The Longest Journey is a point-and-click adventure from the Norwegian company Funcom, its first original project, made by a small team on a budget of about $2–3 million. Ragnar Tørnquist produced, co-designed and wrote it. The heroine, art student April Ryan, moves between Stark, a future city of Newport in 2209, and the magical world of Arcadia.
The game first appeared in Norway on 18 November 1999. Although it was written and recorded in English, most European localizations came out first: the English version reached the UK in April 2000 and North America in November 2000, a delay meant to stop imports from undercutting European sales.
Funcom needed about 150,000 sales to break even; the game passed 450,000 by July 2002. It was followed by Dreamfall: The Longest Journey and Dreamfall Chapters, and an iOS port arrived in 2014.1
Names and releases
| Region | Title on the box | Platform | Date | Publisher | Src |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NA | The Longest Journey | Windows | Nov 17, 2000 | Tri Synergy | 1 |
| EU | The Longest JourneyNorway | Windows | Nov 18, 1999 | IQ Media Nordic | 1 |
| EU | The Longest JourneyUnited Kingdom; first English-language release | Windows | Apr 20, 2000 | Empire Interactive | 1 |
| WW | The Longest JourneySteam release | Windows | May 1, 2007 | Funcom | 2 |
| AU | The Longest Journey | iOS | Oct 28, 2014 | — | 1 |
| WW | The Longest Journey | iOS | Nov 25, 2014 | — | 1 |
Box art by region
EU The Longest Journey
Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: Wikipedia.
Version differences
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AudioNorway (1999)
In the Norwegian release, April Ryan was voiced by the journalist Synnøve Svabø.1
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TextEuropean localizationsEnglish version
Although the game was written and recorded in English, most localized editions came out before the English one, which was held back so imports would not hurt European sales.1
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TextSteamGOG
The digital editions sold today are English-only on Steam and English or Polish on GOG; Spanish Wikipedia points to a fan patch that switches the Steam version to Spanish.3
Translations
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Spanish Official
—Windows · PC versionReleased
A Spanish edition was sold in Spain, where the game reached 50,000 copies in about a year.1
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Spanish Fan
—Windows · Steam versionReleased
A fan patch exists to switch the English-only Steam edition to Spanish.3
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Polish Official
—Windows · PC versionReleased
GOG offers a Polish version with Polish voices and text.4
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Russian Official
—Windows · PC versionReleased
The game was released in Russia as one of its many European localizations.1
Where to play legally today
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GOG Purchase
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Steam Purchase
How to run it today
The GOG edition is DRM-free and officially supported on current Windows; Steam sells the same game in English.4
Reception
The game holds a Metacritic score of 91, with 9.3/10 from both GameSpot and IGN. Computer Gaming World named it the best computer adventure of 2000, and in 2011 Adventure Gamers ranked it the second-best adventure game ever. Sales passed 450,000 by July 2002 and 500,000 by 2004.1
Sources
Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13
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