Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a truly brilliant oldschool RPG that has sadly suffered from a variety of annoying problems that have, ironically, made it far more obscure than it should've been. A lot of those problems have been fixed over the years thanks to the work of talented moders, and it is exactly one of these mods that has suddenly received an update after an 8-year-long break!
The newly updated Arcanum High Resolution Patch 1.5 brings with it a variety of bug fixes and visual clean-ups, a much larger and easier font to read, better compatibility with other mods, as well as numerous new options to tweak at your leisure. The whole list is fairly small despite its significance, so if you're interested in the details here they are:
• The patch is now configured and applied via a config file, no more command line prompts.
• Many more settings and features are now available in the config file, to be further configured by the user to their liking.
• The vertical position of the middle screen menus (e.g. inventory or load save) can now be set to top, bottom or center (default).
• Most UI graphics have been cleaned up, the top shading has been removed and full size borders have been added.
• Added fullscreen backgrounds to the main menu, 3 variants are available: just black, fade to black, fullscreen wooden background (also applies to options and credits).
• Compiled a completely new crisp sharp size 18 dialog font which is true to the original.
• Increased preload distance, so that you won't see stuck objects at very high resolutions. This feature is also user configurable.
• Increased broacast distance, so that the followers can heed your commands at greater distances. This feature is also user configurable.
• Splash screens are now centered.
• Fixed all lingering UI bugs, such as the map menu navigation button not working properly.
• Resolved the issue with the Half Ogre Island captain not spawning.
• Added options to force the game to use windowed mode, software rendererer and double buffer.
• Scrolling distance is no longer patched to be smaller, and both scrolling distance and scrolling FPS can now be configured in the config file.
• Streamlined and cleaned up a lot of code. All patch scripts are fully commented.
• Fixed a 'run as administrator' prompt on newer versions of Windows.
• The DDrawCompat wrapper is included in the patch and can be optionally installed, recommended for Windows 8/10 users.
If you would like to give the new high resolution patch a try and see how the improved version of Arcanum feels like, you'll find the download link on the Terra-Arcanum website. That said, if you're already in the middle of a playthrough, worry not as the mod is fully compatible with older save games! And as a final note, here's a few images from the updated version:
