Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars

This page is for the original game released in 1996. For the 2010 remake, see Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: Director's Cut. For the 2024 remaster, see Broken Sword - Shadow of the Templars: Reforged.

Broken Sword:
The Shadow of the Templars

Developers
	Revolution Software
Publishers
	Virgin Interactive
Retail re-release	Sold Out Software
Engines
Original	Virtual Theatre
Re-release	ScummVM
Release dates
DOS	September 30, 1996
Windows	September 30, 1996
Mac OS (Classic)	September 30, 1996
Windows (ScummVM)	January 11, 2011
macOS (OS X) (ScummVM)	October 18, 2012
Linux (ScummVM)	March 20, 2015
Taxonomy
Monetization	One-time game purchase
Modes	Singleplayer
Pacing	Relaxed
Controls	Point and select
Genres	Adventure
Art styles	Cartoon
Themes	Detective/mystery, Europe, Middle East
Series	Broken Sword

Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars is a singleplayer adventure game in the Broken Sword series. It was released as Circle of Blood in the United States.

General information

Developer Discord server

Broken Sword Wiki

GOG.com Community Discussions for game series

GOG.com Support Page

Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Retail
GOG.com		Bundled with Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: Director's Cut. Pre-configured with ScummVM.
Steam (unavailable)		Free DLC for Broken Sword: Shadow of the Templars: Director's Cut. Pre-configured with ScummVM.

Demos

Demos are available from ScummVM.

Game data

Configuration file location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\SWORD.INF
Windows	<path-to-game>\sword1.ini
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)
Linux

It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System	Location
DOS	<path-to-game>\SAVES\
Windows	<path-to-game>\save
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)
Linux

Save game cloud syncing

System	Native	Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

ScummVM 2.1+ supports cloud saves on third-party cloud storage services. See the ScummVM documentation for details.

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		640x480 only.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed		For DOSBox toggle with Alt+↵ Enter (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)		For DOSBox use an unofficial build (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
60 FPS and 120+ FPS

Input

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).
Mouse sensitivity		For DOSBox set in the DOSBox configuration file.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse input in menus
Keyboard and mouse prompts
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Controller
Controller support		For DOSBox use the DOSBox Mapper (see the glossary page for other workarounds).

Audio

In-game audio settings.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls		Music, Speech, FX.
Surround sound
Subtitles		Cutscenes natively lack subtitles. See Cutscene subtitles.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost		For DOSBox change the priority background value in the DOSBox configuration file.
Royalty free audio

Cutscene subtitles

Install the ScummVM subtitles add-on

Requires ScummVM 0.10.0 or later. The Steam version is preconfigured with ScummVM 1.9. Download the corresponding subtitles add-on archive from ScummVM: For ScummVM 1.5+: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Cutscene Pack (all languages, Updated Subtitles AddOn) - requires ScummVM 1.5.0 or more For older ScummVM versions: Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars - Cutscene Pack (all languages, Subtitles AddOn) Extract the contents of the archive to a convenient temporary location. Locate the directory from the extracted archive that corresponds to the language of the game installation (e.g., ENG\ for English). See readme.txt for details. Copy the *.txt files from this directory to <path-to-game>\SMACKSHI\. This should be the directory containing *.SMK cutscene files. Start the game normally via ScummVM with subtitles enabled.

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English
Czech				Fan - 1
French
German
Hungarian				Fan translation, download.
Italian
Polish				Fan translation, download.
Brazilian Portuguese				Retail only (Tec Toy). Download of the digital version of the translation by RafaelGC is available here.
Russian				Retail only.
Russian				Unofficial localization by «Fargus Multimedia»
Spanish

Other information

API

Technical specs	Supported	Notes
DirectDraw	2	Original Windows release.
DOS video modes	SVGA

Executable	PPC	16-bit	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows					64-bit requires 64-bit build of ScummVM.
Mac OS (Classic)

Middleware

	Middleware	Notes
Cutscenes	Smacker Video Technology

System requirements

Windows requirements are for the original disc version of the game.

DOS

Windows

Mac OS (Classic)

macOS (OS X)

Linux

DOS
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	5.0		6.2
Processor (CPU)	Intel 486DX2 66 MHz		Intel Pentium 60 MHz
System memory (RAM)	8 MB		16 MB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	18 MB		150 MB
Video card (GPU)	SVGA 1 MB of VRAM

Windows
	Minimum		Recommended
Operating system (OS)	95		98
Processor (CPU)	Intel 486DX2 66 MHz		Intel Pentium 60 MHz
System memory (RAM)	8 MB		16 MB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	18 MB		150 MB
Video card (GPU)	DirectX 2 compatible

Mac OS
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	7.0
Processor (CPU)	68040
System memory (RAM)	16 MB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	18 MB

macOS (OS X)
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)	10.6.8
Processor (CPU)	Intel Core Duo 2.0 GHz
System memory (RAM)	1 GB
Storage drive (HDD/SSD)	1.5 GB
Video card (GPU)	64 MB of VRAM