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+--- Thread: Atlantis: The Lost Tales (Cryo, 1997) on modern systems – open-source engine (/showthread.php?tid=801)
Atlantis: The Lost Tales (Cryo, 1997) on modern systems – open-source engine - ripleyxlr8 - 10-21-2026
Hi all,
Atlantis: The Lost Tales was one of the games of my childhood, and I wanted to be able to replay it and share it. It was one of Cryo's most ambitious games, with full 360° panoramas and real-time 3D faces for the characters, but like many games of that era it has become hard to run properly on today's machines.
So I started by reverse engineering the original game, first as a port for ScummVM, which already supports other Cryo games through its CryOmni3D engine. From that work came Atlantis Native, a free, open-source standalone reimplementation of the engine. It runs the original game on Windows 10/11, macOS (Apple Silicon), Linux, and even directly in the browser.
What it offers:
- Faithful by default: the engine is a translation of the original, checked frame by frame and sound by sound against it.
- An optional HD mode: panoramas and 3D faces rendered at your screen's resolution, sharp subtitles.
- Widescreen: the panorama fills 16:9 and 21:9 screens.
- Optional fixes for bugs of the original game.
- Fullscreen with F, F11 or Alt+Enter, and looking around with the arrow keys.
Most releases are supported: the 1997 CDs in English, French, German, Dutch, Swedish, Spanish and Italian, Cryo's 1.01 patch, and the GOG version. The desktop versions can even play directly from CD images (ISO, BIN/CUE, MDF, NRG).
Important: the game itself is not included. Its images, videos, voices and music belong to the rights holder, so you need your own copy (GOG or the original CDs). In the browser, your files are read only on your computer and never sent anywhere.
I also wrote a detailed article on how the original engine works, now published on RetroReversing: https://www.retroreversing.com/cryo-atlantis-engine
It covers the panoramas, the scripts that drive the story, the 3D talking heads, the puzzles, saves, some bugs of the original and the differences between the releases.
For transparency: most of the code was written with an AI assistant (Claude, by Anthropic), under my direction and with my review. This is also stated on the project page.
Links:
- Play in the browser: https://ripleyxlr8.github.io/atlantis-native/
- Downloads, source code and guide: https://github.com/ripleyXLR8/atlantis-native
- Also on itch.io: https://ripleyxlr8.itch.io/atlantis-native
Feedback is very welcome, especially from people who know the game well: any difference you notice compared to the original helps.