
Windows	<path-to-game>\RESOURCE.WIN^{[Note 1]}
Mac OS (Classic)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/496760/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Save game data location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\GK2SG.*
Windows	<path-to-game>\GK2SG.*^{[Note 1]}
Mac OS (Classic)
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/496760/pfx/^{[Note 2]}

Savegame descriptions are stored in <path-to-game>\GK2SG.CAT.

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

General options

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		The entire game uses 640x480 graphics.
Multi-monitor		The entire game uses 640x480 graphics.
Ultra-widescreen		The entire game uses 640x480 graphics.
4K Ultra HD		The entire game uses 640x480 graphics.
Field of view (FOV)		Pre-rendered graphics.
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 and 120+ FPS		Variable framerate around 20-30fps

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).

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Only Music/Effects volume can be adjusted.
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		For DOSBox change the `priority` background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio
General MIDI audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French				Retail only.
German				Retail only; download for digital releases.
Italian				Retail only.
Polish				Fan translation, download.
Portuguese
Brazilian Portuguese				Retail only—Gabriel Knight: A Fera Interior.^[2]
Russian				Unofficial translation, download and info.
Spanish				Fan translation, download.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DOS video modes	SVGA	640x480

Executable	PPC	16-bit	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows					Windows 3.x version might be playable on a 64-bit OS using ScummVM.
Mac OS (Classic)

System requirements

DOS
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	5.0	6.22
Processor (CPU)	Intel i486 33 MHz	Intel Pentium
System memory (RAM)	8 MB	16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	15 MB	40 MB
Video card (GPU)	SVGA
Other	2x CD-ROM drive	4x CD-ROM drive

Windows 3.x
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	3.1
Processor (CPU)	Intel i486 33 MHz	Intel Pentium
System memory (RAM)	8 MB	16 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	15 MB	40 MB
Video card (GPU)	SVGA
Other	2x CD-ROM drive

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	95
Processor (CPU)	Intel i486
System memory (RAM)	8 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	40 MB
Video card (GPU)	640x480 resolution, 256 colors
Other	2x CD-ROM drive

Mac OS
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	7.1	9.2.2
Processor (CPU)	Motorola 68k
System memory (RAM)	12 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	3 MB
Sound (audio device)	Sound Manager 3.2
Controller		Joystick
Other	2x CD-ROM drive

Notes

↑ ^1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
↑ ^2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/496760/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (496760) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References

↑ List of GOG games using DOSBox, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023
↑ BraSoft (archived). - last accessed on May 2023

[gamedir-2] 1.0 ^1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).

[Proton_path_note-3] 2.0 ^2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/496760/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (496760) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

[1] List of GOG games using DOSBox, page 1 - Forum - GOG.com - last accessed on May 2023

[4] BraSoft (archived). - last accessed on May 2023

[1]

[Note 1]

[Note 2]

[2]

Developers

	Sierra On-Line
Publishers
Retail	Sierra On-Line
Digital	Activision
Engines
	SCI2.1
Release dates
DOS	1995
Windows 3.x	1995
Windows	June 30, 1995
Mac OS (Classic)	1996
Windows (ScummVM)	February 23, 2010
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Series	Gabriel Knight