The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery is an interactive movie point-and-click adventure game released by Sierra On-Line in 1995. Unlike its predecessor Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, released in 1993, The Beast Within was produced entirely in full motion video. The technology was popular at the time of the game's production with the recently introduced storage capabilities of CD-ROMs, but was expensive to produce. Its sequel, Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned used a rendered 3D engine.
In 1996, Computer Gaming World magazine named it their game of the year.
The storyline weaves together werewolf mythology and Bavarian history with sexual intrigue and businessmen's quest for their primal roots. The game's two lead characters are Gabriel Knight—the seemingly less-than-bright but smart-as-a-fox mystery writer and bookstore owner—and Grace Nakimura (played by Joanne Takahashi), his less-than-trusting and keen assistant. Knight (portrayed by Dean Erickson) has inherited a castle in a small German village and the title of Schattenjäger ("shadow hunter" in German) that comes with it. It has been a year since the voodoo murders case (Sins of the Fathers) and the local villagers implore him to investigate the mysterious death of a little girl—caused, they believe, by a werewolf. Knight and Nakimura's search for clues takes them to Munich, King Ludwig II's famous Neuschwanstein Castle, Altötting and Bavaria's forested countryside. Their efforts lead them to uncover the truth about King Ludwig's mysterious death and discover a lost Richard Wagner opera, written by Robert Holmes (composer of music in the game).
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