THE DAWNING CLOCKS OF TIME REMAKE — UPDATE 1.5 A massive quality-of-life, stability, and feature update. This is the definitive way to experience The Dawning Clocks of Time. ———————————————————————————————— NEW — LASER SIGHT Take aim with a brand-new Laser Sight. A red laser beam projects from your weapon's muzzle and paints a glowing dot on whatever you're pointing at. When you've got an enemy in your sights, the dot flashes and intensifies — so you always know when you're about to land that critical shot. The laser hides automatically for melee weapons and when you're not aiming, keeping the screen clean when it matters. ———————————————————————————————— NEW — Z-TARGET LOCK-ON You can now lock onto enemies while aiming. A red animated arrow hovers above your target, bobbing and pulsing so you never lose track during chaotic fights. Press TAB (keyboard) or L (gamepad) to cycle between nearby threats. Dead enemies and those out of range are automatically skipped — your focus stays where it needs to be. ———————————————————————————————— NEW — NAVIGATION ARROWS Finding your way through the world just got easier: • Blue arrows now appear above nearby pickup items (weapons, documents, maps, and more) when you're within range — no more walking past crucial items in dark rooms. • Green arrows appear above nearby usable doors to help you spot exits and passages. Locked doors are excluded so you're never misled. • Both indicators hide automatically during dialog and cutscenes so they never break immersion. ———————————————————————————————— CAMERA & CINEMATIC OVERHAUL The camera system has been rebuilt to deliver a more cinematic, classic survival-horror experience. Fixed Camera System — The game now uses a fully fixed camera system — carefully authored camera angles that frame each room for maximum atmosphere and tension. Features include: • Mouse-look rotation when idle for subtle scene exploration • Peek and offset controls to see around corners • Automatic zoom when you enter aim mode • Danger zoom pulse when enemies are close • Camera shake on impacts • Cinematic letterboxing during key moments • Dead-zone reframing so the player stays visible at all times Letterbox Bars — Cinematic letterbox bars now work reliably during dialogs, cutscenes, and scripted sequences. Competing systems can no longer fight over them, and the bars animate smoothly even when the game is paused. Dialog System — Conversations no longer freeze the entire world. During dialog, player and enemy movement is paused naturally while ambient animations keep playing — the world feels alive even when you're talking. You can also click to reveal all text instantly before advancing to the next line. Camera Transitions — Fixed a long-standing issue where camera angle changes could cause your character to reverse direction or freeze. Movement direction is now seamlessly preserved through camera cuts, making exploration feel natural and responsive. ———————————————————————————————— SMOOTHER PLAYER MOVEMENT Movement has been overhauled to feel more responsive and natural on both keyboard and gamepad: • Direction changes are now smoothly interpolated — no more jarring snaps when turning or reversing on keyboard. • 180 degree reversals blend gradually instead of flipping instantly. • Releasing the stick or keys now decelerates smoothly instead of an abrupt stop. • Camera cut transitions no longer cause your character to walk backwards or get stuck. • All smoothing is framerate-independent, so the game feels consistent regardless of your hardware. ———————————————————————————————— SMARTER ENEMY AI Enemies and NPCs have received significant behavior improvements that make encounters feel more dynamic and unpredictable. Combat AI: • Enemies now plant their feet during attacks — no more sliding toward you mid-swing. • Enemies re-evaluate their available attacks as the fight unfolds, choosing the best option for the current distance instead of locking into one move. • Added a give-up timer — enemies that lose sight of you will eventually stop chasing and return to patrol, preventing infinite pursuit. • Enemies now continue advancing toward you when no attack is ready, rather than standing still. NPC & Idle Behavior: • NPCs now intelligently follow you when you're moving and wander naturally when you're standing still. • Enemy detection now takes priority over idle wandering — enemies react to you immediately instead of finishing their patrol path first. • NPCs wander with varied speed and occasional mid-walk pauses for more lifelike behavior. ———————————————————————————————— VISUAL POLISH & UI IMPROVEMENTS Updated Artwork: • Refreshed in-game artwork and visual assets throughout the game. • Updated and improved character models. • Fixed Sven's beard and hair clipping issues. • The