1428: Shadows over Silesia for the blind

Audio trailer

They say that a single picture is worth a thousand words, and the same is true for sound as well! Listen to the exclusive audio trailer created specifically for you, the first of its kind, which will reveal even more about the game.

Game description

Shadows over Silesia is a dark action adventure game with fantasy elements, set in real medieval Europe. With true historical events in the background, you can mainly expect challenging puzzles and difficult battles, but also stealth scenes and important decisions. You will come across possessed devil worshipers, sexual demons, and beasts from hell, as well as creatures well-known from European mythology.

Dark fantasy story

Europe is in the middle of religious upheaval and many preachers predict that the end of the world is near. The year is 1428 and the Hussites have just set out on their Silesian campaign. These heretics appear to be the biggest threat in the kingless country. But true evil of a completely different kind is lurking nearby and it does not intend to engage in religious disputes.

The game is linear and takes place during the entire Hussite campaign. It will be divided into thirteen chapters, with which you will be able to spend about 30 hours of playtime. You will experience everything from the point of view of the two main characters. Hynek, a grumpy Hussite hetman who doesn't hesitate to swear or mess around with anything, and Lothar, a Hospitaller knight, a man of good education and manners who stands alongside his brethren in the front line of the Silesian defense. Each has their own motivations and views of the world around them, and different equipment and abilities. Their fates will soon become intertwined. Will they face one another, weapon in hand, or forge a fragile alliance to stand shoulder to shoulder against a far worse enemy?

Challenging puzzles

The original puzzles you will come across on your dangerous journey will most definitely be tough. Classic adventure games of the 1990s were a big inspiration. You will have to take advantage of your surroundings, look for objects, obtain information, and solve puzzles or encoded messages. Some problems can be solved in multiple ways, or they can be cleverly worked around.

Sneaking in the shadows

Sometimes you'll have to blend into the shadows and sneak past enemies to avoid being detected. Following their patrol routes and habits will help you find the best path.

Complex combat

The combat system is easy to understand but it takes practice to fully master it. Remember one thing: being outnumbered is a problem! If three or more opponents attack you at the same time, you will die! The key is to take advantage of their mistakes, wait for the right moment, and then attack. You will face not just knights, villagers, and robbers, but also various supernatural beings who are not to be underestimated.

Diverse environments

In the game, you will move around on foot as well as on horseback. You will visit various real as well as fictitious places in medieval Silesia. You will plunder villages, doggedly defend the city walls, and explore places such as secret dungeons, abandoned mines, or forbidden parts of monasteries. For example, you can look forward to visiting Röwersdorf, Nysa, the Brzeg monastery, or the Rabesberg castle.

Hidden coins

You will have the opportunity to search for two kinds of hidden coins. Only the best of the best will be able to collect them all. Not only will you fill your wallet with them and unlock unique achievements, but you can also occasionally use them to progress through the story.

Mature content description

Recommended age: 16+.

The game includes stylized nudity, rude speech, violence, sexual violence and alcohol.

Important note

This is not an audiogame! The game contains hardcore mechanics, and it can be very difficult. It may be challenging to master it for someone who has never encountered any PC or console games.

Accessibility features

1428: Shadows over Silesia will be fully accessible to you. This will make it the first game ever on PC and the second overall (after The Last of Us Part II) to bring full blind support to an adventure of this scale. We're not talking about just text narration or some kind of rudimentary navigation. The game will bring all-new revolutionary elements that will allow you to enjoy a full experience not only of the story, dialogue and environment exploration, but also stealth scenes or combat, including large scale battles! Although the accessibility in TLOU2 was a tremendous success and won numerous awards, Shadows over Silesia takes everything to a whole new level never seen before.

