Arcanum is actually pretty stable for a Troika game, but as anybody who's played it knows, there's tons of minor bugs, unbalanced items and quite a bit of unused content which simply never got patched or enabled.

Thankfully, the community has created several projects that improve these rough edges.

Unofficial Fan Patch - The Original Fan Patch For The Best Vanilla Experience
Fans to the rescue. For over a decade, a modder named Drog has been releasing and updating an unofficial Arcanum fan patch (UAP), which not only includes a fully working widescreen patch, but also fixes tons of bugs and glitches in the original. And the great thing is, it adds nothing that wasn't already in the game, just re-enables some things that seem to have been accidentally left out, like extra dialogue options, voice clips, and items.

This patch includes

- High-Quality Town Maps
- High Resolution Patch
- High-Quality Music
- Level Cap Changer (sort of)
- Cheat Mode / Debug Mode
- Official Troika Arcanum Modules (DLCs)

Get it here. https://terra-arcanum.com/drog/uap.html

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Arcanum Multiverse Edition - New Content For Those Tired Of Vanilla
In recent years, another mod built on top of Drog's original UAP has surfaced, called the Arcanum Multiverse Edition - it is built on Drog's patch and includes everything in it, with some additional new and restored content and is more of a mod than a patch designed to preserve the original experience exactly.

Either patch is fine - If you want a recommendation, I'd say start with Drog's patch - he's the OG, he's been updating the patch for a decade+, it's the one I've always used and it's going to give you the best vanilla experience.

WARNING: While I and many others have played through the game with these patches, they are technically unofficial, and the modder in question has said he is finished with Arcanum modding, so expect no support. Also, you MUST apply them before you start a new game, to avoid issues with incompatible saves.

WARNING: If it wasn't clear: Apply the UAP patch OR Arcanum Multiverse Edition to your game - DO NOT APPLY BOTH. PICK ONE.

If you want more info on Arcanum, or any of the other Troika games, head to http://www.terra-arcanum.com and have a look around. Note that they also have some other mods and things for Arcanum, but most of them significantly alter the core game, or are incompatible with the UAP bugfixes. You might want to give the high-quality music patch a spin, but the original music sounds excellent and I wager you won't be able to tell much of a difference. For the purest and most hassle-free experience I recommend you stick with these patches for your first playthrough.

EDIT: If you have any problems with not being able to download, try refreshing the download page, or try the alternate links at this forum post (thanks sanpats), or for the 91225 update and High-res patches try these alternate links, courtesy of Petrell: UAP91225 update and High-res patch.

EDIT 2: Removed old patch version, as apparently version 91225 is stand-alone. Vagabond says it is anyway. Blame him if it breaks.

EDIT 3: Removing contributed torrent link due to torrent site jumping the shark.

EDIT 4: A DECADE LATER, I REMEMBER THIS EXISTS AND UPDATE THE POST - you only need the one patch (UAP) now.

EDIT 5: A new patch appears! Add Arcanum Multiverse Edition

All-in-one link:
http://www.shsforums.net/topic/33528-arcanum-unofficial-patch-extras/?s=939c72e7377917b07e022f028f7ead5b

thx for the patch link :)

Thanks for the links phanboy4
I have to admit I missed Arcanum when it was originally release, I have not repeated that mistake as I have already bought and downloaded it!

Top post!
Thanks for this :)

Thanks much for the links :) - I will be able to use them on my retail copy (that I amazingly found the CD's for in very good condition!). Had to search kinda hard for the last official patch (most links were down and the FileFront link doesn't work, I had to get it from a german FTP site - http://www.patches-scrolls.de/arcanum.php [the FTP link is the only one that works])

Excelent Post. Thank you very much.

Can anyone confirm if all this stuff is compatible with the GOG version? No significant issues?

Thanks, a real time saver !

Thanks mate. Great post.

I'm wondering this myself. To remove the disc check the executable would have been changed, if they didn't use a scene crack Drogg's stuff might not function properly.

the first UAP patch won't work with vista 64. any help on this?

well, i installed everything and for the moment, there's no problem.

All the patches work for me. Big thanks to the OP and sanpats!

I likewise am getting good results with the patches so far.