Dawning Rune is now visible on Sven's wrist — a detail that ties directly into the story. • Improved lighting and shadows across all scenes — no more washed-out or overly dark environments. UI Animations & Transitions — Every major UI screen now features smooth fade-in/fade-out transitions instead of popping in instantly: • Inventory, context menus, documents, item examination, dialog choices, game over screen, and interaction prompts all transition smoothly. • Menu buttons now animate on hover and press with audio feedback. • Selected UI elements glow and cast animated drop shadows. • The pause menu fades in and out with audio cues. Enhanced Text & Dialog: • Character-by-character text reveal with variable speed — dialog feels more expressive. • Click to skip text or pause/resume the reveal at any time. • A subtle pulse effect signals when text has finished displaying. • Dialog boxes fade in/out smoothly with audio cues and speaker name display. ———————————————————————————————— SAVE SYSTEM — MAJOR FIXES The save system has received critical fixes that significantly improve reliability: • Fixed a critical bug where all save slots shared the same game progress. Your quest flags, inventory, and story progression are now properly isolated per save slot. Starting a new game in Slot 2 no longer overwrites your Slot 1 progress. • Fixed player spawning at the wrong location after loading a save. Your exact position and rotation are now saved and restored correctly. • Fixed player being unable to move after loading a save. Stale pause states from previous scenes no longer carry over. • Fixed the final boss appearing to regenerate health when hit. The invulnerability flag was incorrectly adding damage as health — now works as intended. • Fixed save data corruption that could occur when saving during room transitions. • Improved error handling and validation across the entire save/load pipeline. ———————————————————————————————— PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENTS Main Menu: • Menu framerate has doubled. Eliminated unnecessary disk reads that were running every single frame on the main menu. • Save slot screenshots are now cached — no more repeated texture loading causing hitches. • Reduced unnecessary video memory allocation on the menu screen. In-Game: • Optimized camera lookups in multiple systems that were re-fetching the camera every frame. • Reduced garbage collection pressure from per-frame string and style allocations. • Fixed multiple resource and event subscription leaks that accumulated over long play sessions. ———————————————————————————————— STABILITY & CRASH FIXES Over 50 crash and stability fixes across every major system: • Fixed crashes in combat when hitting objects at point-blank range or with misconfigured weapons. • Fixed multiple enemy AI crashes related to navigation, knockback, death, and grab attacks. • Fixed player crashes during climbing, interactions, aiming, and the grabbed state. • Fixed inventory crashes when picking up items with a full inventory. • Fixed game lockups caused by pause menu timing issues. • Fixed multiple game progression scripts that were running expensive checks every single frame instead of resolving once. • Dozens of additional safety checks added throughout the entire codebase to prevent edge-case crashes. ———————————————————————————————— GAME PROGRESSION FIXES • Fixed a crash during the spaceflight sequence. • Fixed the Moon portal activation logic running every frame unnecessarily. • Fixed the New England quest activation running every frame after its condition was met. • Fixed multiple platform-specific script issues that could disable objects that should remain active. ———————————————————————————————— Thank you for playing The Dawning Clocks of Time Remake. Your support means the world to us. If you encounter any issues, please report them through the GOG community forum. Don't forget to leave a review if you're enjoying the game — it helps more than you know!
THE DAWNING CLOCKS OF TIME (ORIGINAL) Director's Cut is now bundled with REMAKE! Experience and play the original with restored cut content, now new to GOG.com!
This major upgrade to the newer version of the game engine fixes bugs, improves performance and lays the future groundwork for the upcoming Content Update 1.
Lighting and details in the game have been also significantly improved, and many quality of life code tweaks have been made to the game.
This patch updates / changes the following:
We've added the the option to switch to Free Movement camera, in which the camera will be placed behind Sven allowing full rotation of the camera, as seen in 3rd person shooter games. This was added to give the player the choice to play either in the default cinematic, fixed camera display or a more modern approach.
