Status: Out now

Project Reforged: The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey for PC, Mac and Android

Rebuilt for Mac, Windows and Android

A fan-made Mac, Windows and Android port of The Elder Scrolls Travels: Shadowkey, the 2004 Nokia N-Gage game, on a new engine. It runs the original game files and scripts in widescreen, with recreated artwork, new lighting and controller support. You need your own copy of the original game files to play.

Watch the trailer Features
  • macOS
  • Windows
  • Android

Trailer

Trailer: recorded in 4K from the release candidate build. It plays from YouTube. Music: “The Traveller” by Viktor Kraus (CC-BY 3.0).

About the project

Shadowkey came out in 2004 on the Nokia N-Gage. It was drawn in software on a 176 × 208 screen at a low frame rate, and today it only runs on N-Gage hardware or in an emulator.

Project Reforged is a new engine for it, written from scratch for Mac, Windows and Android. It doesn't emulate the phone. It reads the original game files and runs the game's 1,533 original scripts unchanged, so the quests, dialogue and world are the ones from 2004.

The project is free, unofficial and not for sale. You need your own copy of the original game files to play.

What's new

Features

Everything here is in the current build unless it says planned.

Modern and Classic modes

You choose Classic or Modern when you start a new game, and each save remembers it. Classic keeps the original look and behaviour, including the original HUD. Modern uses the new versions, and its lighting, combat, menus and music can each be set separately.

High resolution artwork

Sprites, menus, the HUD, the compass and map markers, weapons, weapon racks and boot screens have been recreated at up to 4K, following the style of the original art. Higher resolution character creation artwork is being added now.

Real views through doorways

Doorways, gates and cave mouths show the real place beyond them in place of a painted picture, and it shifts as you walk up or move to the side. Dark entrances stay in deep gloom, with only a torch-lit passage or a glow far off inside.

New lighting

Bloom, haze and in-scattering around lights, ambient occlusion and smooth light falloff, tuned to suit the original levels.

Flames, embers and glowing spells

Torches, candles and fireplaces have flames, with embers rising from them and dust drifting in their light. Fires and spell bolts glow and light up the walls around them, and a spell ends in a flash of sparks.

Fog and haze

Fog and haze for outdoor areas and dungeons, to give each place more depth. In Modern mode a slider sets how thick it is.

Water that moves and reflects

Water ripples and reflects the walls, bridges, torches and people around it in Modern mode. Classic keeps the original still water.

A night sky and snow

Stars, slowly drifting clouds and Morrowind's two moons over the night-time towns, and snow falling in Snowline and Glacier Crawl.

Blood and scorch marks

Your blows draw a little blood, green ichor from jellies, bone dust and sparks from skeletons, pale wisps from ghosts. Drops stay where they fall, and spells leave scorch marks. Metal and wet stone catch the torchlight too.

Better death poses

In Modern mode, dead enemies lie with their arms in. In the original they died in a T-pose.

Crisp font rendering

The Nokia N-Gage's bitmap fonts are replaced with scalable fonts that render sharply at any resolution.

Widescreen

A wider field of view, a HUD laid out for 16:9 and widescreen menus, at any window size or resolution. Classic plays in the N-Gage's own tall screen shape instead, and Original Pixels draws it at the phone's 176 × 208.

Up to 120fps support

The game logic still runs at the original's 25 updates a second, so it plays the same. The picture is drawn at your display's refresh rate.

More features
  • Mouse look with keyboard and mouse controls
  • Rebind every action, with conflict warnings
  • Sprint (new, optional; uses stamina in Modern mode, and L3 toggles it on a controller)
  • A red dot on the compass for hostile characters nearby
  • Classic or widescreen menu backgrounds
  • Torch flicker and distance darkening in Classic lighting
  • Screenshot key
  • Four save slots
  • Scale the HUD and the weapon sprite
  • Render scale, frame rate limit, menu scale and crosshair on or off
  • Window, borderless or fullscreen
  • Frame rate counter, in the corner of your choice
  • Skip the tutorial
  • Brightness slider with a calibration picture
  • Doors can be used from a little further away
  • A drawn bow can be let down without firing
  • Longer view distance
  • Fixes for original bugs, each behind an option
  • Quicksave, quickload and autosave
  • Planned: online co-op

Models

3D model viewer

Drag to turn. Each view is a picture from the game's engine, with the recreated art.

Gravel Trothgar, an old man with a grey beard in a mustard jerkin over a blue tunic

New artwork

All 741 of the original pictures have been recreated.

Most of the artwork was generated with AI tools, to save time. In the future I'd like to replace it with hand-drawn, human-made art.

  • Spritesmenus, HUD, weapons, spells, portraits and story pictures 246 / 246
  • Level textureswalls, floors and ceilings 213 / 213
  • Model skinspeople, creatures, props and doors 282 / 282

Counted from the game's own files: every sprite the game shows, every distinct level texture and every model skin. New art reaches players through the in-game updates, in Modern mode.

Updates

Recent changes

What has changed in the build lately, newest first.

A new loading screen, Screen Shape, Target Lock and handheld controls

Fixed

  • Android: on some handhelds' built-in controls (an AYN Odin 2 and an Anbernic RG406M), the left stick moved you in steps like the D-pad and the right stick did nothing, and Options > Controls couldn't fix it. The likely cause: those handhelds hand over the sticks' movement marked a little differently from the AYN Thor and most controllers, and the part of the game that reads controllers on Android only looked for the usual mark. Android then turned the left stick into D-pad presses itself and dropped the right stick, so the game never saw either stick. The game now takes stick movement from any controller whatever the mark, so both sticks work as sticks and can be rebound. Controllers that already worked (the Thor's, Xbox, PlayStation) go through exactly the same steps as before (not yet tested on an Odin 2 or RG406M)
  • Options > Interface > Button Icons has a new choice, Nintendo, for controllers printed with A on the right and B at the bottom, like many Android handhelds. The prompts then show the Switch-style buttons by where they sit. Android doesn't tell the game how a handheld's buttons are printed, so Auto stays as it was (Modern)
  • Android: the game's log, shadowkey.log, now names every controller it finds and how it reads it, so a controller problem can be sorted out from the log
  • The gate out of Azra's Crossing to Ghast's Pass said "[X] Locked", and "This door is locked." when you pressed Use, although walking up to it takes you to Ghast's Pass (a player on Android, with a video comparing it with the N-Gage). The gate never opens: in the original you travel by stepping up to it, and Use does nothing there. The game took it for a locked door because nothing opens it. A shut gate that stands right where a level's way out is now shows nothing, as in the original. Every other level was checked and this was the only such gate; doors that really are locked, such as Trinket's cell and the Raiders' coloured doors, still say Locked (Modern)
  • After sitting on a chair, stool or throne, the next place you travelled to could ignore Use for a long time: no talking, looting, opening doors or sitting, though the "Talk" and "Sit" labels still showed (a phone player, coming back to Azra's Crossing from Delfran's Hideout to hand in a quest, with a video). The game ignores Use for a fifth of a second after you sit or stand, so the press that stands you up doesn't also do something else. It remembered when that was by each place's own clock, which starts again at 0 when you arrive somewhere new, so sitting 10 minutes into the hideout made Azra's Crossing ignore Use for its first 10 minutes, even after loading a save, until the game was closed. Travelling, loading a save or dying now clears it. Saved games were never affected (Modern; Classic has no sitting; tested on the Mac)
  • In the Twilight Temple, one of the two wall torches beside the hall's west doors showed only its flame, floating on the stone with no torch under it (a player on Steam). The level itself puts that torch inside the stone block beside the doors, so the original never showed it, and the game's added flame poked out of the stone. The torch now hangs on the wall beside the block, matching the one across the corridor, and its flame and light come with it. The one other torch hidden in the stone in the whole game, at the hall's east doors, is brought out the same way. Every other torch stays where it was (Modern; Classic shows the original, unchanged)
  • Women such as Priestess Almathea and Acolyte Menlin made a man's grunt when you hit them (Dan). In the original nobody can hurt them, so the game never had a woman's sound; hitting them came with Attack NPCs, which gave everyone the bandits' grunt. Women now use one of Morrowind's women's grunts from your own Morrowind files when Morrowind Audio has them (a new row, People: hurt (woman)), and make no sound otherwise. Men, creatures and you sound as before (Modern)
  • Two wall torches were hung the wrong way round, with the back of the bracket facing you and the flame against the wall: one above the three chests in Crypt 2 (its neighbours on the other side of that wall face the right way) and one high on a pillar in Broken Wing I. The levels store them that way, and the original shows them so. They now face the room, flat on their walls, and light it like the others (Modern; Classic unchanged)
  • The real view through a way out (a door view) could be covered in shimmering black dots when seen from far across a room, and the dots went away as you walked closer (a player on Steam, in the Twilight Temple's dining hall). Behind each view there's a black backing that catches lines of sight past its edge, and it is meant to sit just behind the picture. For the furthest parts of the picture, such as the sky and distant trees, once you stood far enough back the game put the picture and the backing at exactly the same depth, so from pixel to pixel it couldn't tell which was in front, and the black won in speckles. The backing now always sits further back. Nothing else in the view or the room changes, it costs nothing, and up close the view is the same as before (Modern; Classic has no door views; tested on the Mac)
  • Phones: on the touch Icons layout, pressing Attack in a hurry could switch your weapon, for example from a sword back to the starting dagger. A thumb that slid a few millimetres as it landed on Attack counted as a swipe, and a swipe across Attack is how you change weapon. The swipe now has to be twice as long (about 8% of the screen's height) before it changes weapon or item. A shorter slide just attacks. Holding for the ring works as before, and so do F on the keyboard and right on a controller's D-pad (Modern; Classic's touch controls have no swipe; tested on the Mac, not yet on a phone)
  • The Crypt Caretaker (the Crypt Keeper) stood in his room swinging one arm as if attacking, with nothing in his hands (a player on Steam). His part of the game names an attack swing as his "idle", and the game played it. In the original that idle is only used by fighters; the game starts him on a standing pose and he keeps it, because he never fights. The game now does the same for everyone who isn't fighting: the Caretaker stands still in Classic and breathes calmly in Modern. The same mistake showed elsewhere and is fixed with it: the red Raiders' kagouti no longer walk on the spot while standing, and Delfran and Duvais breathe instead of standing frozen. A few others now use the original's other breathing pose or, in Classic, its still standing pose until they fight. Creatures that attack on sight are unchanged (Modern and Classic; every character in all 21 levels checked on the Mac)
  • Options > Graphics Quality's description called some rows "trials". It now names them, such as Metal Reflections and Window Glass, in every language
  • In Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese, Options > Target Lock's description showed in English. It's translated again
  • If your copy of the game is missing one of a level's files, the game now names that file. Before, it only said "some of the level files", or nothing at all. If a game folder you chose before no longer passes the check at start, the setup page now says what's missing instead of opening blank. A player on Windows reached the title and then the game closed, because their copy has no delfhide.zmp. Since version 0.2.3 the game doesn't close there, and now it says which file to look for (tested on the Mac)
  • In Delfran's Hideout's first room, the bandit standing left of the door didn't notice you until you walked right up to him, even when you killed his friend in front of him (Dan). The bandit on the right sees you from the way in and comes on his own. His shout to the other is held back in your first 10 seconds in a place (so arriving doesn't bring a whole room at once), and that held shout was thrown away instead of made later. The other bandit faces the door, side-on to the room, so he only noticed you up close. Now the held shout goes up when the 10 seconds are over, from where the first bandit saw you. And an enemy who sees one of his friends being hit now notices you if he can see you too, or comes to look if he can't, even when you are off to his side. In a test at that spot he now notices on the first blow to his friend, in under a second, instead of about 7 seconds later; walking in from the way in, he comes at 10 seconds instead of about 19. Arriving in Snowline from Ghast's Pass is the same as before (Modern; Classic is unchanged: as in the original, both bandits notice you at once; tested on the Mac)
  • The same bandit in Delfran's Hideout still let you walk right up to him when you killed his friend out in the corridor, out of his sight, and then walked into the room (Dan, on the test build with the fix above). He stands facing the door, side-on to the room, and his blind side hid you even standing up and walking about in the light. Now an enemy hears you walking or running upright whichever way he faces, once you are as close as the original game notices you (about 8 squares for these bandits), as long as nothing blocks his view. In a test he now turns as you come into the room, about 2100 units away, instead of at about 630. Crouching, or standing still, keeps his blind side as before, so sneaking up on someone works as it did (Modern; Classic unchanged; tested on the Mac)
  • With a spell readied in your right hand and not enough Magicka to cast it, clicking did nothing and nothing said why (Dan, against two bandits in Delfran's Hideout with Paralyze readied). The original game is silent too. Now the click says "You do not have enough Magicka." Nothing else changes (Modern; Classic unchanged; tested on the Mac)
  • The two bandits at the start of Delfran's Hideout kept showing "[E] Talk" over them for the whole fight (Dan). In the original you can talk to them once ("Hey, you aren't supposed to be here!"), and after that they can't be talked to. The game ignored that and kept offering Talk. Now the prompt goes once you have talked, as in the original. The same check also stops a Talk prompt showing over a few others the original never let you use, such as Delfran himself, who talks to you when he sees you (Modern and Classic; tested on the Mac)
  • After a locked door was opened with lock picks, it showed "[E] Close", but pressing it did nothing: those doors never close again, in the original too. The prompt now only offers Close on doors that really close. Ordinary doors open and close as before (Modern; tested on the Mac)
  • Walking drifted a little to one side, always toward the same compass direction (south-west on the map) whichever way you faced, and you walked slower going north or east than going south or west (a player on Windows, with a video). The game moves you in small whole steps, and like the original it rounded each one down, so every step lost a fraction going north or east and gained one going south or west. Walking at an angle bent your path by up to about 9 units in 100, and when you stopped, the last of the slide crept sideways toward the south-west. The fractions are now carried over to the next step, so you walk straight at any angle, at the same speed in every direction, and stop straight too. You also no longer slide on when you let go: the original keeps most of your speed each moment after you stop pressing, so you slid on about 100 units over most of a second, the last half a slow creep, like walking on ice. Now you stop within about 20 units, in a quarter of a second. Starting to walk, turning and changing direction feel as before, and a running jump still carries you through the air if you let go mid-jump (Modern; Classic keeps the original's movement, which drifts and slides the same way; tested on the Mac with the keyboard, a controller stick and touch)
  • In a room in Dragonstar East with a sunken floor, a bright white strip like a window pane showed in the side of the sunken part, as if a window were set in the floor (Dan). The original gives the sides of steps and pits the room's wall picture, and that picture has a window in it, so this short side landed on the bottom of the window. The original shows it as a dark sliver; the game's Window Light then lit it as daylight. Two other spots in Dragonstar East had the same thing: a white wedge of window on top of a broken stone pillar, and half a window on a low wall. These sides now show the plain part of the same wall picture. Real windows, and a raised floor as tall as a wall that shows a whole window, are unchanged. Dragonstar West has none (Modern; Classic shows the original, unchanged; tested on the Mac)

