Blade of Darkness

This page is for the original game. For the 2021 re-release, see Blade of Darkness (2021).

Blade of Darkness

Developers
	Rebel Act Studios
2021-present	Fire Falcom
2021-present	General Arcade
Publishers
2001-2015	Codemasters
2021-present	SNEG
Retail re-release	Sold Out Software
Engines
	Blade
Release dates
Windows	February 21, 2001
Reception
Metacritic	75
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing	Real-time
Perspectives	Third-person
Controls	Direct control
Genres	Action, Hack and slash
Themes	Fantasy
Series	Blade of Darkness

Blade of Darkness
Blade of Darkness	2001
Blade of Darkness (2021)	2021

Blade of Darkness is a singleplayer and multiplayer third-person action and hack and slash game in the Blade of Darkness series.

Key points

Released as Blade: The Edge of Darkness in Spain, Severance: Blade of Darkness in Europe and as Blade of Darkness in North America.

General information

GOG.com Community Discussions

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail		SecuROM DRM
GOG.com		Included as an extra with the 2021 remaster.
Steam		Included as an extra with the 2021 remaster.

Essential improvements

Patches

1.001 is the only patch. It is highly recommended. Already included in the GOG version.

Skip intro videos

Instructions
Go to <path-to-game>\Data Rename, move or delete the following folder: video

Improve D3d and Glide (3DFX) compatibility

The game has known issues on modern systems, such as random crashes and problems with the font, but with DgVoodoo 2 most problems can be fixed and compatibility with Glide can be restored. (Using nGlide instead is less stable and might cause the game to crash)
Install the game. Install DgVoodoo 2. Optionally use the Windows Vista Compatibility Mode.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Config
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1710170/pfx/

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Save
Steam Play (Linux)	<Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/1710170/pfx/

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

Graphics feature	State	WSGF	Notes
Widescreen resolution			Stretched. See the WSGF report for a solution.
Multi-monitor			See the WSGF report for a solution.
Ultra-widescreen			See the WSGF report for a solution.
4K Ultra HD			2048x1536 is the highest supported resolution
Field of view (FOV)		Camera can be zoomed in/out in 3 presets.
Windowed		Available only for some renderers.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Enabled by default in D3D Mode.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		See Mouse behaves erratically or Camera/view moves choppily and unpredictably and Cutscenes get out of sync.
High dynamic range display (HDR)		See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		Up to 3 possible binds per action
Mouse acceleration		No mouse acceleration present
Mouse sensitivity
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music and sound effects
Surround sound		Up to 7.0 with Creative ALchemy.
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
EAX support		A3D 1.0 and EAX 2

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
French
German
Hungarian				Fan translation at Magyarítások Portál
Italian
Russian
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type	Native	Notes
Local play
LAN play
Online play
Asynchronous multiplayer

Connection types

Type	Native	Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP

Issues fixed

Note that this game uses very problematic rendering methods.

To bypass most common issues it is highly advised to use dgVoodoo 2.

Instructions
Install dgVoodoo (for Direct3D). Choose D3d in the game's configuration setup. Optionally choose Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio if other audio options cause issues.

Cursor is missing/Black text

Generally caused by using Direct3D for output with modern graphics hardware.

Use dgVoodoo 2.

Alternatively use rOpenGL or 3dfx for video output.

Crash on launch

This is usually caused by video codec issues such as installed third party codec packs and the error for this is often MEM_RESIZE_FAILED.

Prevent the intro from playing. See Skip Intro Movies.

Alternatively convert the .mpg videos in the "video" directory and subdirectories to raw .avi while retaining the name to retain playback capability.[citation needed]

Crash after introduction video

The game doesn't properly handle failure states for when DirectPlay is not installed. Not having DirectPlay also significantly slows down the opening of the initial game launcher as well.

Install DirectPlay[citation needed]

Blank screen when using rOpenGL for video output

Alt-Tab out of the application then go back to it[citation needed]

Mouse behaves erratically or Camera/view moves choppily and unpredictably and Cutscenes get out of sync.

This generally happens using rOpenGL for video output.