The following is a summary of the accessibility features the game will offer you:

• Full narration of all in-game text
  • Including pop-up hints, character properties, active quests, journal entries and inventory
  • Closed captions in cutscenes
  • Subtitle narration for non-dubbed languages
  • The ability to skip forward and backward in text
  • Support for NVDA and MS SAPI
• Special environment descriptions
  • Most locations have their own text descriptions, so that even you can enjoy the game's dark atmosphere while receiving additional information you would otherwise miss
• Advanced navigational features
  • Navigation to important story points, characters and even custom points that can be added on demand in an unlimited quantity
  • Reporting of the remaining distance to the destination
  • Compass narration as well as a coordinate system
  • Assistance with turning towards objects or characters
• Sonar
  • A revolutionary feature that will finally allow you to freely explore and navigate the entire game world
  • The sonar also announces friendly and enemy characters and determines their locations
  • Alerts for traps or destructible barriers
• A large number of audio cues
  • Alerts for objects and interesting interactions. Many of these provide additional sounds to let you know what is around you right as you first hear it
  • Alerts for the beginning and end of cutscenes, low health, leaving an area, and many other situations
  • Warnings about enemies
  • Signals to attack or defend
• Optional adjustments of certain mechanics
  • Accessible combat, including large scale battles
  • Accessible stealth that maintains its atmosphere as well as difficulty
  • More time to complete timed events
• And a great deal of other extra goodies
  • Fully remappable controls, even when using a controller
  • The option to receive sonar feedback not just via audio but also as controller vibrations
  • The entire user interface, including all menus and dialogs, completely accessible with both keyboard and controller
  • The possibility to lock camera rotation or turn the camera off altogether
  • The option to configure sound to play as though in first person view. You will thus be literally in the center of the events and will be able to hear every single murmur and whisper even better, although the game is visually displayed in third person view
  • The option to have accessibility cues displayed also visually
  • Separate sliders for the game's master volume as well as music, voices, user interface sounds and the accessibility audio cues themselves
  • A wide array of graphics settings
  • The possibility to increase or decrease the size of the user interface as needed

System requirements

Minimum

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• Operating system: Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, Windows 10 or Windows 11
• Processor: Intel i3-3220
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Graphics card: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 660 or AMD GPU Radeon HD 7870
• Hard drive: 8 GB of free space
• Sound card: Integrated
• If you want to use the text narration feature, you will need the NVDA screen reader or an MS SAPI compatible voice.

Recommended

• Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
• Operating system: Windows 10
• Processor: Intel i5-2400 or AMD FX-8320
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Graphics card: Nvidia GPU GeForce GTX 1060 or AMD GPU Radeon RX 580
• Hard drive: 8 GB of free space
• Sound card: Creative SOUND BLASTER Zx
• The NVDA screen reader for text narration

Tips for text narration

• If you are using the NVDA screen reader, we recommend to put it to sleep after starting the game with the keystroke NVDA+shift+S. Otherwise, NVDA may not be able to say certain information while holding down any keys, especially if you use the arrow keys for movement, regardless of its configuration. This problem does not occur with a controller.
• Without the NVDA screen reader running, text narration is not activated automatically. If you are only using a SAPI compatible voice, you need to manually activate text narration in one of the following ways (necessary only when first starting the game):
  • The first time you start the game, a spoken prompt will also play to activate the text narration feature. To do so, simply press the E key before the main menu loads. If you are unable to press it in time, restart the game and try again.
  • If you are able to use Steam with a screen reader, you can also set a custom startup parameter for the game. This is an alternate, backup method if you accidentally turn off text narration that was previously on, for example.
    • Open Steam using the desktop or Start menu shortcut.
    • If Steam doesn't launch into the Library section, select it, or switch to the Library directly from the context menu of the Steam icon in the system tray.
    • Using the screen review or mouse movement features of your screen reader, right-click the image labeled "1428: Shadows over Silesia".
    • In the same way, find the Properties item and left-click it.
    • The next screen will read like a normal web page. Enter the following text in the edit box for the launch options (it is the only one in the window)
      -tts
    • There is no visible OK, Save, Done, etc. button in the window; just close it.