New

  • The last of the game's pictures are now recreated (Dan, mostly with AI tools), in Modern with Texture Pack on: the fire puff and the blue spark and dark red mist of spells, the rising steam in the Twilight Temple, the health, magicka and fatigue bar fills, the loading bar and its gold dragon frame, the list arrows, the item compare mark and the parchment page. With them every picture the game shows in Modern has Dan's art: all the sprites, all 213 level textures and all 282 model skins. Classic still shows the original art
  • The game's own added markers now have Dan's art too, in a look like modern fantasy RPGs: the enemy health bar, its lighter "just lost" part and the name plate under it, the compass's red enemy dots, the quest's arrow at the compass edge, the blue Place Marker, the quest flag on the map, the fast travel box's frame, the crouching eye (open and closed) and the crown over people who can't be killed (Modern, Texture Pack on)
  • A new loading screen while a save loads or you travel to another place (Dan's idea): soft grey smoke rising slowly from the bottom of a dark screen, one of the people or creatures who live in the place you're going to, caught still in a pose as you'd meet them (standing, walking or mid-attack), a short tip at the top right, and the place's name over a progress bar in the HUD's gold frame. You can turn the figure and bring it nearer while you wait, with the arrow keys or WASD, either stick, a mouse drag and the wheel, or a finger's drag and pinch; left alone it turns slowly by itself. There are 55 tips about the game's options, controls, races, classes and places, in every language. The level now loads alongside the screen instead of freezing it, and loading takes as long as before; the screen stays up for at least a second and a half so there is time to read the tip. A Classic game keeps the original's loading picture (Modern; tested on the Mac, not yet on a phone)
  • Options > Display > Screen Shape (a player's question on YouTube): Fill, 21:9, 16:9, 16:10 or 4:3. Fill is the default and uses the whole window, as before. The others keep the picture, the HUD and the menus at that shape in the middle of the screen, with black bars at the sides or at the top and bottom, so you can play 4:3 on a widescreen monitor or 16:9 on a 4:3 one. A Classic game keeps the phone's shape whatever you pick (Modern; tested on the Mac)
  • Phones: a Touch Haptics setting in Options > Controls, Off by default (a player on a Moto G100). The phone used to give a small buzz on every touch-button press, with no way to turn it off, and it also buzzed when you were hit or cast a spell with no controller connected. Both ignored the phone's own vibration settings. Now both are off unless you turn Touch Haptics On. To feel it, vibration (haptic feedback) also has to be on in your device's own settings. Rumble now only covers a controller's vibration (Android and iPhone; tested on the Mac and an emulator, not yet on a phone)
  • Phones and handhelds: the on-screen controller's buttons now follow Options > Interface > Button Icons. With Nintendo they read A on the right, B at the bottom, X at the top and Y on the left; with PlayStation they show the cross, circle, square and triangle. The buttons stay where they are and do what they did, so the button a prompt names is the one marked with it on screen. Auto with no controller connected looks as before, and layouts you've moved around in the editor are kept (Modern; tested on the Mac)
  • With Options > Interface > Button Icons on Nintendo, A now accepts and B goes back in menus, conversations and the tutorial, as on Nintendo's own controllers, and the prompts say so. This works for a handheld's own buttons, a controller and the on-screen controls. In play nothing moves: the bottom button still jumps. The other choices are as before (Modern)
  • Target Lock (a player's suggestion on the board): press RB on a controller, Z on the keyboard, or the new Target button on the touch Icons layout (RB on the on-screen controller) to lock the view on the enemy nearest the crosshair. The view then turns smoothly to keep them in the middle while you walk, strafe or circle round them, and four small gold pointers mark them, with their health bar under the compass. It works on creatures and on people who are fighting you, never on friendly people. Tap the button again to go to the next enemy on screen, left to right and round again, and hold it to let go; flicking the look stick, the mouse or your finger sideways also switches to the next enemy that way. When the enemy dies the lock moves to the next one in sight, and it lets go when there's none, or when the enemy has been out of sight for a moment or gets too far away. Your bow and spells aim where you look, so they aim at the locked enemy, but nothing hits on its own. Options > Controls > Target Lock: Toggle (the default), Hold (locked while you hold the button) or Off. The button can be changed in Customize Controls, and the touch button moved, resized or hidden in the layout editor (Modern; tested on the Mac, not yet on a phone)
  • Two new languages: Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese, in Options > Select Language (a player's suggestion on the board). Both cover the whole game, the original's story, quests, books and items as well as the new menus. They are machine translations for now, so some lines will read oddly; corrections from native speakers are very welcome. Chinese has its own font, which loads only when Chinese is shown. Nothing changes for anyone playing in the other languages (Modern and Classic; tested on the Mac)
  • Anyone can now translate the game into their own language. Options > Select Language > Make a Translation File (on computers) saves a plain text file with every line of the game in English and a space under each for the translation. Fill it in with any text editor, and the language appears in Select Language straight away, so you can try it as you go. Send the finished file through the new Send a translation page on the board, and it can ship with the game for everyone, with your name under About. The guide is on the website under "Translate the game"
  • Target Lock is smoother (the same player's next suggestions). The button now locks on the nearest enemy within reach, even when your crosshair isn't on them: one on screen first, else one beside or behind you, and the view turns to them smoothly. While locked you can move the view again, and it swings back when you let go. A small push toward another enemy moves the lock to them, however far round they are, even right behind you; push again for the next. A long push where there's no one lets go, but never while enemies are close by. This works with the right stick, the mouse or a finger, and replaces the quick flick. Tapping the button still goes to the next enemy on screen, and holding it lets go (Modern; tested on the Mac)
Slower phones and Windows skies

Fixed

  • Black specks flickered round grass, tree branches and other edges with Effects on, most of all in Ghast's Pass by day (a player on a Moto G100, with a video). They came from the drifting mist. The mist is worked out at a quarter of the screen's size and then spread back over each pixel from the nearest mist points at about the same distance. A blade of grass or a leaf tip in front of far ground had no mist point near it, and the game then painted that pixel as mist that hides everything and adds no light: a black dot, moving with the grass. Those pixels now take the mist of the nearest point, thinned for how much closer they are. The same fault drew thin dark outlines round hills against the sky and round people in Azra's Crossing at night; they're gone too. Everywhere else the mist is exactly as before, and it costs the same (Modern, Mac, Windows and phones; tested on the Mac)
  • Wall torches in the Twilight Temple left odd dark shapes beside them: a big round patch, or triangles, on the wall and ceiling right next to the flame, as if the light stopped short. The game keeps a rough map of which parts of a level each light can reach, and parts of a wall set back into the stone (like the alcoves the temple's torches hang in) were marked as reached by no light at all, so the torch didn't even light its own wall, and the glow in the air stopped in a hard circle there. Those spots now take the light of the room they face. Earth Cave's ceiling had the same hard dark band along its edge, now evenly lit. The fix is worked out once when the lights change, not every frame, so the game runs as fast as before; the only cost is the torch now lighting those walls like any other, about 2 frames a second at Low on the AYN Thor while an alcove fills the view (Modern; tested on the Mac and the AYN Thor)
  • Windows: with Graphics Driver set to Vulkan, Automatic Render Scale could lower the picture to 75% even when the graphics card had time to spare. It judged the card by when each frame finished, which also counts the wait for the frame limit and the screen. It now reads the card's own timing, as it already did with Direct3D 12 and on Android (not yet tested on Windows with Vulkan)
  • Armor no longer stays at 0 when you put on light pieces such as fur, leather or the Ra' Gada Light Helm. Those pieces were too light to add a whole point, so they did nothing at all. They now add their small share, shown with one decimal place (a Nordic Fur Cap adds 0.3, the Ra' Gada Light Helm 0.6), and that many tenths of the time they stop one more point of a blow. Every piece that already added a whole point adds exactly what it did, so armour later in the game is unchanged. The Armor tab shows what each piece adds when worn, and the Stats page shows the same Armor (Modern)
  • Armour with no light, medium or heavy mark (the fur and leather pieces, Glass Boots and others) is light armour, as in the original, but Modern's Skills didn't count it as any kind. Being hit while wearing it now trains Light Armor, and the skill now adds to the ones that count towards your rating (Modern)
  • Windows: the night sky over Azra's Crossing could show its clouds broken into hard-edged triangles and shards instead of soft drifting cloud (a player's PC). The clouds are worked out by the graphics card, and some cards' drivers round that sum a little differently from cell to cell, so neighbouring patches of cloud didn't meet. The clouds now use whole-number maths that every card works out the same way. Rain's cloud over the sky, its puddles and the dust in torch and window light used the same maths and are fixed too. The clouds' shapes are new but look the same (Modern; not yet seen on the player's PC)
  • Android: the game could freeze and close at the main menu while the new artwork was being prepared for the phone (a Galaxy A80). The menu kept loading a new background place every 10 seconds while the artwork was prepared, and on some phones the two together were too much. The menu now stays on one place until the artwork is ready, then goes round the places as before, and it loads them at a lower priority so the menu keeps answering. On the Mac with the phone's settings, the artwork was ready in less than half the time and with less memory (tested on the Mac and an emulator, not yet on an A80)
  • Android: the game's log, shadowkey.log, is now in the game's own folder (Android > data > ie.omracreative.shadowkey.android > files), where you can reach it with a computer over USB or Samsung's My Files, so it can be sent with a bug report. It also records how Android says the last runs ended (closed for lack of memory, crashed, or not responding), which the game can't write itself when Android closes it
  • Android: with a handheld in a TV dock (a Retroid Pocket 5), the TV showed only the game's title while the game played on the handheld. The game took the TV for a second built-in screen, like the AYN Thor's bottom one, and put its title picture there in place of the game. The second picture now goes only on a screen built into the device, so a TV or monitor (a dock, a USB-C to HDMI cable or casting) shows the game. The Thor's bottom screen works as before (tested on an emulator, not yet with a real dock)
  • Dying before you had any save could leave you stuck (a phone player, in the tutorial). Load Game on the death page closed the page, and backing out of the empty list went to the pause menu, whose Return to Game left you dead in the room with no menu. Load Game now opens the list over the death page and Back comes back to it, and it's greyed out when there are no saves. The game also no longer saves while you're dead: such a save only died again when loaded (Modern; Classic's death page is unchanged and goes back to the title screen, as the original)
  • Load Last Autosave on the death page now loads only your own character's autosave. It used to take the newest autosave of any character, so a new character could be offered someone else's game. Autosaves made before this update count as yours if the name matches (Modern)
  • Use now only reaches what the crosshair is on or very close to it. It used to reach anything within a wide angle to either side, whatever you were looking up or down at, so with the crosshair on the table in the first house it opened the footlocker beside it, and outside it searched barrels well off to the right. It now goes by where you're looking, side to side and up and down, with a small margin, and a little more for things at your feet. The use icon and Use always agree on what you'll get. Crypt pedestals and other things that aren't doors now say "Use" instead of "Open" (Modern; Classic keeps the original's reach)
  • Android: turning with a controller's right stick (or the AYN Thor's) felt floaty and tended to overshoot. Two causes. The game read the stick and then waited for the phone's graphics to catch up before drawing, so at 30 frames a second the view showed where you were pointing a frame late; it now waits first and reads the stick just before drawing. And the stick turned at a speed in a straight line with how far it was pushed, so a small push already turned fast; it now turns gently near the middle for aiming and still at full speed when pushed all the way, as the on-screen look stick already did. The view stops the moment the stick is let go (Android; tested on the AYN Thor)
  • Android: dragging a finger up or down a menu moved the highlight the opposite way (pulling down moved it up), and a quick drag lost steps. The highlight now follows the finger, one row for each finger's width or so, with no steps dropped; a long text such as a book or a description still scrolls with the finger as before (tested on the AYN Thor)
  • Android: Options and the pause menu now scroll like a phone's own lists. The list moves with your finger, a flick keeps it gliding until it slows to a stop, and rows are cut cleanly at the list's top and bottom. The highlight no longer runs down every row your finger passes; a tap picks a row. A controller or keys scroll the list as before (tested on the AYN Thor)
  • Android: on the title screen, dragging up or down on the left side moved along the menu at the bottom (a player found it). Up and down drags now leave it alone, and a sideways drag moves along it the way your finger goes. On the name page a drag no longer changes letters (tested on the AYN Thor)
  • Doors sometimes needed two or three presses of Use to open, playing their sound each time, and Sneak sometimes didn't turn on (a player on a Galaxy A80, and a video of the first door in the game). The game moves the world on in steps of a 25th of a second, and when a frame took longer than that it ran two or three steps at once, each one seeing the same button press. So one press opened the door and shut it again straight away, and Sneak went on and back off. A press now counts once, however slow the frame. It showed most on slower phones and in Classic, whose 20 frames a second ran a double step on every fourth frame (Modern and Classic; tested on the Mac at a slow phone's frame rate)
  • Android: the game slowed down near water on phones with a weaker graphics chip (a Galaxy A80). Water was always drawn with the biggest version of the lighting, the one made for High, even at Low. At Low it now has a smaller one of its own that gives exactly the same picture: on the Mac, drawing the scene while looking down at Delf's Hideout's pool took less than half the time. At Medium on phones, water now reflects the sky but no longer the room around it, which cost a copy of the whole picture every frame and many lookups for every bit of water on screen. High is unchanged (tested on the Mac, not yet on an A80)

New

  • Modern now autosaves after each quest step (started, updated or completed), once any conversation is closed and no monster has attacked in the last few seconds. A phone player died four times in Azra's Crossing before the 10-minute autosave came round, and Load Last Autosave took him back to the very start each time. It is on whenever Autosave every isn't Off, and uses the three autosave slots as before, so your own saves are never touched (Modern; Classic saves only in its own slots, as the original)
  • A small icon now shows just above the crosshair when you can use what you're looking at, with the button and what it does: a door and "Open" (or "Close"), a red lock and "Locked" for a locked door or chest, a bag and "Search" for bodies, barrels and crates, "Take" for coins and items, "Talk" for people and "Sit" for seats. In all six languages (Modern, with Item Pick-up Behaviour Modern, the default)
  • A new game now autosaves a second after it starts, once any opening page is closed, so dying before your first save still leaves a game to load. It takes the place of the oldest of the three autosaves, never a save of your own, and follows Options > Gameplay > Autosave on Arrival (Modern)
  • The bug board has a new label, Potential fix, for reports where an update may have fixed the problem but whoever posted it hasn't said yet. It still counts as open, and the person who posted it gets an email asking them to try the latest update and reply to say if it helped
  • The Character page now shows what each worn armour piece adds to your Armor rating, next to its armour value: a cuirass adds about four tenths of its value, every other piece a tenth, rounded down, so a Nordic Fur Cap (3) adds +0 and an Iron Cuirass (12) adds +4. With Skills on, the rating also says how much Light, Medium or Heavy Armor adds, by name. The rules are the original's; only the display is new (Modern)
  • The bug board has new labels: Blocked, for reports waiting on more information from whoever posted them (still counted as open), Closed: won't do, Critical priority (above High), and Other, for posts that aren't a bug or a suggestion
  • The bug board's list now shows who replied last and when, after "opened", and so does the line under an issue's title
  • The bug board's Closed tab: the number in its count is centred, and its small icon is gone
  • The bug board: paste a screenshot straight into a comment or a new issue's description and it's attached, alongside any files you chose. The attached files are listed under the file box with a small picture of each and a × to take one off, and a comment can now be just a picture with no words
  • Options > Graphics now starts with Graphics Quality: Low, Medium or High sets the heavier graphics rows below it in one go. Low is for slower phones: a smaller 3D picture (Render Scale 75%), no anti-aliasing, and Effects, Eye Adaptation, Normal Maps, Surface Depth, Foliage and the costlier trials off, while keeping Modern lighting, the haze, rain and spells. It shows Custom once you change a row yourself. In all six languages (Modern)
  • Android: on its very first start on a slower phone (one with 4 GB of memory or less, or graphics such as Mali-G57, Mali-G52, PowerVR, or an Adreno below 630 such as the 618 in a Galaxy A80), the game now starts on Graphics Quality Low at 30 frames a second, so the first game plays smoothly. A phone that already has its settings keeps them, and stronger phones such as the AYN Thor start as before