The mouse-camera control granularity is linked somehow to the framerate. Higher framerates lead to smoother and slower mouse-camera control. Lower framerates lead to choppy control that is "quantized", too fast and jumpy. I've encountered such problems on both old and new hardware. Besides framerate, part of the problem seems to be related to the audio renderer, of all things.

At high FPS some cutscenes may not play properly, which can be a problem if they are ones that cannot be skipped.

Use D3D or Glide (3DFX)and set refresh rate on 60hz.See Improve D3d and Glide(3DFX) compatibility.[citation needed]

Game runs too fast

This typically happens in videos modes other than 3dfx and is due to the game not handling multiple processors properly.

Lock the game to a single processor[citation needed]
A popular way to automate this process is to create a .bat file, go to the game app's directory (using the cd command), then use either StartAffinity Blade.exe 0 or psexec -a 0 Blade.exe

Saving Game Causes CTD (Crash to Desktop)

Upon selecting "yes" to save a game the screenshot is taken for the load/save menu and the game can crash. Loading the game again loads an old game that was saved in that slot previously, not the new save.

When saving wait about 10 seconds before hitting the final "yes" to confirm. (allow the reverberating menu selection sound to stop playing completely). Alternatively use Quicksave mod

Fog is too dense using rOpenGL

Use modified OpenGL raster.

Game doesn't lauch on modern systems

Run in compatibility mode for Windows Vista (no Service Pack)

Game crashes during level loading screens (3DFX)

This typically happens with 3dfx video renderer and user Nglide wrapper.

Use Dgvoodoo2.[citation needed]

VR support

3D modes	State	Notes
vorpX		Z3D User created profile, requires DGVoodoo2 v 2.6, see profile introdution. Note: Profile may not work with the latest wrapper, in case of issues please report to the vorpx forum.

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
Direct3D	7	Although it claims to require DirectX 8.0 to be installed, it actually uses Direct3D 7 for rendering.
OpenGL
Glide		Added with patch 1.001

Executable	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Audio	Miles Sound System	6.0i

Mods

Gorenity

Gorenity mod improves the gore system, among other things.

System requirements

Windows
	Minimum	Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95 OSR2	98, ME, 2000
Processor (CPU)	Intel Pentium II 400 MHz	Intel Pentium III 500 MHz
System memory (RAM)	64 MB	128 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD)	750 MB
Video card (GPU)	8 MB of VRAM DirectX 8.0 compatible	32 MB of VRAM

Troubleshooting

Performance issues

If you are experiencing low frame rates, then we suggest that you change the resolution in the setup to 640x480x16, texture detail should then be set to LOW and the then the mip-mapping can be turned off. If you are still experiencing low frame rates, shadows and gore can be turned off from the in-game options menu. Turning the sound device to Miles fast 2D positional audio in setup and the sound quality to low in-game will also improve frame rate by about 10%.
If you encounter any problems, please ensure that you have the latest drivers installed for your card. These should be obtained from the card or chipset manufacturer.
If you increase the settings of your display options and experience decreased performance and have the latest drivers, we recommend setting your Display options back to their defaults.

Supported 3D chipsets

3dfx Voodoo 2, Voodoo Banshee, Voodoo3, Voodoo4, Voodoo5
3D labs Permedia 3
ATI Rage 128, Radeon
Matrox G200, G400
Intel i740
Nvidia Riva TNT, Riva TNT2, GeForce 256, GeForce 2
S3 Savage3D, Savage 4, Savage2000

Card issues

3DFX Voodoo Banshee and Voodoo 3

The 3DFX Banshee and VooDoo 3 have problems displaying partical effects. This is noticeable in game when water effects are on screen.

All Matrox cards

If you are experiencing problems with the game e.g. random crashes or textural errors then it is advisable to use the 5.52 drivers from the matrox site.

S3 Savage 2000

If you are experiencing problems then it is recommended that the ViperII-win9x-95103 drivers be used. Resolutions above 1152x864 should not be used.

Please note

Windows 2000's control panel uninstaller should not be used as this will leave game save files on the hard disk.

Swap file

We recommend that the user has at least 250mb free hard disk space after installation. Severance should perform fine with less than 250mb free, in order to gain maximum performance from this product a larger swap file will be beneficial. Close down any applications before running.

Direct X

If you try to run the game without DirectX8 installed, Severance may not run correctly.