The Half Life 2 source engine was never as successful as Unreal or Quake, or indeed Unity. It was used in a handful of games, an extradentary number of mods; and also in the game Dark Messiah of Might and Magic.
The engine has aged amazingly, and games running in it today still look great, and scale well with modern systems. However, no matter what I do to try and get Dark Messiah of Might and Magic to run on my modern operating system; the game simply won't launch.
This makes me sad, because I've never played it, only heard about it. Only read reviews about how it was buggy, but got better with time, like a fine wine. That the Steam Community page is covered with lovingly hand crafted memes on the game which I simply just can't play.
I tried command line launch options. I tried compatibility modes, I tried using HEX editors to edit executables. I tried extracting game assets. I tried different versions of DLL files. I tried frowning.
I tried hoping. I tried making a summoning circle to summon forth the original developers to help them troubleshoot my woes.
Everywhere I turn, for this game, there are sadly no answers.
I can't even get a refund on Steam. So I'll just be sad about the money I wasted on this game at some point in my life. I'll be very sad, because this is one that I really wanted to play. Now, I'll never get to do that. At least it means there's one less game for me to play in my collection.
Do not buy. Not not approach. Ignore.
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