Changed

  • Phones: a little less slowdown in rain and when looking at Ghast's Pass's pools with Effects at Low or Medium. The rain on the ground now uses a smaller version of its drawing when the room isn't reflected in the wet (everywhere but Effects High), and the edges of the swamp pools now use the same smaller lighting as their middles. Both give exactly the same picture. On the Mac with a phone's settings, at a pool: 233 to 239 frames a second dry, 192 to 198 in heavy rain. High is unchanged (tested on the Mac, not yet on a phone)
  • Graphics Quality High costs the graphics card less, with the same picture. A player with a GeForce 940M laptop got about 36 frames a second on High and asked if Modern lighting could be made lighter. Until now every wall, floor and model was drawn with a lighting program that carries every High effect, even those that surface can never show. The game now sorts each place's surfaces when it loads (a bare wall, a shiny or glowing one, one near water, a floor with Surface Depth, a plain or shiny model) and gives each a lighting program with only what it can use. The soft glow in the air round lights is also worked out only for the lights that can reach that part of the screen, not all sixteen for every pixel. Checked pixel for pixel against the old build: identical, or a handful of pixels in two million a single shade apart. Checked in eight places, the Twilight Temple's torch alcoves among them. On the Mac that is 19 to 49% more frames a second from the graphics card (Delfran's Hideout 189 to 256, Azra's Crossing indoors 230 to 293, the Twilight Temple 221 to 330). Low and Medium are drawn exactly as before. Not yet timed on a Windows PC, where the gain may be smaller or larger (Modern)
  • Windows and Mac: a new install on a computer with weaker graphics now starts on Graphics Quality Medium with Automatic Render Scale on, instead of High. A player with a GeForce 940M laptop got about 36 frames a second at 1080p on High and a steady 60 with Classic lighting. This counts NVIDIA's GeForce MX, GT and 900M-and-older laptop chips, Intel's built-in graphics (HD, UHD, Iris and Iris Xe; not Arc) and AMD's built-in Vega and R5/R7. Medium keeps Modern lighting with the same look, without the torch shadows, shadowed corners and bounced light; Automatic Render Scale draws the 3D view with fewer pixels, down to 75%, only while a frame takes too long, and goes back up when there's room. On the Mac at 1080p this takes about 30% off the graphics card's work, and about half when the scale drops to 75%. If you already play on such a computer and want 60, set Options > Graphics > Graphics Quality to Medium and turn on Automatic Render Scale. Your saved settings aren't changed, and High is still there to choose (Modern; not yet tested on a weak PC)
  • Android: a new install now starts on Graphics Quality Low on every phone, not only slower ones. Medium ran at about 30 frames a second even on the AYN Thor, one of the fastest Android handhelds, and players on a Galaxy S24 Ultra and a Nothing Phone 3a saw about 30 with the frame limit at 60; Low runs at 60 on the Thor with room to spare. If you already play on Android and see about 30, set Options > Graphics > Graphics Quality to Low. Your saved settings aren't changed, and Medium and High are still there to choose
  • Graphics Quality Low and Medium now draw Modern lighting with smaller versions of its lighting program, made without the parts each one already turns off (shadows, bounced light and the trials at Medium; also the haze, highlights and normal maps at Low). The picture is the same: pixel for pixel at Low, and at Medium all but one pixel one shade apart in the eight views checked. On the AYN Thor, Low went from 59 to 102 frames a second in Azra's Crossing and from 47 to 80 in Delfran's Hideout, and Medium from 21 to 32 and 20 to 26. Cheaper phones should gain at least as much (Modern)
  • Graphics Quality Medium: the soft glow in the air round torches, candles and lanterns is now worked out once for every four pixels instead of for each one, then spread back over the picture by depth, so the glow of a far wall doesn't bleed onto a pillar in front of it. It looks the same but for a few shades here and there, and a one-pixel edge against a bright glow can be a touch lighter or darker. High and Low look exactly as before (Modern)
  • Options: clearer names and order. Graphics: the "Trial" wording is gone from the rows that had it, Life in the Air is now Particle Detail, Spell Looks is Spell Effects, Atmosphere is Haze and Fog, and Plant Look is Enhanced Plants, with a plainer description of what it does. Wet Reflections now sits under Metal Reflections, and Window Light under Window Glass. Audio: Ambient Volume and Dialogue Volume now sit right under Music Volume. Gameplay: Sit on Seats is Sitting on Seats, Loose Gold Coins is Gold Coins, Brawls is Attack NPCs, Interaction is Item Pick-up Behaviour, and Ragdolls is no longer marked as a trial. Hit Detection and Item Pick-up Behaviour have clearer descriptions. Your saved settings stay as they were, and nothing works differently. In all six languages
  • Options and the pause menu at larger Text Size: each row's box now grows with the text instead of squeezing it, and a long description shrinks a little to fit above the keys instead of running under them (Russian and German at 200%). 100% looks the same as before (Modern)
Release day

Fixed

  • Some copies of the game keep the level maps in a folder of their own inside 6R51 (6R51/CompiledMaps, for example). The game only looked at the files directly in 6R51, so it couldn't find lakvan.zmp and closed at the title screen once the menu's background came round to Lakvan's hall. It now finds the game's files in the folders inside 6R51 too. If a place's files really are missing, the title skips that place, and going there says which files are missing instead of the door doing nothing
  • The New Game screen now describes Modern's art as recreated rather than upscaled, in all six languages.
  • Text Size 175% and 200%: on Choose Class and Choose Race the description no longer sits on top of the box above it, and a description too long for the page now scrolls instead of being cut off. Use the right stick, Page Up and Page Down, the mouse wheel, or drag it with a finger; small arrows show when there's more above or below. Left and right still change the class. Load Game's saves no longer pile their lines on top of each other (fewer saves show at once, and the list scrolls), the About page fits above its keys, and the story pages' captions no longer run off the bottom of the screen. 100% to 150% look the same as before (Modern)
  • Android: right after new artwork arrived, the main menu loaded its background place with the new pictures at full size before they were prepared for the phone, which on some phones (a Galaxy A80) was more memory than they had, so surfaces were drawn flat. Those menu pictures now load at half size until they're prepared, and pictures go to the graphics in smaller batches, so the menu needs about the memory of a normal visit (tested on the Mac using the phone's code path, not yet on a phone)
  • Shops: long names such as Cure Blindness Balm no longer run into their prices at the larger text sizes. The list now widens into the parchment beside it (Modern)
  • Windows: on some older graphics cards (one player's AMD Radeon R7 M440), Modern showed no walls, ground, people or sky with Texture Pack on. The card's driver refused the new art the way the game sent it, so nothing in the level reached the screen. The art is now sent in the form Direct3D 12 asks for, which older drivers accept too (not yet tried on such a card). Folders with non-English letters in the Windows user name (Cyrillic, for example) were checked too: they work, and the game's log now records the Windows text setting to confirm it (Modern)
  • Android: when the phone's graphics couldn't make room for some of a place's pictures (seen as new artwork arrived at the main menu on a Galaxy A80), the game showed an "Assertion Failed" box and then closed. Now that part of the place is drawn plain and the game carries on, and the log says what couldn't be made
  • Android: some devices drew blocks and streaks of garbage over the title screen's pictures, the main menu's logo, the compass and the health, magicka and fatigue bars (a Redmi Note 12 Pro and a Retroid Pocket 5). When the game makes smaller copies of a picture that isn't square, the last, tiniest copies came out 0 pixels tall, which Vulkan doesn't allow, and some devices' graphics then damaged the whole picture. Those copies now stay at least 1 pixel (Android only; not yet checked on those devices)
  • Bandit Brawlers, Bandit Mages, archers and the other men in long tunics had no head while alive if HD Textures was off or the art download wasn't installed. Their heads are back (Modern, HD Textures Off)
  • Modern no longer carries on with an empty world when a graphics card can't draw its picture. One player's new game showed the rain, the sword and the HUD but no walls, ground or people, while Classic was fine. The game now tests the card with a small drawing at start. If that fails with anti-aliasing on, it turns anti-aliasing down or off for you; if it still fails, it draws the level with Classic lighting. Either way the reason goes into shadowkey.log. If you see this, setting Options > Anti-aliasing to Off is the thing to try first (Modern)
  • Windows: the game could close the moment its window opened, before the first page showed, on a PC where Steam still lists a game library on a drive that isn't there now (an unplugged disk, an empty card reader, a network drive that's offline). Looking for Morrowind on that drive stopped the game. It now skips the drive and carries on
  • Windows: when the game can't start or crashes, it now says so in a box and tells you where its log is, instead of the window just closing. After a crash it also saves a small crash file beside the log. Sending both with a bug report shows exactly what went wrong, along with your Windows version, processor and graphics card and driver
  • The little moths round the lanterns no longer race about as you walk up to them. Their swarm used to be placed on whichever side of the lantern you were standing, so it slid along with you and jumped to the other side as you passed. Each swarm now has a fixed spot, out from the wall the lantern hangs on, and the moths fly at the same pace whether you stand, walk or run (Modern, Trial: small life in the air On)
  • Chests at night and in caves no longer glow as if they were lanterns. Their gold bands were being lit like a window with a lamp behind it; now they catch a glint of light and no more (Modern, Window Glass on)
  • Sneak attacks only get their extra damage when the eye is closed. Before, a hit on a monster that hadn't noticed you still did 1.5 times the damage while another monster or person could see you and the eye was open. Melee, bows and spells all follow the eye now (Modern)
  • Raiders' Nest: one of the shadow doors reaches the floor again. Since 7 November it hung a little above the floor with a gap under it, because the level draws it smaller than the other shadow doors. It's now a little bigger, standing on the floor and reaching the ceiling, like the other shadow doors (Modern)
  • Raiders' Nest: if you cancel the question about using the red, blue or gold amulet at its door, using the door again now asks the question again. Before, it only offered to pick the lock until you walked away from the door and came back (Modern)
  • People sitting on stools no longer have their bodies through the table beside them, as many refugees and townsfolk in Dragonstar did. They sit in the middle of the stool, shift a little along it to clear the table, and a stool pressed too close to a table is left empty instead. Chairs, and Priestess Almathea in Azra, are as before (Modern, NPC Activities On)
  • Earthtear Caverns: the Spider Queen now drops her Shadowkey, so all eleven can be found. In the original game she never had it. If you killed her before this update, go back and search her body (Modern)
  • People and creatures no longer wobble like jelly when you stand close to them. Their breathing and idle movement was made of tiny steps, so each part of the body moved at its own moments and the breath stopped and started. They now breathe in one smooth movement. Walking, attacking and dying are as before (Modern)
  • The game no longer freezes when new artwork finishes downloading while you play or sit on the main menu. On a Mac it stopped for over a second each time, longer on slower machines and phones. Menu pictures show the new art at once; new artwork for the place you're in shows from the next place you go into
  • Water and slime show a faint reflection of the room again. Since 4 November they had only reflected the sky (Modern)
  • Monsters and people out in the open by day are no longer dark shapes against the bright mist and sky, as the goblins at the start of Snowline were. They now take the daylight the snow, ice, grass and streets around them do, in Snowline, Glacier Crawl, the Dragonfields, Stout's, Ghast's Pass and Dragonstar. Walking in at a door, they darken gradually, not all at once. Indoors, in caves and dungeons, and in Azra at night they look as before (Modern)
  • Snowline: coming in from Ghast's Pass, you no longer land right behind five goblins in the narrow pass, who turned and killed you in a few seconds. They now stand spread out on the open snow where the pass opens out, so you have time to get ready. The fight is still there, and the goblins are the same (Modern)
  • Snowline and Ghast's Pass: a foxglove in the snow and a fern in the pass now stand on the ground. The level places them a little higher than the other plants, so they hung in the air with a gap under them (Modern; Classic keeps the original's placement).
  • Loth'na Caverns: the lighting is no longer flat. The original lit the caves with pools of light that had no lamp in them; 60 more lanterns now hang where those pools are and over the enemy camps, so there are bright warm pools with dark rock between them, and soldiers, goblins and wolves are lit by the lamp they stand under and fall into shade away from it. The brown haze is thinner and the shadows cooler (Modern)
  • Gold coins are easier to pick up: the crosshair no longer has to sit exactly on a coin. A coin a little to one side of it is taken, the nearest one if there are several. A person, door, chest or barrel under the crosshair still comes first, and you can't reach coins any further away than before (Modern)

New

  • Fire recreated in detail: the flames on torches, braziers, candles and fireplaces, the fire pits in Crypt of Hearts I, and the Blaze fireball and its explosion. Each flame keeps the original's shape and timing, so it burns as before, now as a smooth painted flame instead of a few blocky squares (Modern; Classic keeps the original art).
  • Windows: Options > Graphics > Graphics Driver lets you choose how the game talks to your graphics card: Automatic (as before: Direct3D 12, or Vulkan if Direct3D 12 can't start), Direct3D 12 or Vulkan. It takes effect the next time the game starts: when you leave Options (or the pause page) with a different driver chosen, a box asks whether to restart now, which closes the game and opens it again with the new driver, or later. In a game it reminds you that anything since your last save will be lost. If Modern shows no walls, ground or people on an older card (a player's GeForce 940M), Vulkan is the one to try. If the driver you picked can't start on your PC, the game starts with the automatic choice instead, so you're never left without a picture (tried on a ROG Ally, where Vulkan draws the same picture as Direct3D 12 and runs as smoothly, a steady 120 fps; not yet tried on an NVIDIA card)
  • Options > Interface > Text Size now goes up to 175% and 200%, for players who found 150% still too small on a phone. At those sizes the character screen, the journal and the shops rearrange themselves to fit. The character screen uses the whole screen, its Stats and Skills pages go into three columns, and the hands and armour scroll. Quest titles and the labels at the top of a shop stay at their 150% size, because they are already large. 100% to 150% look the same as before (Modern; in Classic, Menu Scale sets the text size as before)
  • New in Options > Gameplay, for players who want some of the port's additions off. Each is on by default, so nothing changes unless you turn it off: Skills, Quest Markers, Walking Pace, Sprint, Crouch and Stealth, Sit on Seats, Loose Gold Coins, Brawls, Pick-up Messages, NPC Names, Autosave on Arrival, Search Bodies and Quicksave Keys. Rain has moved from Graphics to Gameplay, and with it off the Make it rain cheat no longer brings rain either. A row that needs another is greyed out while that one is off, and its description says so: Skills needs Hit Detection Modern, Quest Markers needs Quest Log Modern, and Rain needs Lighting Modern (Modern)
  • Delfran's Hideout: all of its wall, floor and ceiling textures recreated in detail (the banded timber-and-stone walls and their window, mossy cobble and dry-stone panels, stone blocks, flagstone and wooden floors, plaster and plank walls). Some of them also show in Ghast's Pass, the Raiders' Nest and Stoutt's Pass. Two more shared by several places are new too: the weathered plank fence (Dragonfields, Raiders' Nest, Snowline, Stoutt's Pass) and the green-striped plaster (Ghast's Pass, Broken Wing, Snowline, Twilight Temple) (Modern)
  • Earthtear Caverns: all of its rock textures recreated in detail: the mossy and layered blue rock, the root-covered walls, the crystal-faceted rock, the frosted dark rock and the rock face with glowing pink crystal veins (Modern)
  • Ghast's Pass and Snowline: the marsh ground, rock slopes and snow recreated in detail: snow over bare rock, snow with grass showing through, grass under patchy snow, and the pale blue ice (Modern)
  • Ghast's Pass: the rest of its textures recreated in detail: the old ruin's mossy flagstones, green block walls and steps, and the stone building's blue cut-stone walls and cobbled path (Modern)
  • Twilight Temple: all of its textures recreated in detail: the dark stone ceilings, the checkered floor of its halls, the diamond-tiled floor of its round rooms, the gold-inlaid and cracked floor tiles, the carved gold panels, the ivy-topped stone walls and the painted sky, sunset and starry night walls (Modern)
  • Snowline: all of its textures recreated in detail: the frozen cliffs and rock walls, the icy snow and cracked ice, the snow-capped stone pillars, the mossy walls hung with icicles and the weathered plank walls of its huts (Modern)
  • Fearfrost Caverns: all of its textures recreated in detail: the blue ice walls and cave mouths, the crazy-paving floors and ceilings, the blue stone walls and their iron grates, the mossy walls and the algae pool (Modern)
  • Fearfrost II: all of its textures recreated in detail: the ice walls and ceiling and the frozen cave mouth with its mossy rim (Modern)
  • Dragonfields: all of its textures recreated in detail: the stone block walls, the rock and hedge openings, the stone and wooden windows (Modern)
  • Raider's Nest: all of its textures recreated in detail: the weathered plank and X-braced walls, the rough stone walls, the wooden windows, the mud and green stone floors (Modern)
  • Dragonstar East: the last of its textures recreated in detail: the stained glass, the stone column walls and the ivy-covered wall (Modern)
  • Loth' Na Caverns: all of its textures recreated in detail: the tan and red rock walls, the rose stone ceilings and the cracked stone floors with lava glowing in the cracks (Modern)
  • Lakvan's Stronghold: all of its textures recreated in detail: the stone walls with their tapestry, grates and knot-work emblem, the torch-lit walls, the tiled and paved floors, the stone ceilings and the glowing green grates (Modern)
  • Broken Wing I and II: all of their textures recreated in detail: the carved horse friezes and medallions, the green marble panels, the stone block and dry-stone walls, the mossy slabs, the tiled floors, the window over the water and the ceilings (Modern)
  • Stout's Trading Post: its last two textures recreated in detail (Modern)
  • Glacier Crawl: all of its textures recreated in detail: the frost-feathered ice walls, the cracked turquoise ice, the log and plank walls, the plank floors and the ice cave mouth (Modern)
  • Crypts of Hearts I, II and III: all of their textures recreated in detail: the sandstone and tan block walls, the carved shield panels, the marble and slab floors, the snowy and dark rock faces and the crystal-flecked rock (Modern)
  • Every level's wall, floor and ceiling textures have now been recreated in detail (Modern; Classic keeps the original art)
  • New in Options > Graphics, each on by default and each with its own On/Off row so you can compare: Spell Looks (Blaze flies as a fireball, frost and shock bolts get their own looks; Drain and Absorb pull glowing motes back to you, and Weakness leaves a sinking murky cloud), Weapon Light, Metal Reflections, Window Glass, Wet Reflections, Window Light, Snow on Roofs (Snowline), Plant Look and Life in the Air (moths, smoke, drips, leaves, cold breath). Ground shade, sun shadows and softer torch shadows come with Effects High. These are new, so tell us what looks wrong (Modern)

