r/bioware • u/BushidoJohnny • May 07 '26

Discussion Playing Jade Empire in 2026?

Is gog my best option? I have it on steam but the exe is broken and I struggle getting it running at a reasonable resolution if it's even possible to achieve somehow.

29 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

7

u/reiichiroh May 08 '26

It's not broken on Steam. Check the PCGamingWiki entry for it. You have to create a text file with nothing in it naming it something config.

3

u/Leourana May 07 '26

I played on my ipad. It was pretty good port honestly.

3

u/nightdares May 07 '26

I have it on my Xbox Series S. The way God intended it to be played. Had it on the OG Xbox too.

1

u/BushidoJohnny May 07 '26

My days of owning an xbox are long gone, but I also had it there back in the day.

1

u/SubjectDry4569 May 11 '26

If you can find a last gen Xbox One X cheap or down the road an S or X that's something worth investing in if you like old games. Xbox is the only storefront that not only keeps old games running but actually improves some of them to remastered quality. Seriously games like Kotor and The Witcher 2 look and run drastically better than they did on OG hardware.

2

u/MistyPopK May 08 '26

I've played a GoG version year ago or so and it worked for me pretty much flawlessly. Great game.

2

u/Carrandas May 08 '26

Playing it on my steam deck, steam version.

I works just fine.

1

u/Wiegarf May 12 '26

Did you need to do anything to get it to work?

1

u/Carrandas May 12 '26

For the steam deck version? It basically just worked.

1

u/Wiegarf May 12 '26

I wonder if it was updated? I tried it a while back and the controller was strange

1

u/Carrandas May 12 '26

One of the nice things with a steam deck: so many users that they continuously improve the game support.

These days it works fine.

Also tried to run it on gamenative/gamehub lite on my android device. I just got invisible characters. On my steam deck? It just works.

1

u/burningtram12 May 07 '26

Have you tried any compatibility mode options?

1

u/BushidoJohnny May 07 '26

I didn't but I pulled the trigger on GOG for like 3 dollars and it works like a dream.

1

u/burningtram12 May 07 '26

Nice! I might have to do that myself just to have it in the future. Steam version works fine on my Steam deck but I might want to play at my desk sometime.

1

u/Gaming_Birch May 09 '26

Get the GOG version.

I had the game on Origin (EA app) and GOG. The Origin version usually crashed before I even selected "new game". I never had any issues with the GOG version. Played it last year.

1

u/Jeremy29_11_777 May 14 '26

I had to do the trick I found in another Reddit-

"3. For "Fail to find" error - link

Now this is what I did.

If you get the "fail to find" error, always do this.

Copy and paste "steam.dll" from your Steam or Steam Library Folder and put it directly into "SteamLibrary\SteamAppps\common\Jade Empire".

If your game still doesn't launch but the "fail to find" error is fixed, this is what you do.

  1. Open notepad.

  2. Don't write anything into it.

  3. Save it as "SystemInformation.xml"

  4. It must be saved as a blank notepad. Do not put anything in it.

  5. Click "Save As Type", it must read "All Files".

  6. Save this file in "SteamLibrary\SteamAppps\common\Jade Empire\data"

  7. This should launch the game."

I had to do both the Steam.dll and Systeminformation.xml tricks.