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Game News Darklands released on Steam

Crooked Bee

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Tags: Darklands; MicroProse; Nightdive Studios; Retroism

Microprose's 1992 open world classic Darklands, set in a magical version of the 15th century historical Europe, has been made available on Steam (in addition to GOG, where it has been sold for quite some time now) as part of a bunch of new entries in the Steam catalog by the recently founded old games publisher Retroism. See here for their Steam titles, which also include stuff like BloodNet.



Heroic Adventures in Medieval Germany

Deep in the twilight of the Black Forest, you and your companions crouch before the robber-knight's tower. Hans, the alchemist, places his mysterious potion by the door. Ebhard the friar implores Saint Dunstan to bless your weapons and armor. And you and Gretchen grip naked long swords, praying your plate mail won't squeak.

With a thundery crash, the door explodes into fragments! You charge inside, swords and maces swinging. One guard falls beneath the power of your blade... then two more! You storm upstairs to the second floor, but there to greet you is Erhard the Red Wolf, the infamous robber-knight, surrounded by his henchmen. Hans tosses a choking potion into their faces and you quickly charge into the fray. The room echoes with the clash of steel on steel... it's a battle to the death in the Black Forest!

Prepare yourself to enter Darklands... the first realistic fantasy role-playing adventure for computers!

Leading a band of four adventurers across the sinister landscape of 15th Century Germany, you'll face the Middle Ages as people believed it to be! A land seething with mythical beasts, religious power-mongers and blood-thirsty sinister robber-knights!

Watch savage battles unfold before your eyes! Travel hundreds of miles by land and sea... from the Frisian Coast to Bohemia... from the Alps to Prussia... visiting over ninety cities along the way!

Your quest for fame and fortune can take you through raucous city streets and dank mine shafts, or from a robber-knight's tower to the terrifying Sabbaths of witches!

So prepare yourself for the astonishing wonders of a realistic fantasy adventure... in the mysterious Darklands!
  • Improve each character's attributes and skills as the game progresses.
  • No artificial character classes or levels!
  • Learn alchemical formulas to make your own potions!
  • Brilliant watercolor-style graphics bring to life and myths and mysteries of the Middle Ages!
  • Easy-to-use and innovative menu presents you with unprecedented role-playing options.
  • Character fight in real-time animation! Freeze the actions and give new orders to characters any time you wish!

Darklands is a unique game that bucked many genre conventions, and merits at least one playthrough from everyone who considers themselves an RPG fan. If in doubt, check out Darth Roxor's review as well as our interview with the game's designer featuring another retrospective, by Obsidian's Josh Sawyer.

Grab the game here or, if you prefer GOG, here.
 
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Starwars

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Are these older games released on STEAM updated in the same manner as the GOG ones, or does one need to manually go through the whole doxbox thing with them?
 

HiddenX

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Are these older games released on STEAM updated in the same manner as the GOG ones, or does one need to manually go through the whole doxbox thing with them?

The Steam games for DOS are coming with an integrated menu with a Dosbox Start option and a Dosbox configuration option.
Old Sega games have their own new starter.
 

Ogg

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No achievements, no buy!
More seriously, it's only 1.89€ on GOG for the week end. And it's indeed one of the best RPG of all time.
Also, if you've never played it, RTFM, cause it's not simply a manual.
 

Infinitron

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There's also a trailer on Night Dive's Youtube channel:

 
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Darth Roxor

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Darklands has such excellent and fitting periodic music, and yet they add some retarded EPIX orchestrations to its trailer?

What the fuck?
 
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HobGoblin42

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Go to ebay and buy the original box including a fantastic manual and a large paper map. Digital distribution can't honor the greatness of such games.
 

Gozma

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I'm kind of encouraged that someone at least took a few hours to play the game enough to get the screens they used in the trailer. You can't see the screen from the Sabbat for example by mashing around for 15 minutes.
 

ghostdog

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Eh frankly the music in Bloodnet's DOS version is pretty crappy both in midi and in CD audio. The best version is the Amiga one, which uses different tunes.
 

Agesilaus

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Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
It's a great game, but Darklands has been available on GOG for ages now.
 

Jaesun

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And what is this I see in the README.TXT

It is possible to have both Roland MT-32/LAPC-1 sound and digital speech in Darklands.

MASSIVE INCLINE. Let me turn on my Roland MT-32/LAPC-1 (Roland CM-500) and have a listen....
 

Explorerbc

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Steam has given me a hard time with old games before, in some extreme cases I was even unable to launch games because of a new steam patch or whatever.

So as much as I would like to appear as a monocled old school connoisseur to my non-existent steam friends, I decided to get it from gog for 1.89
 

Metro

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^ That. I think one time some game actually had the GOG installer on the Steam version.
 

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