Changed

  • The website, the README in the downloads and About > Legal and Licences now say the port is © 2026 Dan Whelan, free to download and play, and ask people not to sell it, re-upload it or share changed copies. The website's FAQ has a new entry, "How do I know my download is the real one?", with the Android signing key's fingerprint
  • Spell bolts now light up the walls, floor and ceiling around them as they fly, in their own colour: orange for fire, blue for frost, violet for shock. Before, a fireball in a torch-lit corridor like Lakvan's left the stone around it dark, and elsewhere it lit mostly the air as a pale glow (Modern, Spell Looks On)
  • Dragonstar East: the windows that sunlight comes in through no longer look dark like night from inside. By day their glass now shows the bright daylight outside, so the beam comes from a bright window. From the street they look as before, and Classic is unchanged (Modern, Window Light On)
  • Options > Graphics: the Brightness slider is now called Gamma, which is what it always was. It lightens or darkens the mid-tones of the 3D picture and leaves black, white, the menus and the HUD alone. Your saved setting carries over
Classic, closer to the original

New

  • About has a Legal and Licences page (it was Open-Source Licences). It starts with the legal notice: Shadowkey Reforged is a free fan project that includes none of the original game, isn't connected to ZeniMax, Bethesda, Microsoft, Nokia or Vir2L Studios, and comes with no warranty. The licences follow as before. The same notice is now at the bottom of the website
  • The Mac and Windows downloads are now about 15 MB. The recreated artwork downloads the first time you start the game, on a "Downloading artwork" screen with a progress bar, then the game carries on by itself. Skip lets you play straight away with the original art; the artwork keeps downloading in the background, and again at the next start until it's all there. Classic uses the original art and doesn't need it
  • New artwork downloads four pictures at a time, so it arrives faster
  • Android: the AYN Thor's bottom screen shows the Shadowkey Reforged logo when it has no menu to show (the title screen, a Classic game, before a game starts), instead of the word SHADOWKEY on its own. Until the artwork has downloaded, it shows the word as before
  • Shops ask "How many?" when you sell a stack or buy something the merchant has more than one of: a slider from 1 to the whole stack (or as many as your gold and pack allow when buying). Left and right change it by one, LB and RB (Q and R on the keyboard) jump to 1 or all, and the mouse or a finger can drag it. A single item still sells as before (Modern)

Fixed

  • Shadow doors: the swirl turns on the big Shadow Gates in Lakvan's Stronghold and the Twilight Temple too, and the other shadow doors (the crypts, Delfran's Hideout, Dragonstar and the Raiders' Nest) show their new artwork again while they swirl. Since the new door art went in on 8 November they had been playing the old stand-in picture over it (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Enemies in a room no longer all face the same way. The game stores many of them facing north, two thirds of Lakvan's among them, so walking in from the south you only ever saw their backs. Each one now has its own direction, the same on every visit, and one facing the door can see you come in (Modern)
  • A new character no longer moves almost at a run. Every race now starts out walking at the pace of Speed 35 at most, so a Speed 50 Argonian, Dark Elf or Wood Elf walks like everyone else at first (about a third slower than before) and a Nord or Redguard Knight a little slower than before. Points you put into Speed, and anything that raises it, still make you faster, and Sprint is still quicker than walking. The Speed shown on the stats page doesn't change (Modern)
  • Weapon and magic skills rise much more slowly. Blade, Axe, Blunt, Hand to Hand, Marksman and the four schools of magic now take about 10 to 15 hits or casts for a point at the start and more as they grow (a sword skill of 20 takes 30 hits, at 50 it takes 60), where before 3 to 8 hits were enough. Saves made before this read lower skills, as their uses are counted again at the new pace (Modern)
  • Spells cast after going through a door to another place now count as yours again. Before, a monster hit by your spell there just stood and took it, the enemy health bar didn't follow it once it was out of view, sneak attacks didn't get their extra damage, and your spell level and Willpower weren't used for the hit. It had been like this since October, and starting or loading a game in a place wasn't affected (Modern and Classic)
  • Azra's Crossing: the night mist is lighter in the low meadows below the town, so the trees and hills show through it, and from the top of the falls you can see down to the pool at the bottom instead of a wall of fog. The town's mist and the rain look as before (Modern)
  • Eleven women's faces have proper chins now, including Helena, the women of Dragonstar West, Tanyin Aldwyr, Violet, Rene Violet and Rilora. Their faces sat so low there was no room for a chin, and a lump showed under the mouth (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Women have slimmer necks. They were as wide as the jaw, which looked heavy, most of all on Priestess Almathea and Acolyte Menlin in Azra's temple (Modern)
  • Android: on the AYN Thor, the green lines round the top screen are gone for good, and the health and stamina bars at the bottom of the top screen show again. The bottom screen's picture is now sent the way up that screen is built, as the top screen's already was, so the display doesn't have to turn either one
  • Options from the main menu shows every setting, as it does in a Modern game, instead of only Brightness and Render Scale on the Graphics tab (and only a few on the others). Changes made there apply to Modern games; a Classic game still uses the original's settings
  • Android: the app's icon fills the launcher's circle (or the phone's own icon shape) instead of sitting as a small square inside a white circle. On Android 13 and later, themed icons show the staff and wings in the phone's colours
  • Classic: the "Downloading new artwork" line no longer covers the HUD at the top of the screen. It isn't shown during a Classic game, which uses the original art; the title screen and Modern still show it
  • Classic: a dead monster's body disappears 5 seconds after it dies, as in the original, leaving its loot bag on the floor
  • Classic: looking at a friendly person no longer shows their name over the crosshair; the original names no one
  • Classic: the port's own messages ("+50 gold", "Taken: …", "Dropped … gold", "You have reached level …", "The Daedric sword fades away") no longer appear; the original shows none of them
  • Classic: the sky is drawn with its square pixels, as on the phone, instead of smoothed
  • Classic: saving is the original's four slots again, from the game menu's Save Game and Load Game. Quicksave, quickload and the autosave on arriving in a new place are gone from Classic
  • Classic: no cheats. The game menu has no Cheat line and F10 does nothing; the Controls page leaves out the keys Classic doesn't use
  • Classic: sound plays as on the N-Gage: the same in both ears, fading with distance by the original's own rule, with no muffling, and each level's music starts without a fade
  • Classic: the character, inventory, stats, quest and hand-queue screens are the N-Gage's own pages again, run from the game's files, laid out and coloured as on the phone
  • Classic: all text is in a pixel font close to the N-Gage's own, with its faint shadow, and the menus match the phone's colours, line spacing and soft-key labels
  • Classic: Original Pixels is on by default and anti-aliasing is off
  • Classic: a sword blow hits what is in the middle of the screen, as on the phone, so a monster to one side or a barrel in front isn't hit
  • Classic: torch flicker and the view's far edge work as on the phone: the flicker changes every frame at each corner, and the world past a wall isn't drawn
  • Classic: the New Game page no longer says Classic has its bugs fixed
  • Android: the AYN Thor's top screen no longer shows green lines along its edges; the game now sends the picture the way up the screen is built, so the display doesn't have to turn it
Android art in less memory, and a map you can drag

New

  • Android: the recreated art now takes about a quarter of the graphics memory it did (in Azra, 195 MB instead of 775), squeezed into the format phones use. The first visit to each place takes longer while the art is prepared; every visit after that loads faster than before (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • On Android, Options > Gameplay > Game Files is there as on a computer: choose another folder with your game files and it's copied in, then used from the next start
  • The map's Local view can be dragged when zoomed in, with the mouse or a finger, as the World view can (Modern)
  • Android: Automatic Render Scale now works, lowering the 3D view's sharpness a little when the phone's graphics can't keep up and raising it again when they can
  • Android: the first start never shows a black screen behind the main menu. The art is prepared while the intro plays, a place not ready yet is shown at once with plain art, and the menu says "Preparing artwork for this device" with a progress bar while it works. It happens once per install (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • About has a new Open-Source Licences page listing the software and fonts the game is built with and their licences
  • Android: while the main menu is up, the game prepares the art for the places ahead, starting with Azra, so their first visit loads quickly too. It stops the moment you start playing and carries on next time you're at the menu (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Phones: a second layout for the on-screen controls, Options > Controls > Touch Layout > Icons. Round gold buttons instead of a drawn controller: Attack shows the weapon in your hand, another button the item in your other hand (tap to drink or use it), and one Interact button that changes to a speech bubble, door, lock, bag or hand for whatever is in front of you. Swipe across the weapon or item to change it, or hold to pick from a ring. Push the movement ring past its edge to sprint, double-tap it to keep sprinting, swipe anywhere to look. Jump, Sneak, Quick Heal (drinks a healing potion and shows how many you have), Aim (with a bow), Pause, Inventory, Quests and Map are on screen too. The controller layout stays the default (Modern)
  • Phones: Options > Controls > Edit Touch Layout opens the touch controls full screen, for either layout: drag a control to move it, pinch it with two fingers to make it bigger or smaller, and slide how see-through the controls are. Save keeps the changes, Cancel puts everything back, Reset returns to the starting layout. The pause menu's Touch Controls button opens the same screen, now without its rows of text buttons
  • Phones, Icons layout: on-screen hints show the matching button's picture, or the action's name, instead of controller button names; the weapon button is bigger; Sneak is a crouching figure; the item button shows a faint potion when your hand is empty, and the potion picture is cleaner
  • Phones: in the touch layout editor, tap a control to get an eye beside it (hide or show it) and a small slider for how see-through that one control is. Options > Controls has a new Touch Look Speed slider
  • Phones: a very quick tap on an on-screen button was sometimes missed; it now always counts, in both touch layouts
  • Phones: Options from the title screen can be changed tab by tab with a tap on the tab's name (it did nothing before), and a swipe left or right across any tabbed menu (Options, the pause menu, the journal) moves to the next or previous tab
  • Phones: while you're using the touch screen, menus no longer show keyboard and controller keys ("[A] Accept", "[LB]"): the bottom row has Reset, Reset All and Back as words to tap, the tab bar has arrows, the map says "Pinch to zoom" and "Drag to move", and the inventory's key line is gone. Keys come back as soon as a keyboard or controller is used
  • Phones: Options > Controls > Touch Layout shows on the title screen too, so the Icons layout can be picked before playing; it was only in Options opened during a Modern game
  • Classic now has the original's short view: the world fades into darkness (or grey mist in the misty levels) a short way ahead, about 11 cells, and nothing further is drawn, as on the N-Gage. The distance and fade are the original's own numbers, read from its program. Options > Graphics > Original View Distance turns it off (Classic)
  • Classic now runs at 20 frames a second by default, nearer what the N-Gage itself managed, with 25 (the original's highest) and 15 as choices. The game plays the same at any of them; only fewer pictures are drawn, and monsters move evenly between them. Options > Graphics > Original Frame Rate changes it or turns it off (Classic)
  • Classic has no sprint, as the original had none: the Sprint key and button do nothing in a Classic game, and Customize Controls leaves them out there. Modern keeps sprint (Classic)
  • Classic's short view now keeps the sky, as the original does: in the misty levels (Ghast's Pass, Snowline, Dragonfields, Dragonstar) the ground fades into grey mist with the sky still clear above it, and Azra's night sky shows above the dark (Classic)
  • Ragdolls: someone killed from the front no longer slides backwards still standing before falling; they tip over where they stood (Modern, Ragdolls On)
  • Dragonstar East and West have new, hand-recreated walls, streets and ceilings: all 18 of the town's textures, from the stone house fronts and timber walls to the paving, wooden panels and the gate's railing, sharper and cleaner than before (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Classic: a monster's loot drops in a small bag on the floor where it died, as in the original, instead of being searched from the body. Walk up and use the bag to see what's inside. Bodies in your Classic saves that still had loot get their bag when you next load (Classic)
  • The beams under the house roofs (seen from inside Azra's houses, and under the eaves in Snowline, the Dragonfields and Dragonstar) were half roof tiles; they're all wood now (Modern)
  • Spoken greetings are louder and clearer: they have their own Dialogue Volume slider in Options > Audio, start a little louder, no longer echo around caves and halls, and the music and ambient sounds dip a little while someone speaks (Modern)
  • People who sit down on chairs and stools now sit in the middle of the seat. Before, everyone sat well off to one side, so Priestess Almathea in Azra looked perched on the edge of her chair (Modern, NPC Activities On)
  • Killing the rat with Menlin's herbs: the "You have found the herbs!" message no longer shows the dead rat's name as if it were speaking, and its reply and buttons now start faint and brighten over three seconds, the short wait the original has before it can be closed, so it no longer looks stuck. The button row also keeps showing a controller's buttons while you play with one, instead of switching to keyboard keys whenever a message opens (Modern)
  • Gravel Trothgar no longer walks on the spot in his shop after the rat quest. He now stands, looks round and strolls about the shop. Anyone else who gets nowhere for a few seconds stops walking instead of treading on the spot (Modern, NPC Activities)
  • Android: a phone whose graphics can't run the game says so plainly, in its own language, instead of failing to start; older phones missing two minor graphics features now run with simpler texture filtering rather than being turned away
  • Android: choosing the game folder or Morrowind's sounds checks there's room first and says how much is needed; a copy that fails leaves nothing half-copied and keeps the folder that was there
  • Android: a new install starts with Effects and Foliage on Low, to suit mid-range phones; both can be raised in Options

