Though we’re getting great new CRPGs thanks to Kickstarter, some gamers still love revisiting titles of the past. Thanks to DOSbox, going back in time and playing these pre-windows games has become much easier than before. Still though, DOSbox has its quirks and some software still exhibits problems when run in the emulator. Perhaps due to that (Or just a love of the game), a fan has taken it upon themselves to release a Windows/Linux port of Blue Byte Software’s old RPG, Albion.

Albion was (Like Gothic and Drakensang) a German-only RPG that was translated to English and released in North America. Combining sci-fi elements with high fantasy, it stuck out amongst the mostly swords-and-sorcery fare that dominated gaming in the early to mid 90s. The first person dungeons were also well-done, with underground exploration feeling similar to Thunderscape.

The port works for Linux as well as Windows, though it requires an actual copy of the game installed on your hard drive, for legal reasons obviously.

It works on modern computers, doesn’t require any emulation, it’s quite easy to run, and mainly, it has enhanced 3D rendering, allowing the game to run in native 3D mode on higher resolutions.

Installation: Just extract the contents of the archive into the Albion directory, rename (or copy) main.exe to albion.exe, and set SOURCE_PATH in SETUP.INI to relative directory, which should contain VIDEO and XLDLIBS (if your CD directory is ALBIONCD, set it as SOURCE_PATH=ALBIONCD\).

Configuration: Check Albion.cfg, you might want to set Display_Fullscreen=yes and set higher resolution (3:2), also keep Display_Enhanced_3D_Rendering=on to enable the high-resolution 3D rendering. If sound and music isn’t working, try setting Audio_MIDI_Subsystem=sdl_mixer or other value, it might be tricky to get it working.

You can download the download the mod here if you have a copy and want to test it out yourself. A big thanks to Indie Retro News for alerting us to this.