Fixed

  • On a narrow phone screen, the setup page's line about the keys at the bottom fits on the screen
A new main menu, and gold coins

New

  • The site lists Android beside macOS and Windows, with a Download for Android button (coming soon)
  • The site lists Android's requirements, and the three download buttons are the same size
  • On a handheld like the ROG Ally, naming your character opens Windows' touch keyboard when you're playing with a controller (the cheats page's number boxes too)
  • New recreated art for five of the men in long tunics: Eglar Thundren and the Dragonstar West townsmen, the Spire archers and thieves, Deadeye, the Tharn archers, the highway mages, the Arrow Shade and Tharnblade (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Penelope and the five new long-tunic men now have the rounded heads with real noses and chins, like the other people in recreated art (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for five more men in long tunics, among them Spire archers and the Ace Archers, with rounded heads (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for five of the men in short tunics, with rounded heads: Branson and the raiders, Volstok Violet, the highwaymen, Wendek Freetalker and the Crypt Caretaker, and the Azra villagers and bandit swordsmen (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • The five new short-tunic men have proper painted necks instead of streaks (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for five more men in short tunics, with rounded heads and painted necks: Blanden Grizzle, the Dragonstar guards and archers, the Skyrim soldiers and archers, Clever Sed and Devron (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Every person's face in recreated art now has one smooth nose: a doubled strip down the middle of the nose is gone. Blanden Grizzle's shoulders are leather, not bare skin (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for Wulfbris, with a rounded head and a painted neck (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the long and round tables, stools, the throne in Delfhide and the wall torches (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • The doors in Delfran's Hideout now show the same recreated door as everywhere else, not the old blurry one (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the dark chests, the candelabras, the braziers, the raiders' shelters in the Dragonfields and the ferns of Ghast's Pass (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the bookcases, the desks, the urns, the ice crystals of the frozen levels and the corner cobwebs (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the shadow doors, the scrolls, the green bottles, the tankards and the prayer mats (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the cave stalagmites, the sarcophagi, the red mushrooms, the spike traps and the herb plants (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the skulls, the menagerie levers, the small ice crystals, the window boxes, the cell doors, the buckets, the gryphon heads, the votive candles and the arrows (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for 36 more props: cages, gates, traps, desks, targets, carts, rubble, flags, mushrooms, plants, runes, urns, a weapon pile, a raiders' door, the gryphon statue, Azra and the three Pergan undead (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the last 47 small props: the ice puzzle stones, the dropped weapons, the Shadow Key, the witch tree, the guild council's table and chair, the memorials, the raiders' doors, the fortifying crystal, the sail and mast, the fireplace, the statues and more (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the last 11 models: the portcullis, the obelisk, the fear-frost crystal, the glass display case, the false and hidden walls and the rest. Every model in the game now has new art (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the weapon swings: every frame of the axe, mace, longsword, crossbow, throwing knife and bow, and two of the club's three swings (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the club's idle pose and first swing, so every weapon swing now has new art (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • The website: nine more models to turn in the 3D model viewer (Delfran, Eglar Thundren, a Spire archer, a highway mage, an Argonian, a zombie, Umbra' Keth, a wolf and a kagouti), and new screenshots of Azra's Crossing with its mist, flowers, lanterns and rain, the new zombies, and bandits falling as ragdolls
  • Gold coins lie about the world: a few on some tables (rarely a pile of up to 15), the odd one on the floor under a table, offerings at altars and statues, one on a bookcase shelf now and then, and some spilled by dropped bags and skeletons. Point at one and press Use to pick it up and its pile with it, 1 gold each. They stay gone once taken (Modern)
  • A new main menu: the game's places play behind it, the camera gliding through Azra's lantern-lit streets (one in the rain), Delfran's hideout, Ghost Pass in the rain, Dragonstar East, Snowline, the Earth cave and Lake Van, a new place every 10 seconds with a fade to black between. The logo sits at the top left and the choices run along the bottom, with the selected one between small arrows. Options and the save lists open over the places, blurred. Only early places, so nothing is spoiled, and no sound from them, only the title music (Modern)
  • The main menu's Continue no longer says (Modern), and Delete Saved Game is gone from it: in Load Game and Save Game, press R (X on an Xbox pad, Square on a PlayStation one), or click Delete Save, to delete the highlighted save after a Yes/No check (Modern)
  • The main menu's choices are in bold type in ordinary capitals (New Game rather than NEW GAME), a little smaller, and the gold lines round the selected one no longer run under its neighbours (Modern)
  • The main menu keeps answering the controller, keyboard and mouse while the places behind it change, and the moment of black between places is much shorter. A button tapped during any short pause, in a menu or in play, is no longer missed. Every level also loads about a third of a second faster

Fixed

  • Three beggars in Dragonstar East who ask "Please, can you spare some coin?" are women, but the original game named them "Male Citizen". They are now "Female Citizen", and three women who were plain "Citizen" are "Female Citizen" too, so they get the right word in Russian, German, French, Spanish and Italian as well (Modern)
  • A wolf shut behind a door no longer pokes its head through it, and wolves, rats, wormmouths, spiders, kagouti, snow rays, floaters and the gryphon can no longer open doors: shut one on them and they search their own side, then go home. People and goblins still open doors and come after you (Modern)
Foliage on Windows

New

  • Goblins, the wights of the crypts, Umbra' Keth and Delfran's body (Delfran, Lakvan, Duvais, Perosius) go limp when they die, as bandits and zombies already did, instead of freezing in their death animation. Rats, wolves, spiders and the floating things still die as the original has them (Modern, Ragdolls on)
  • A new title screen with depth: the key, logo and background move gently apart, shift with the mouse or right stick, and gold embers rise through them. Very wide screens no longer cut off the key (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • A new install on Windows starts with Foliage on Low (Modern)
  • A new install starts with Options > Graphics > Atmosphere at 100%, up from 50%. Saved settings keep their value (Modern)
  • Far less ash drifts through the Dragonfields, about one speck in eight (Modern)
  • Azra's Crossing has a thicker night mist outdoors, and Options > Graphics > Atmosphere now makes more of a difference there (Modern)
  • A few dim orange lanterns by the houses and streets of Azra's Crossing at night (Modern)
  • Foliage runs much faster on Windows, and looks the same (Modern)
  • New recreated art for the rest of the dagger's swing (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art: stalagmites, the dagger, dropped bags, cell doors and the high-backed chair (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for all six kinds of zombie, among them the Nightdead of the Twilight Temple (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the wolves (all four colours) and Umbra' Keth (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the floating jellies, all four colours (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the kagouti and the snow rays of Glacier Crawl, all their colours (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for Delfran, Lakvan, Duvais and Perosius, and for the Argonians (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • New recreated art for the hands when you cast a spell, drawn for widescreen (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • The red flash on an enemy hit by a spell is easy to see now: a smaller, dimmer burst where the spell lands leaves the flash in view. Poison flashes once when it lands (Modern)
  • "Miss" shows by the crosshair when a spell misses, as it does for a sword (Modern)
  • Candelabras, vases and about 950 other placed things now stand at the size the N-Gage shows them, in Modern and Classic. The level files store a size for each one, which the port never read, so anything meant to be smaller or larger was drawn at full size. Some of Azra's roofs, cages, plants, crystals, doors and monsters change too
  • Ghosts no longer have a black strip down the middle of the face. Their skulls now meet in the middle, with a nose hole and a full set of teeth. The black line down their legs is gone too, and the slit in the belly is much smaller (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Captain Nym in Glacier Crawl was invisible: her name showed and she talked, but no ghost was drawn. She can be seen now, in Modern and Classic
  • The Shadowkey Tirasch drops in Fearfrost Caverns was invisible too. It shows on the ground now

Changed

  • Cheats > Stop the rain clears the rain in half the time (Modern)
  • Athletics, Sneak and Acrobatics rise more slowly: Athletics about an hour on foot to reach 25, not 20 minutes. Saves keep the levels they have (Modern)
  • Walking into a wall no longer raises Athletics (Modern)
  • On the ROG Ally, on battery, the game no longer gets stuck far below its frame rate limit
  • Automatic Render Scale on Windows only lowers the picture when the graphics chip really can't keep up

Fixed

  • Dead goblins, wights, Umbra' Keth and Delfran's body no longer have their skin drawn as long smeared streaks once they lie down (Modern, Ragdolls on)
  • Foliage went missing after moving to another level: only the first level you played in a session grew plants. Every level grows its own now, and the first level's plants no longer turn up in the wrong places in the next one (Modern)
Real views through doorways, and footsteps

New

  • Shadow doors swirl: the painted vortex slowly turns inside its frame (Modern)
  • Doorways look out on the real place beyond them in place of a painted picture, and it shifts as you walk up or move to the side: the ways out of the Raiders' Nest, Delfran's Hideout, Earthtear Caverns, the Twilight Temple, the Crypt of Hearts, Broken Wing and Glacier Crawl (Modern)
  • The gates between the Dragonfields and Dragonstar, and between Dragonstar West and East, show the real street or meadow through their bars (Modern)
  • Dark entrances show what's inside, still in deep gloom: Delfran's mine in Azra's Crossing, the raiders' hut, the forest cave in the Dragonfields, the Crypt of Hearts, Broken Wing, the Twilight Temple, Fearfrost and Lakvan. You catch a torch-lit passage or Fearfrost's purple crystals far off in the dark (Modern)
  • Footsteps: you hear your own steps by what you're walking on, a thunk on wooden floorboards, and dirt, grass, stone, snow and ice each have their own. After rain, outdoor ground gives a light splosh that fades as it dries. Uses your own copy of Morrowind (Modern)
  • People say a short spoken greeting when you start talking to them, in Morrowind's voices from your own Morrowind files. Options > Audio > NPC Greetings turns it off (Modern)
  • Ragdolls, a trial: people go limp when they die and fall the way the blow and the ground take them. On unless you turn it off in Options > Gameplay (Modern)
  • A new game in Azra's Crossing opens in the rain. It lasts about six minutes of play, then the weather carries on as usual. Options > Graphics > Rain turns it off (Modern)
  • You start out slower and get faster as you level up: about three quarters of the old speed for a new character, the old speed by level 15 (Modern)
  • Skills, on a new page of the character screen: Blade, Axe, Blunt, Hand to Hand, Marksman, Light, Medium and Heavy Armor, Destruction, Restoration, Alteration, Illusion, Sneak, Lockpicking, Mercantile, Athletics and Acrobatics. They go up as you use them and don't change your level. Shots reach further with Marksman, and past their reach they drop to the ground (Modern)
  • Monsters get tougher as the game goes on, so the skills have something to push against, and armour no longer stops a hit altogether. The first monsters you meet haven't changed (Modern)
  • People have lives now. In Dragonstar, Azra's Crossing and other towns they walk a little way and come back, look at barrels and fires, sit down, eat and drink, and a few sweep. They stop and look round when you come near, and you can still talk to them. Nobody who matters to a quest goes far. Options > Gameplay > NPC Activities turns it off (Modern)
  • You can hit people who can't be killed. They fight back or run, nearby guards step in, and if you beat them they fall and get back up with a new animation. Get far enough away and they calm down and walk home (Modern)
  • A small crown shows above the name of anyone you can't kill when you aim at them (Modern)
  • Throwing knives and darts fly point first and land stuck in the ground (Modern)
  • New recreated art: the foxglove plants, rocks, rails, the great gate in Azra's Crossing, the timber frame of Delfran's mine, and Penelope in Dragonstar East (Modern)
  • A 3D model viewer on this page, under the screenshots: drag to turn some of the game's people and creatures

Fixed

  • Closing a door while standing in its doorway no longer puts you on the far side with the door shut behind you (Modern)
  • Footsteps now keep up with you: they come faster, stay even, speed up when you sprint and land as the view dips. On a 120 Hz screen most of them were going missing. The weapon's sway and the head bob now follow the distance you really walk, so they stop when you walk into a wall (Modern)
  • You no longer look down on bandits and other people. Your view is a little lower, so you stand about level with them, slightly taller. Collision and how enemies see you haven't changed (Modern)
  • Earthtear Caverns' entrance in Azra's Crossing and Loth' Na's in the Dragonfields are one dark cave mouth again, not a picture repeated up the rock (Modern)
  • Friendly people no longer attack you: some citizens and the refugees in Dragonstar, the Caretaker in the Crypt of Hearts and Ivgrizt the goblin. In the original they leave you alone
  • Makor, the orc you free in Delfran's Hideout, walks out of his cell normally instead of swinging his arms (Modern)
  • Ragdoll bodies keep their shape. People no longer bulge, squeeze or go paper thin as they fall: only the joints bend (Modern)
  • Crickets, wind and other outdoor sounds no longer play indoors. They fade as you step inside and come back as you step out (Modern)
  • Controller button pictures in dialogue and the tutorial are sharp and readable. LB, RB and the others had their letters filled in by their own shadow (Modern)
  • Nobody stands frozen any more: the people who stood like statues now breathe, and walking into someone moves them along, so nobody blocks a corridor (Modern)
  • Men in long tunics, Bandit Brawlers and Dragonstar's citizens among them, are better proportioned: narrower above the belt, with thinner upper arms and wider heads (Modern)
  • Gravel Trothgar and the Bandit Thug have painted necks now, in place of a dark patch and streaks under the jaw (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Aiming a bow or crossbow no longer fills the screen: the weapon drops out of view while you hold the draw (Modern)
  • Use now searches the barrel or crate you're pointing at, even with a door or chest close by. Azra's barrel by the door used to open and close the door instead (Modern)
  • Saving during the opening rain and loading later carries on with the rain for the time it had left (Modern)
  • People who stood still now swing and walk when they fight you, in place of hurting you without moving (Modern)
  • The doorway of your first house in Azra's Crossing no longer drops you into an invisible hole (Modern)
  • Far fewer fireflies: about one in eight of what there were, in Azra's Crossing and Ghast's Pass (Modern)
  • People sit on chairs the right way round now, with their arms clear of the back (Modern)
  • Killing Sgt. Grell no longer locks you out of Delfran's treasure room. The key is on his body now (Modern)
Real water, rain, grass and snow

New

  • Russian is now a choice in Options > Select Language, using a 2006 fan translation that comes with the game. Its translators are named under About. English stays the default
  • Floors and block walls have real depth now: the gaps between stones sink in and shift as you move. Options > Graphics > Surface Depth has Off, Low and High, with High the default (Modern)
  • Each level has its own echo now: sounds ring on in crypts, ice caves and big halls, die quickly in small rooms and barely at all outdoors. Music and menu sounds stay dry (Modern)
  • Water is real now: you can see down through streams and pools to the bed, and it stands above the ground, so it comes up around whatever wades in. It meets the banks wherever the ground rises through it, not along a straight grid line. The stream in Azra's Crossing now runs under a real stone arch at the footbridge instead of stopping at a painted wall (Modern)
  • Ghast's Pass is a real swamp now: dark, murky pools lie across the valley floor, with the ground showing through at their edges, mist over them, and the sky reflected in them. You splash through them and hear them bubble as you get close, and walking and monsters are unchanged (Modern)
  • Lava in Loth' Na is no longer a red floor. It stands above the rock, with a dark crust creeping over it and bright melt glowing in the cracks, and it lights the walls, ceilings and people near it (Modern)
  • The slime pool in Fearfrost is thick and murky now. It heaves slowly, you can only see in a little way at the edge, scum drifts on top and bubbles swell and burst. It no longer looks like wallpaper (Modern)
  • Azra's two waterfalls throw spray and mist at the foot, and water whitens as it reaches the edge of a fall (Modern)
  • Rings spread on water, slime and lava where you wade or stand, and where an arrow lands, with a few drops thrown up. Lava throws sparks (Modern)
  • A loading screen with a progress bar when you travel to another level or load a save, so the game no longer looks stuck while a level loads. It uses the original's loading picture and bar
  • Rain: showers now come and go by themselves in Azra's Crossing, Stout's Trading Post, Dragonstar, the Dragonfields (rarely) and Ghast's Pass (often). The sky and haze go grey, rain falls only where there's open sky above, floors get wet and shine for a while afterwards, puddles collect in dips and rings spread on water. In heavy rain there's soft, rare lightning, with thunder a moment later. The sound comes from your own Morrowind files and goes low and dull under a roof. Options > Graphics > Rain turns it off. It changes nothing about how the game plays (Modern)
  • Flames crackle and crystals hum as you get close, and fade as you walk away, from where they are: torches, fireplaces, braziers, candles, every crystal including Earthtear's small ones. A wall between you nearly silences them, and they fade out under a menu. Uses your own copy of Morrowind (Modern)
  • Grass grows outdoors in Azra's Crossing, Stout's Trading Post, Dragonfields and Ghast's Pass, with weeds and flowers in patches, and rocks and twigs on the dirt paths. Each place has its own: buttercups in Azra, dry yellow grass and poppies in Dragonfields, dark reeds in the swamp. It moves in the wind and leans away as you walk through it, and pines and other plants sway too. Options > Graphics > Foliage has Off, Low and High, with High the default (Modern)
  • Snow now falls thicker in Snowline and Glacier Crawl, drifts with the wind and gusts (Modern)
  • Grey ash drifts slowly through the Dragonfields' haze, with a few specks still glowing (Modern)
  • Fireflies wander and blink over the grass and water of Azra's Crossing and Ghast's Pass (Modern)
  • The air wobbles softly above the lava in Loth' Na, big fires and braziers, on Effects High (Modern)
  • New hand-drawn skins for goblins, Hungers and orc warriors, 13 in all, in place of the stand-ins (Modern, HD Textures On)
  • Cheats > Make it rain starts heavy rain outdoors within seconds, and it stays until you turn it off (Modern)
  • Throwing knives and darts have their own sound, a quick swoosh from your own copy of Morrowind, instead of the bow's. You can change it in Options > Audio > Morrowind Audio (Modern)

Fixed

  • The game runs smoothly again after the day's new graphics had slowed every level. Azra's Crossing, the Dragonfields, Ghast's Pass and Earthtear Caverns hold 120 fps; rooms full of Surface Depth can still dip (Modern)
  • Escape no longer loses the Gold or Blue Amulet in the Raiders' Nest, and the three boxes for what a raider drops when killed say the raider dropped it (Modern)
  • A wall torch in the Raiders' stronghold burns like the others now (Modern)
  • Goblins' backs are rounded now, a proper hump and no longer a sharp point (Modern)
  • Snow no longer falls inside Snowline's houses (Modern)
  • The grey stripes running down Azra's waterfalls up close are gone, and the falls no longer look stretched (Modern)
  • Door creaks no longer play while you're outdoors in Azra's Crossing, Stout's Trading Post and Dragonstar. They only play under a roof now (Modern)
  • People's heads are smaller and they have narrower necks. Heads were as deep as their chests and sat straight on their shoulders, which stood out on bandit thugs and Gravel Trothgar (Modern)
  • Morrowind's music and sounds now play from the first start if the game finds your copy. Before, they only started once you had opened Options > Morrowind Audio (Modern)
  • The hints along the bottom of the character screen and the plain menus, and that screen's Character and Misc tabs, were always in English. They now follow the chosen language, and so does the help line under the name field
  • Mist and torch glow are smooth now. They showed a fine dithered grain, easiest to see beside a lantern in Earthtear Caverns and Delfran's Hideout (Modern)
Round barrels, bottles and urns

New

  • Normal maps: stone, wood, cloth and metal now catch torch and crystal light as raised detail that shifts as you walk past. They are made from the existing art, with an On and Off row in Options > Graphics (Modern)
  • People turn to face you when you talk to them, and the view moves in to show their head and shoulders with the background out of focus. It goes back to where you were looking when the talk ends. Options > Gameplay > Conversation Camera turns it off (Modern)
  • Dust motes drift in the air near torches and crystals, tinted by their light. You only see them where light catches them (Modern)
  • Low mist drifts along the floor in caves, crypts and Ghast's Pass swamp, and over water such as the stream in Azra's Crossing. Fires tint it warm and Earthtear's crystals tint it purple. Effects Low or High (Modern)
  • Barrels are round now, with a curved belly, round lids and straight staves. Bottles, urns, buckets and brazier bowls are round too (Modern)
  • Rows of barrels stand slightly further apart so they don't sink into each other, and they no longer poke into walls (Modern)
  • Ale tap barrels, round tables and pine trees are round now too (Modern)
  • More things are round or softer now: stools, mugs, the well, the ship's mast, mushrooms, the glowing orb and the bags items lie in on the ground (Modern)
  • Glowing crystals now light up what's around them in their own colour: walls, floors and creatures near the crystals in Earthtear Caverns, the Twilight Temple, Snowline and Fearfrost take on a purple glow (Modern)
  • Earthtear Caverns is a dark cave now, with pockets of light. Rooms fall into shadow away from a lantern or crystal, lanterns throw a warmer pool further, each face of the rock catches light by the way it's turned, and the far end of a passage fades into the dark. Rooms that were lit by nothing now have a small glowing crystal to explain the glow, and creatures still stand out from the rock (Modern)
  • Bounced light: a torch or fire now tints the walls around it, and that colour fills the room. A fire warms a whole small room, crypt floors near torches turn warm, and crystals tint the rock around them. Rooms with nothing lit in them stay dark. It's on with Effects set to High (Modern)
  • Ambient sounds in every level, from your own copy of Morrowind: wind, dripping water, falling rocks, creaks, the swamp, fires, lava, and small creatures scurrying past (Modern)
  • The music now goes quiet between songs so you can hear them, with Off, Short, Medium and Long in Options (Modern)
  • Walking through a river or lake splashes (Modern)
  • Stone doors grind open instead of sounding like wood (Modern)
  • Music is a little quieter by default, so the sound effects and ambient sounds come through at full volume. If you lowered the Music slider to hear them, try it back at 100% (Modern)
  • Collecting gold now makes a coin sound, from your own copy of Morrowind: picking up a pile, looting a chest or body, searching, selling, or a reward from someone. You can change it or turn it off under Options > Morrowind Audio (Modern)
  • New hand-drawn textures for chests, fancy beds, the well and footlockers (Modern, HD Textures On)

Fixed

  • Any key, mouse button or controller button now starts the game from the title screen. "Press any key to Start" only took Enter, controller A or Start, or a click on the words themselves, so other keys did nothing (Modern)
  • LB/RB and Q/R switch tabs again in Options on the title screen and in Classic
  • Candelabras no longer wash out everything near them: the candelabra, table, roof and pots in your home at Azra's Crossing keep their detail, and people beside Delfran's throne no longer glow (Modern)
  • A big dark circle no longer shows on the outside of a roof above a candelabra or torch in the room below. Light from inside a house now stays inside (Modern)
  • Barrels no longer come through a door when it opens, as one did by a house door in Azra's Crossing. The barrel stands a little further from the door now (Modern)
  • Bottles and vases no longer stand partly inside a candelabra or another bottle on the same table, as one did in Azra's Crossing. They stand beside each other now (Modern)
  • Crystals now sit the way the level has them. The one over the chasm in Earthtear Caverns that stood upright in mid air now grows sideways out of the cliff, and crystals and icicles that were hidden in the rock of Earthtear Caverns and Fearfrost now hang from the roofs (Modern)
  • Things now lie the way the levels have them. Barrels are stacked in proper piles on their sides with a lid at each end, skeletons lie on tombs and floors or hang in webs, chairs, tables, stools, urns and bottles are knocked over in dungeons, caves and bandit dens, webs fit their corners, and stalactites hang from LothCav's roof. Rooms where people live stay tidy. In Modern nothing is left poking into a wall, and bottles lying on a table or barrel sit fully on it
  • Rock and grass no longer smear on slopes. Steep ground was pulled long and thin, and some faces showed vertical bars, as in the original. The texture now keeps its proper size on slopes, most of all around Stout's Trading Post, Azra's Crossing, Ghost Pass, Snowline, Fearfrost and Earthtear Caverns (Modern)
Hand icons on the compass bar, door cheats, a clear Dragonfields sky and no more black necks

New

  • Cheats: Flight (press Jump twice to take off) and Adjust attributes, a page to change Strength, Luck and the other six
  • A new title screen with REFORGED under the logo, and "Press any key to Start" slowly fades in and out (Modern)
  • People, monsters and props take light from the torches, lanterns and fires around them: brighter on the side facing the flame, a little in shadow on the other (Modern)
  • Cheats is now its own tab in the pause menu, styled like the others (Modern)
  • Cheats > Unlock all doors: using a locked door opens it, no lock picks or key needed. Cheats > Unlock door in view opens the one in front of you. Doors a quest opens stay as they are
  • The compass bar shows what's in your hands again, as the original did: the left hand's item on the left, the right hand's weapon or spell on the right
  • New hand-drawn icons for daggers, swords, axes, clubs and maces, bows, spells, scrolls, potions and herbs, and for the character screen's tabs (Modern)
  • New hand-drawn textures for the hanging lanterns and the green bottles (Modern)
  • New hand-drawn textures for the tables, Skelos Undriel and Old Trinket (Modern)
  • New hand-drawn textures for the iron maidens and the coats of arms on the walls (Modern)
  • New hand-drawn textures for beds, cabinets, fireplaces, woodpiles, ale barrels, skull piles, skeletons, wormmouths and ghosts (Modern)
  • New high resolution textures for the pine trees, the Dragonfields trees, hanging roots, plates and the swirling shadow doors (Modern)
  • Every other person, creature and prop has a sharper stand-in texture until its hand-made art is done (Modern)

Fixed

  • A dark sliver of rock no longer floats in the sky over the Dragonfields. A few bent roof and floor tiles showed their underside from below; the same fix tidies small cracks in the ground at Azra's Crossing and in the caves
  • Townspeople in Dragonstar showed "noname" over their heads. They now read Male Citizen, Female Citizen, Refugee or Azra Villager (Modern)
  • People and monsters no longer have pitch-black patches under the jaw, on the neck and across the collar (Modern, Effects High)
  • The hand-drawn faces on townsfolk no longer have slanted eyes set too close together: each face is fitted to its head, with the full nose and level eyes (Modern)
  • Stripes from belts, trims and tassels no longer show down the backs of some people's heads (Modern)
  • The Travel list in the cheats menu no longer jumps under the pointer, so every place can be picked
  • Delfran's Shadowkey on his throne can be taken again; the throne's Sit no longer gets in the way (Modern)
  • The unlock cheats now open the keyhole door in Delfran's Hideout too (Modern)
  • No more dark panel on the ceilings of Azra's houses: the whole roof takes the room's light (Modern)
  • The black box that flashed over the view now and then is gone (Modern)
  • A searched body no longer takes your Use from a person standing over it (Modern)
  • Bodies stay where they died after you save, load or come back to a level
  • Dead Shriekfloaters lie on the floor instead of floating, and two skulls hanging in the air in the Crypt of Hearts now rest on a sarcophagus and the floor (Modern)
  • Iron maidens and sarcophagi are solid all the way to their front, and can be searched like barrels (Modern)
  • Skelos Undriel now turns up at Azra's Crossing for the ending if he's still alive; the original never brought him (Modern)
Glass crystals, colour grading, light through water, steadier camera and a long list of fixes

New

  • The crystals in Earthtear Caverns and the Twilight Temple are new high resolution artwork, drawn like glass: slightly see-through, glowing softly from inside, with a gentle band of light passing up across them now and then (Modern)
  • Every place has its own colour grade, the way a remaster does: Snowline and Glacier Crawl cold and blue, the trading post and village houses warm amber, the Crypt of Hearts green-grey, the Dragonfields dusty and faded. It's subtle on purpose (Modern)
  • Light through water: pools and streams throw slow, rippling patterns of light onto the floor and stone beside them, where the torches reach (Modern, Effects High)
  • New artwork for barrels, chairs, crates, grain sacks, all four kinds of rat, the spiders, the spider queen and their webs, and nine more villagers and acolytes in the short tunic (Modern)
  • Options > Gameplay: Head Bob and Camera Motion (the kick when you're hit and the bow's drift), each None, Low, Medium or High. Both are off by default (Modern)
  • Pointing at a person (Acolyte Menlyn, Gravel Trothgar ...) shows their name, and an empty container or body says "(empty)" (Modern)
  • Skull piles can be searched like barrels and crates (Modern, Searchable Containers on)
  • A new cheat, Any spell, any class: cast spells your class normally can't
  • Attacking an enemy in plain view alerts the others near it, not only sneak attacks (Modern)
  • Options > Display > Automatic Render Scale (off by default): when the graphics card can't keep up, the world is drawn at a slightly lower resolution until there's room again. Menus and HUD stay sharp

Changed

  • Levels load much faster with the high resolution art, and the graphics card uses a quarter of the memory for it (a help on handhelds). The first visit to each level is slower while a cache is made (Modern)
  • Modern's lighting is a little cheaper on the graphics card, with no change to the picture
  • Still water drifts less and more slowly (Modern)
  • Options > Graphics > Texture Pack is now called HD Textures: On shows the new artwork, Off the original textures
  • Check for Updates Now has moved to About on the title screen
  • Controller button pictures in text stay crisp at small sizes

Fixed

  • People and creatures no longer wobble like jelly as they move (Modern)
  • Bolts and arrows to a spider's body, not just its head, now hit (Modern)
  • Rogurin in Earthtear Caverns no longer attacks you: he's a friendly quest giver again
  • The view no longer stays tilted after a hit
  • Square dark patches on some floors and ceilings with nothing to cast them are gone (Modern)
  • Rocks and plants outdoors that looked almost black now take the light of the ground around them (Modern)
  • A floating skull pile and a crate stuck in a wall in Earthtear Caverns, and a sunken doorway in Azra's Crossing, are put right (Modern)
  • The satchel on the chair at the start can be taken again; the chair's Sit no longer gets in the way
  • Crouched swings at rats and other small enemies no longer miss
  • Some dead bodies, rats especially, couldn't be searched
  • Use on a door from a few steps back picked a barrel beside it instead
  • Messages such as Game Saved stayed on screen after moving to a new area
  • Gravel Trothgar's new artwork showed a blue strip on the back of his head
  • "Miss" no longer pops up when an arrow hits, or when you haven't attacked at all
  • Arriving in Snowline no longer brings five goblins at once: for the first moments in a level, an enemy that spots you comes alone (Modern)
  • Black specks on the walls behind torches are gone, and wall torches sit flush on their walls (Modern)
  • Lakvan's painted torch holders on its secret doors have real green flames (Modern)
  • Enemies hit by a shot alert the others near them, and archers and mages shoot as far as they can see you (Modern)
  • Travel to... in the cheats menu no longer drops you outside Fearfrost II
Pale violet crystals of glass leaning against a stone wall in the Twilight Temple, tinting it pink, a torch above them
Glass crystals in the Twilight Temple
Tall violet crystals glowing in a dark cave in Earthtear Caverns
Crystals in Earthtear Caverns
New artwork in every level, the first redrawn people, night skies and reflections

New

  • New artwork across the game: the walls, floors and ceilings of every level are redrawn in sharper detail, all but two pictures in Azra's Crossing (Modern)
  • The first people with new artwork: Gravel Trothgar, Almathea, the chef in Delfran's Hideout, villagers and bandits have detailed faces, hair and clothes (Modern)
  • The Local map marks doors, and each way out of a level says where it leads, such as "To Azra's Crossing" (Modern)
  • Being blinded looks like it: the edges of your view go dark and blurry, with a dim patch in the middle you can still see through (Modern)
  • When one enemy spots you, the others nearby turn and come for you a moment later (Modern)
  • A night sky over Azra's Crossing and the other outdoor places: stars, slowly drifting clouds, and Morrowind's two moons, Masser and Secunda (Modern)
  • Water reflects the room around it: walls, the bridge, torches and people, not just the sky (Modern)
  • Fires and spells glow: the fires that burn in the crypts and the bolts of Blaze and other spells light up the air around them, and a spell ends in a flash and a burst of sparks (Modern)
  • Your blows and arrows draw a little blood: a few dark drops and a short spray, green ichor from jellies and slimes, bone dust and sparks from skeletons, pale wisps from ghosts. Drops stay on the floor where they fall, and spells leave scorch marks on the walls they hit (Modern)
  • Embers rise from torches and fires, dust drifts in the torchlight, and snow falls in Snowline and Glacier Crawl (Modern)
  • Torches glow in the air around them, a faint dusty haze with darker lanes where pillars block the light (Modern, Effects High)
  • Metal and wet stone catch the torchlight with a soft shine (Modern)
  • Monsters and bandits swing their weapons at a natural speed instead of in slow motion (Modern)
  • Options > Graphics > Texture Filtering: Crisp keeps the square texels up close, Smooth blends them, and Sharp keeps the edges clean without the blockiness (Modern)
  • Options > Display > Resolution: pick a screen resolution such as 1280 × 800 or 1920 × 1080. A lower one can run faster on a handheld
  • The first-start page also finds Morrowind's music and sound effects if you own Morrowind, with a green tick when it has found them
  • The death screen offers Load Game, Load Last Autosave and Quit to Title (Modern)
  • After making your character, Start Game is at the top and already selected (Modern)
  • Doors use the new door artwork everywhere, redrawn to the door's tall shape (Modern)
  • When you drop a stack of potions, you can choose how many (Modern)
  • The downloads come with a README, and all the high resolution artwork is inside from the first start

Changed

  • Walking and standing still no longer use up fatigue. Jumping, attacking, casting, drawing a bow and sprinting still do (Modern)
  • A blade striking bone gives a few thin sparks instead of a ball of light (Modern)
  • Classic's water is still again, as it was on the phone
  • Classic always plays the tutorial pages in Azra's Crossing, as the original did

Fixed

  • Pergan Asuul no longer paralyses you into a stalemate: Paralyze stops you walking and jumping but not attacking, as in the original
  • A Bandit Mage's spells no longer hit Eglar or other people standing in the way (Modern)
  • In Ghast's Pass the Witch Tree's message no longer pops up every time you enter, and the Snowline message stays up long enough to read (Modern)
  • Saving during the star chain in the Crypt of Hearts II no longer loses it
  • A controller that was already connected, such as the ROG Ally's own, wasn't picked up on the very first start
  • The flames on torches, candles and fireplaces were missing in recent test builds; they're back (Modern)
  • The Multiplayer menu is gone for now: the original's Bluetooth play between two phones can't work on a computer
Stealth, sitting, Options tabs, faster lighting, the world the right way round

New

  • A big optimisation pass on Mac and Windows: torch and candle shadows are kept until something near them moves, and shadow faces off screen aren't drawn. The ROG Ally X now runs at a smooth 60 fps (Modern)
  • All story and cut scene art replaced with high resolution artwork (Modern)
  • Windows starts with 2× anti-aliasing instead of 4×, which runs smoother on handhelds like the ROG Ally X. Options still has 4×
  • Stealth: crouch with C, or B / Circle on a controller, to move slowly with a lower view. An eye just above the crosshair shows whether anyone can see you. Stay out of sight or in the dark and enemies are much slower to notice you, and hitting one that hasn't noticed you is a sneak attack for 1.5x damage. Anyone else nearby who sees the attack or hears it gives you away: a sword is heard furthest, a bow shot least (Modern)
  • Sit on chairs, stools and thrones: look at one and press Use. Move, jump or press Use again to stand up (Modern)
  • Options is split into tabs: Graphics, Display, Interface, Audio, Controls and Gameplay. Switch with Q and R, the shoulder buttons on a controller, or click a tab's name
  • An About page on the main menu, with a link to this site for feedback and suggestions
  • The version number shows at the bottom left of the title screen
  • Options > Button Icons: choose Auto, Xbox, PlayStation or Keyboard prompts, for a controller the computer names wrongly (Modern)
  • Options > Check for Updates Now is a gold button, with a spinner while it checks
  • Menu text is a little smaller, with a little more space between the lines

Fixed

  • Every level was drawn as a mirror image of the N-Gage original
  • A neighbouring building's roof poked into the inside of another building in Azra's Crossing
  • On Windows, starting the game a second time opened a second copy. Now it brings the running game to the front
  • Options > Audio > Morrowind Audio was missing on the title screen. It's there before you start now, so you can set up Morrowind's music first
  • The controller couldn't reach the update notice on the main menu. Press Down from the last item to move onto it, then A on Update or Dismiss
  • A gap beside closed doors where the room behind showed through. The original game places many doors a little off their doorway; they now sit flush with the wall (Modern)
Fast travel, statistics, people walking away, the Mac app

New

  • Fast travel: on the world map, pick a place you've visited with the mouse, or move between places with the stick, d-pad or arrow keys. The place you're on gets a gold ring, and "Travel to [place]?" offers Yes, No and Place Marker. Places you haven't been say "You have not visited this location yet." You arrive at the place's entrance, and you can't travel while enemies are after you. There's also a cheat to unlock every place (Modern)
  • A Statistics tab in the journal, after Quests, Local and World: kills by creature, totals, favourite weapon and spell, gold found, locks picked, quests completed, play time and more (Modern)
  • People whose quest is done walk away out of sight instead of vanishing in front of you. If there's nowhere out of sight to go, they fade out (Modern)
  • A "Before You Play" page before the title, shown on the first launch and after each new version. It names Bethesda Softworks, ZeniMax Media, Microsoft, Nokia and Vir2L Studios, with a trademark line, as the footer of this site does
  • The Twilight Temple's Dawn and Dusk zombies carry their proper names, shown in the enemy bar (Modern)
  • A Mac app with in-game updates: a notice slides in when a new version is out, with Update and Dismiss, a progress bar and an automatic restart. Options has Keep Game Updated and Check for Updates. It's built and goes live with the first release

Fixed

  • Names above the crosshair showed for things you weren't aiming at (Modern)
The parchment Statistics tab, Combat page, with kills by creature
The Statistics tab
New dialogue, more to search, smarter enemies

New

  • Dialogue in the style of Oblivion Remastered: the bottom of the screen fades to dark, the HUD hides, the speaker's name sits in a gold-bordered box and your choices are on the left (Modern)
  • Names show over dead bodies and things you can search when you're close and aim at them (Modern)
  • Wardrobes, dressers, desks, bookcases and tall vases can be searched like barrels and crates. Empty weapon racks say "You find nothing of value." (Modern)
  • Enemies you shoot from a distance come after you, or search where the shot came from (Modern)
  • L3 on a controller toggles sprint on and off, and sprint stops when you run out of stamina (Modern)
  • The world map follows you within large areas: outside Delfran's Hideout, it marks the Hideout (Modern)
  • The crosshair is larger by default, with more sizes in Options (Modern)
  • Music is balanced against the sound effects (Modern). Classic keeps the original levels
  • Holding up or down on the d-pad, the stick or the arrow keys keeps moving through menus
  • The HUD says "You have been blinded" while you're blind (Modern)
  • Higher resolution artwork for the weapon racks (Modern)
  • Infinite stamina and infinite magicka in the cheats menu

Fixed

  • You could still attack at full strength with no stamina. Now it's slow and weak (Modern)
  • Enemies stood inside open doors (Modern)
  • The glow around torches flickered with a hard edge (Modern)
  • Plates on tables and prayer mats on the floor flickered
  • White steam behind closed doors showed through them
  • The Twilight Temple crystals didn't heal on first use
  • Saves didn't keep single-use spell scrolls as scrolls
  • Firing a bow or crossbow caused a white flash across the screen
  • Dead enemies poked through walls (Modern)
A weapon rack against a stone wall, holding swords, maces, spears and double-headed axes
The new weapon rack
New HUD frame, skip tutorial, your own Morrowind files

New

  • A new high resolution frame around the health, magicka and stamina bars (Modern)
  • A "Miss" sign on screen when an attack misses (Modern)
  • A little screen shake when you take damage (Modern)
  • A new, larger crosshair (Modern)
  • Skip the tutorial, from the tutorial itself or from the settings in the pause menu
  • The N-Gage's original frame rate as a frame rate limit (Classic)
  • PlayStation and Xbox button icons
  • An optional frame rate counter, in the corner of your choice
  • On first launch, the game asks where your copy of the original game files is
  • Choose your Morrowind music and sounds in Options, and pick your own MP3, WAV or AAC file for each Morrowind track
  • Lava flows, like water
  • A new bread sprite

Fixed

  • Patches of light in places with no light source (Modern)
A gold dragon curled around the health, magicka and stamina bars
The new HUD frame
Classic or Modern at New Game, the N-Gage screen shape, Classic HUD and brightness

New

  • Classic or Modern is chosen when you start a new game, and each save remembers it. Older saves load as Modern. A Classic game hides the Modern options and keeps the original behaviour, without changing your settings
  • Screen options: render scale, frame rate limit, menu scale and crosshair on or off
  • Classic HUD: the original health, magic and stamina bars and red hit flash, from the game's own sprites
  • Holding a drawn bow uses stamina, and the bow comes down when it runs out
  • Enemy arrows leave the archer's hands at an angle and are larger, so you can see them coming (Modern)
  • Your own arrows are drawn tilted the way you're aiming
  • Water has a soft edge where it meets the bank (Modern)
  • In Classic, Use picks what you're looking at the same way as the original
  • In Classic, monsters notice you through walls within their chase range, as in the original. In Modern they need to see you
  • Classic plays in the N-Gage's own screen shape: a tall 176 × 208 picture in the middle of the window, with the original field of view and the HUD where the phone had it
  • Original Pixels (Classic): draws the game at the phone's real 176 × 208 resolution and scales it up in whole steps, for the exact low-resolution look
  • A brightness slider from 50 to 150%, for the game view only, not the HUD or menus, with a calibration picture in Options
  • Eye adaptation (Modern): dark corners stay dark and torch-lit areas are easy to see
  • Shadow lift (Modern): brings out detail in the darkest corners only
  • Each area's own light colours, from the original level files
  • Borderless display mode, beside Window and Fullscreen
  • The save list and Continue show whether each save is Classic or Modern

Fixed

  • Saves didn't keep the Skeleton Key's used charges and some other item counters
  • Distant flames faded too much in fog
  • The key hints in the quest log ran over the corner knotwork
  • God Mode showed wrongly in Options for games started from the title screen
  • Menus didn't always free the mouse
  • Classic played the Morrowind versions of the music. It now plays the game's own music files and opens no replacement files at all. Modern keeps the Morrowind music
Quest log and smarter enemies

New

  • A quest log and tracker: active quests, who gave them, where to go next and the stages done, with completed quests listed below
  • Quest markers on the map and the compass
  • The quest log, local map and world map are tabs on one screen
  • Enemies find their way up and down steps to reach you
  • Enemy spellcasters and archers can attack across a height gap
  • The glow on "Press any key to Start" eases in and out, and is a little brighter and wider
  • A new title screen for Classic mode, in the original portrait shape
  • A new compass pointer and a new arrow for your position on the map
  • The HUD and the weapon sprite can be scaled
  • A red dot on the compass for hostile characters nearby
  • Enemies that see you open a door follow you through it, search for you for a short time, then go back to where they were
  • Sprinting uses stamina (Modern)

Fixed

  • Some enemies didn't notice you even in plain sight. In Modern mode they now attack when you're near
  • Enemies behind a closed door knew you were there and started the battle music (Modern)
  • The tab names moved slightly when switching between the quest log and the maps
  • Clicking "Press any key to Start" on the title screen did nothing
  • The story screens during start-up used a capitals-only font. They now use upper and lower case, as the original does
  • Dead enemies floated above the ground (Modern)
  • Some items, such as jugs and plates, floated
  • The lockpick window stayed open after a successful pick
A faceted red gem pointing down
Compass pointer
A faceted clear crystal arrowhead
Your position on the map
Flames, maps and door fixes

New

  • Torches, candles and fireplaces have flames
  • World map and local maps
  • A drawn bow can be let down without firing
  • Doors can be used from a little further away

Fixed

  • A wall torch was buried in a stone block
  • Sergeant Grell's door showed the same dialogue every time you came near it
  • Enemies and their weapons poked through doors
  • Enemies could deal and take damage through a closed door
Enemy health bars, Morrowind soundtrack, water and containers

New

  • Enemy name and health bar under the compass (Modern)
  • Fall damage (Modern)
  • A slider for fog and haze (Modern)
  • New title screen artwork
  • Morrowind soundtrack support, from your own copy of Morrowind
  • Battle music while enemies are attacking you (Modern)
  • Fog and haze in outdoor areas and dungeons
  • Animated water (Modern)
  • Plain barrels and crates can be searched once for a little loot or gold (Modern)
  • Higher resolution character creation artwork, in progress

Fixed

  • Enemies died in a T-pose (Modern)
Controllers, lighting and boot screens

New

  • Controller support: Xbox, DualShock and some third-party controllers (tested with the GameSir Cyclone 2), with button mapping and rumble
  • Improved hit detection (Modern)
  • New lighting: bloom, smooth light falloff, haze in-scattering and ambient occlusion
  • Modern and Classic lighting modes
  • Runs at up to 120fps
  • High resolution sword animation, compass and widescreen menus, with the original portrait menus as an option
  • High resolution boot screens (Bethesda, Vir2L, TKO and N-Gage) in widescreen and the original portrait layout
  • Copyright screens in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish
  • More cheats: passive enemies, stop NPCs and enemies moving, add any item, add gold, invincibility

Fixed

  • Scrolling between main menu items with a trackpad caused an audio glitch
  • Interiors were drawn at twice their size, which left textures missing
Playable on Mac

New

  • The game is playable on Mac with keyboard and mouse: audio, combat and quest lines work, though the quest logic still needs testing
  • Cheats menu

Requirements

System requirements

A rough guide.

Mac

System
macOS 13 Ventura or later
Processor
Apple silicon (M1 or later)
Graphics
Metal
Memory
8 GB
Storage
2 GB

PC

System
Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit
Processor
Four cores or more
Graphics
DirectX 12 or Vulkan
Memory
8 GB
Storage
2 GB

Android

System
Android 10 or later, 64-bit
Graphics
Vulkan 1.1
Memory
Tested with 3 GB
Storage
2 GB

You'll also need

  • Your own copy of the original N-Gage game files. Project Reforged does not include any of the original game data.
  • Optional: your own copy of Morrowind, for its music and sounds.
  • Optional: a controller. Keyboard and mouse are fully supported.
  • For 120fps, a 120 Hz display.

Install

Installing and setup

Download the game for your computer or phone, then follow these steps.

Download for MacComing soon Download for WindowsComing soon Download for AndroidComing soon

  1. Download

    Get Project Reforged for Mac, Windows or Android from this page. On a Mac, move it to Applications. On Windows, unzip it and move the Shadowkey folder somewhere you can write to, such as Documents. On Android, install the APK (how to).

  2. Point it at your game files

    On first launch, choose the folder with your own copy of the original N-Gage files.

  3. Optional extras

    If you have Morrowind, add its music and sounds in Options. How to.

  4. Play

    Choose Classic or Modern, create a character and start playing.

Using your Morrowind music and sounds

This is optional and only for Modern mode. Project Reforged can play Morrowind's music and sound effects instead of the phone's. It uses your own copy of Morrowind, reads the files where they are, and never copies or shares them.

Windows

Install Morrowind from Steam, GOG or the disc as usual. Open Options > Morrowind Audio and the game finds it the first time. If you installed it somewhere unusual, choose Sound effects folder and pick the Morrowind folder or its Data Files folder. The music folder fills in by itself.

Mac

Morrowind only installs on Windows, so on a Mac the files have to be unpacked from the installer once. Put them in a folder called Morrowind in your home folder and the game finds them. These steps use Homebrew in Terminal.

From the disc or a disc image

brew install unshield
mkdir ~/Morrowind && cd ~/Morrowind
unshield -g "Data Files" x "/Volumes/Morrowind/data1.hdr"

If the disc shows up under another name, change /Volumes/Morrowind to match.

From GOG

Download the offline backup installer for Windows from your GOG library. Keep any .bin files next to the .exe.

brew install innoextract
innoextract -d ~/Morrowind ~/Downloads/setup_tes_morrowind_goty*.exe

From Steam

Steam for Mac won't download a Windows-only game, but Valve's steamcmd will. It asks for your Steam password and Steam Guard code.

brew install --cask steamcmd
steamcmd +@sSteamCmdForcePlatformType windows +force_install_dir ~/Morrowind +login YOUR_STEAM_NAME +app_update 22320 validate +quit

From a Windows PC

Copy the Sound and Music folders from Morrowind's Data Files into a folder called Morrowind in your Mac's home folder.

Then open Options > Morrowind Audio. If the files are somewhere other than your home folder, choose Sound effects folder and pick them.

What you'll hear

Morrowind's doors, chests, weapons, spells and creatures, its exploring and battle music, and its title theme. Most of Shadowkey's own sounds were made for the phone, so each one plays the closest Morrowind sound. Clear both folders to go back to the original sounds. Classic mode always plays the original sounds.

FAQ

Questions and answers

Answers about things that aren't out yet are marked planned.

Installing

How do I install it on a Mac?

Download the Mac zip from this page and open it. Move Project Reforged to your Applications folder: in-game updates only work from there. Open it. The first time, macOS asks whether you want to open an app downloaded from the internet.

The first launch then asks for your copy of the original game files (see below). After that it goes straight to the game.

How do I install it on Windows?

Download the Windows zip from this page. Right-click it, choose Extract All, then Extract. Move the Shadowkey folder somewhere you can write to, such as Documents or a Games folder. Don't put it in Program Files: the game updates itself in its folder and can't write there. Open the folder and double-click Shadowkey.exe. As on the Mac, the first launch asks for your game files.

"Windows protected your PC". Project Reforged is a free project, and its Windows version isn't signed with a paid certificate, so Windows doesn't know it yet. The first time you open it, a blue box may say Windows protected your PC. Click More info, then Run anyway. Windows only asks the first time.

To skip that box: before you unpack the zip, right-click it, choose Properties, tick Unblock at the bottom and click OK.

"Smart App Control blocked an app". Some new Windows 11 PCs have Smart App Control turned on, which blocks programs that aren't signed and has no Run anyway button. You can see whether it's on in Windows Security > App & browser control > Smart App Control. Turning it off lets Project Reforged run. On some versions of Windows it can't be turned back on afterwards without resetting Windows, so only do it if you're happy with that.

How do I install it on Android?

So far it's been tested on an AYN Thor and Android's emulator. Tap Download for Android on this page, on your phone, and your browser saves an APK file. Open it from your browser's downloads.

It isn't from Google Play, so the first time Android says your browser isn't allowed to install unknown apps. Tap Settings, turn on Allow from this source, go back and tap Install. On some phones this is in Settings > Apps > Special app access > Install unknown apps.

Before you start it, copy the game's 6R51 folder onto the phone, with a USB cable or a memory card. Put it in a folder of its own: Android won't let an app choose the Download folder itself, only a folder inside it.

The first start opens a setup page. Under Your Shadowkey game files, tap Choose Folder, pick the 6R51 folder or a folder with it inside, and tap Allow. The game copies the files into its own folder, which takes under a minute, then says it found them. Tap Start Game. To change them later, use Options > Game Files.

Morrowind's music and sounds are optional, and the same page has a Choose Folder for them. Copy your Morrowind folder, or its Data Files folder, to the phone first and pick that. Only the Sound and Music folders are copied, about 190 MB, which takes a minute or two. You can add them later in Options > Morrowind Audio.

Uninstalling the app deletes your saves, so don't uninstall it to update. The game updates itself (see below).

Does it work on the AYN Thor and other dual-screen handhelds?

Yes, on the AYN Thor. The game plays on the top screen, and in a Modern game the bottom screen has a menu of its own, worked by touch: the map, the quest log, the inventory and the statistics. The game doesn't pause while you use it. In Classic the bottom screen shows just the title, as the original had one screen. The Thor's buttons and sticks work as a controller.

Other Android handhelds with a second screen should work the same way, as the game uses whatever second screen is switched on, but so far only the Thor has been tried. If you play on another one, let me know how it goes.

My phone says it can't run the game

If you see Shadowkey Reforged can't run on this device, the phone's graphics don't offer Vulkan, which the game needs. No setting changes that, and the game closes when you tap OK. Most Android phones from the last few years have Vulkan.

A phone that has Vulkan but is slow still runs the game: lower Render Scale and turn off Foliage in Options > Graphics. If the setup page says there isn't enough free space, free some and choose the folder again. Nothing is copied until there's room.

If your phone has Vulkan and still won't start the game, let me know which phone it is.

Where can I find the game files?

They come from your own copy of the N-Gage game. Project Reforged doesn't include them, and this site can't give them to you or link to them.

The game is in a folder called 6R51, which on the game card is under System/Apps. Copy it to your computer. On first launch, choose that folder, or a folder with it inside. If something is missing, the game says what. To change it later, use Options > Game Files.

Where can I find my Morrowind music and sound effects?

In your own copy of Morrowind, from Steam, GOG or the disc. In Modern mode, Project Reforged can play Morrowind's music and sound effects in place of the phone's. It reads them where they are and never copies or shares them. Classic mode always plays the original sounds.

On Windows the game usually finds Morrowind by itself. On a Mac the files need unpacking from the installer once. Using your Morrowind music and sounds, under Install, has the steps for each.

What are the system requirements?

On a Mac: macOS 13 Ventura or later, Apple silicon, 8 GB of memory. On Windows: Windows 10 or 11, 64-bit, with DirectX 12 or Vulkan graphics and 8 GB of memory. On Android: Android 10 or later, 64-bit, with Vulkan 1.1 graphics. Each needs about 2 GB of space. On a handheld such as the ROG Ally, turn off Options > Graphics > Foliage if the game runs slowly.

These are a rough guide. The System requirements section has the details.

Help! I can't download the files!

On an Android phone, a download can fail or stay at 0 KB when the page was opened from inside another app, such as Discord, YouTube or Reddit. Those apps show the page in their own small browser, which doesn't always save files. Tap the three dots at the top, choose Open in Chrome (or your own browser), and tap Download for Android again. If it stops part way, tap the retry arrow in your browser's downloads.

Downloads are also rate limited, to stop abuse. If you're asked to wait, try again later. If it still doesn't work the next day, let me know.

How are updates delivered?

Through the game itself, on Mac, Windows and Android. The game checks this site for a new version at most once a day. When there is one, a notice appears on the title screen and in the menus, never during play, with Update and Dismiss. Update downloads it, checks it's a genuine release, installs it and restarts the game.

With Options > Keep Game Updated on (it's off by default), new versions download in the background and install the next time you start the game. Check for Updates in Options checks straight away. The check sends only the game's version number, so I can see how many players are on each version. To count each player once a day, the site keeps a scrambled code made from your internet address, which can't be turned back into the address, and deletes it after 90 days.

On Android the notice is the same. When you tap Update, Android asks Do you want to update this app?, and the first time it also asks you to let Project Reforged install apps: turn that on and tap Update again. Android then closes the game and installs the new version. Start it again, and your saves, game files and Morrowind sounds are all still there.

What changed in each version is listed under Updates.

Playing

What's the difference between Classic and Modern?

Classic is the original game: its own art, lighting, sounds, HUD and rules, in the N-Gage's tall screen shape. Modern is widescreen, with the recreated art, new lighting, the Morrowind audio option and extras such as maps, fast travel and enemy health bars. Most of the Modern extras can be switched off one by one in Options.

You choose when you start a new game, and each save remembers its mode. It can't be changed during a game.

What resolutions are supported?

Any window size or screen resolution, in a window, fullscreen or borderless. Modern fills the screen in widescreen, and the new art goes up to 4K. Classic draws the original's tall 176 × 208 shape in the middle of the screen, and Original Pixels draws it at the phone's real resolution, scaled up in whole steps.

Render Scale (50 to 200%) sets how sharp the 3D view is without changing the menus or HUD, which stay sharp. Menu Scale, Text Size, HUD Scale and Weapon Size are in Options too.

What frame rate options are supported?

With VSync on, the picture is drawn at your display's refresh rate, such as 60 or 120 Hz. Frame Rate Limit can cap it at 30, 60 or 120 frames a second, or leave it off. VSync can be turned off too. The game itself still runs at the original's 25 updates a second, so it plays the same at any frame rate.

In Classic, Original Frame Rate can hold it to 25 frames a second, the original's ceiling, or 15, about what the N-Gage managed. An optional frame rate counter can go in any corner.

What controllers are supported?

Xbox, PlayStation (DualShock 4 and DualSense), Switch Pro and other controllers that work as one of those, wired or over Bluetooth, with rumble. Modern shows Xbox or PlayStation button pictures to match the controller you're using. Every key and button can be changed on the Controls page, along with look speed, dead zone and invert.

So far it's been played with a GameSir Cyclone 2. Xbox and DualSense controllers haven't been tried on real hardware yet. Keyboard and mouse are fully supported.

How do I save, and where are saves and settings kept?

Save from the game menu (Esc, or Start on a controller). There are four save slots, and the save list shows whether each save is Classic or Modern.

On a Mac, saves are in ~/Library/Application Support/Shadowkey/ and settings in the ShadowkeyPort folder inside it. On Windows they're in %APPDATA%\Shadowkey\, laid out the same way, so saves can be copied between the two. On Android they're in the game's own folder, so uninstalling the app deletes them.

How do I get my mouse pointer back?

The game holds the mouse while you play, for looking around. Open a menu, or on a Mac hold Cmd, and the pointer is free. Click in the game to go back to playing.

"Level Up" is stuck on my screen. What do I do?

It stays up while you have level-up points left to spend. Open the character manager (Tab or I, or Y / △ on a controller) and spend them.

Why are my attacks suddenly slow and weak?

You've run out of stamina. In Modern, sprinting and holding a drawn bow use it, and attacking with none left is slow and weak. Stop for a moment and it comes back.

Why can't I fast travel?

Fast travel is in Modern games with the map on, from the World tab of the journal (M, or Back on a controller). You can only travel to places you've already been, and not while an enemy is after you or has just attacked you. Get clear of them and try again.

Do I need all eleven Shadowkeys to finish the game? (spoilers)

No. The ending needs the seven Star Teeth, placed on the pedestals in the Crypt of Hearts. Until all seven are in place, Umbra Keth can't be killed: he fades away when hurt and comes back. Place all seven in one visit. The Shadowkeys open a reward room and earn a bonus item, but the ending doesn't need them.

The project

Is it free? Is it legal?

It's free and not for sale. Project Reforged is a new engine and contains none of the original game. It reads the files from your own copy, so you need to own the game to play. It's an unofficial fan project, not connected to Bethesda, ZeniMax, Microsoft, Nokia or Vir2L.

How do I know my download is the real one?

Get it only from this site, shadowkey.omracreative.ie. It isn't on any store or other site. Please don't sell it, re-upload it or share changed copies of it without asking me first.

The Mac app is signed by OMRA CREATIVE and checked by Apple, and macOS warns you if a copy has been changed. Every Android build is signed with the same key. Its SHA-256 fingerprint is:

ebd59f72d0cc9760fb25eb7e953b36290caf8eb4e39596fa25b62f338f10f375

A copy signed with a different key can't update over the real app.

Do I need to be online?

No. There's no account and nothing to sign in to. The only time the game goes online is the update check, which asks this site whether there's a new version and sends only the game's version number (see How are updates delivered?).

Will it run on Linux or Steam Deck?

There's no Linux version. One might follow the Windows version, but it isn't planned yet. The Windows version hasn't been tried on a Steam Deck.

Which languages does it have?

English, UK English, Spanish, German, French and Italian, the original's six, read from your own copy (StringTable.eng, .euk, .fre, .ger, .ita and .spa). Options > Select Language switches between them.

Russian comes with the game, using a 2006 fan translation. Brazilian Portuguese and Simplified Chinese come with it too, for the whole game; for now they are machine translations, so some lines will read oddly, and corrections are very welcome (below). English stays the default.

How can I translate the game into my language?

You need a computer (Mac or Windows) with the game on it, and any text editor: Notepad, TextEdit, or any other. No special program is needed.

  1. In the game, open Options > Select Language and choose Make a Translation File at the bottom. The game saves new-language.txt in its Languages folder and opens the folder. To correct Brazilian Portuguese or Chinese instead, choose that language first, then Make a Translation File: the file then has its translation filled in.
  2. Open the file in your text editor. At the top, fill in name: (the language's own name, as the language list will show it, such as Polski) and code: (a short code, such as pl).
  3. Under each English line is a line that starts with =. Write your translation after it, on that one line. Leave it empty to keep the English. Keep anything in square brackets, like [KD_3], exactly as it is: the game puts a button's name there. \n starts a new line.
  4. Save the file (as UTF-8, which most editors do by themselves). Your language now shows in Select Language, so you can check how it looks in the game as you go.
  5. When you're done, or done enough, send it through Send a translation on the board (you'll need a free board account). Only I can see what's sent there. Say how you'd like to be credited: translators are named under About in the game.

There are about 4,300 lines, from single words to a few sentences. You can use tools to help, such as an AI or translation website, but please read through what they give you: names of people and places should stay the same everywhere.

The English in the file comes from your own copy of the original game, which belongs to its owners. Please don't post the file publicly; send it through the board instead.

Is it open source?

No. Project Reforged is free, but it isn’t open source currently. You’re welcome to play it, stream it and make videos of it. Please don’t sell it, re-upload it or share changed copies of it without asking me first, and get it only from this site. I might share parts of it later, but there’s no plan for that yet.

Will there be mod support?

There’s no official mod support yet. Changing the game for yourself is fine: your own textures, settings or translations on your own copy. Please don’t share changed copies of the game itself, re-upload it, sell it, or put my name or the Project Reforged name on something I didn’t make.

How was AI used to make it?

I used AI to assist with coding and building the engine, and with debugging. I used AI image generation combined with Photoshop and some manual sprite editing to create most of the modern, higher resolution artwork.

How do I report bugs or send feedback and suggestions?

Bugs and feature requests go on the public board: you can see what's already been reported, and you'll get an email when someone answers. Say where it happened, what you were doing, and whether it was Classic or Modern. A screenshot (F12 in the game) helps. For anything else, use the contact form.

How can I help with the project?

Playing it and reporting what's wrong helps the most. If you'd like to help in another way, say how through the contact form, or join the N-Gage Discord.

Feedback

Bugs, requests and comments

Bug reports and feature requests go on the public board, where you can see what's already been reported, add to it and follow it. For anything else, write to me below.

Report a bug

Something broken, stuck or different from the original. Say where it happened and what you were doing.

Report a bug

Request a feature

An option you'd like to see, or something from the original that is missing.

Suggest it

See what's reported

Everything reported so far, what's being worked on and what's fixed. You need an account to post or comment.

Open the board

Write to me

Questions, offers of help, or anything else that isn't a bug. Please report bugs on the board, not here. Your email address is only used to reply to you.

Want to talk about the game? Join the N-Gage Discord.