Ok, asking here because I believe there to be a large PC game base active than in the TW II board on Steam which may not even be visited anymore

Shattered Emrace DLC offers an engine update
It's the only DLC I don't have yet
but I'm getting ready to start TW II

Does the DLC upgrade the base game's engine and graphics as well or is that update only effective in the DLC?

I know the update offers new achievements for base and other DLC but I never bother with achievements....

The Steam page stresses it is a totally standalone game, so I guess the answer to your question is a big fat juicy NO! (as in: "no it will not upgrade the base game's engine").

There is two versions (I know, I was confused too). A dlc:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/456221/Two_Worlds_II__Shattered_Embrace/
Which requires the original game. And then the standalone version. It’s the same content.

We don’t have the HD version here do we, so unlikely to get that dlc. It’s not reviewed well.
Another title with x amount of versions and remasters that no one can follow.

I would just play the original and expansions using the worldmerge mod:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/worldmerge

In fact, the GOG version of Two Worlds II is "HD". It was a free engine upgrade a couple of years ago. So it's still the same game, not a new entry in the library.

The only difference between Steam and GOG is that the local version doesn't have GOG Galaxy achievements. In all other aspects, as far as I know, both versions are identical.

Call of the Tenebrae and the two parts of Echoes of the Dark Past, which are available on GOG, were released right after that patch.

Shattered Embrace, just like Call of the Tenebrae, is a playable DLC (I mean that it's part of the story, not cosmetics and other similar stuff that are usually missing in GOG versions of some games - Dying Light, for example), so I think that it will be added to the GOG version soon. Maybe this delay is not even caused by GOG, but by TopWare Interactive / Reality Pump, who knows?

Interesting, so the gog version is actually better, I.e e without the “achievements”. Will make a note to lock my installer for that game.
TBH with the game, there was the furor over microtransactions, removed console, and such like which killed any interest in what was a pretty average game to start with. I think I actually prefer the first one.

Dying light is missing the last dlc is it not? We have the rest now.

What is this "local version"?

I mean the version that is sold on GOG. We are on GOG right now, so the GOG version of the game is "local" (in-house, etc.) for us, isn't it? Correct me if I'm wrong, please. (:

If someone is confused, here is the summary: both Steam and GOG versions are identical (GOG version also has that "HD" engine update), except for the fact that there are no achievements for the GOG version of the game in GOG Galaxy, but they are presented inside the game (like in Hotline Miami, for example).

I've heard the "engine update" makes the game run like garbage even on newer hardware, and doesn't look any better, so that's sort of concerning. I was actually hoping GOG never got the update. Oh well.

The new "DLC" is supposed to be super terrible, too, btw.

Unfortunately yes. It seems to have performance issues on ANY hardware. Unfortunately yes. Again. ):

But it's rather a matter of product completeness. It's pretty disappointing to see GOG versions of some games incomplete. It's like, I don't know, "enjoy" four cheese pizza, where half of the cheese is missing, while Steam users have a full meal, sometimes even with extra filling.

Shattered Embrace is not the only DLC for Two Worlds II that is missing on GOG. There are also soundtracks and strategy guides that are not available here.

I think that Reality Pump should finally put all this content in some kind of "Definitive Edition". It doesn't seem like all of these guides and soundtracks are sell well separately.

I've confirmed by installing the game without the DLC and the character creation intro screen looking exactly like it does with the DLC installed (comparing to a YouTube video where the author THOUGHT it had improved graphics but it was most likely the result of having inevitably updating his video card over the past decade (the game always had phenominal graphics if you could afford the GPU).

Shattered only offers more achievements for the base game
Engine tweaks are for Shattered alone

The engine was updated in 2017. It was made before (or maybe along with) the release of Call of the Tenebrae DLC. Before that update, the game didn't even have achievements on Steam.

So it really doesn't matter if you install the game with or without DLCs, it will be "HD" anyway. The "non-HD" version (1.3.7) is no longer available.

If some new engine tweaks were announced with the release of Shattered Embrace, then they are also relevant for the whole game, because Shattered Embrace it's just a new campaign for the base game.

As for the standalone version of Shattered Embrace (and Call of the Tenebrae), it's just the same current version of the game, but with only one campaign available.

FCK me, it didn’t even have achievements on steam! Publisher #totalfailure achievement acquired! Game totally unplayable.

Nice irony, but I just wanted to emphasize that the achievements appeared with the "HD" update, which means that "non-HD" version is not on Steam anymore, so the comparison described by carnival73 is pointless.

With or without DLCs, it's still an "HD" version with an updated engine.

You need to compare the current version with 1.3.7 (if you, of course, backed up the old offline installer) to see if there are any differences.

Wasn't Two Worlds II the game that disabled all available cheats, and added anything from those cheats back as micro transactions? As far as i remember that even hit the GoG Version, but was luckily rolled back, at least here.

That alone means for me, already for that blatant attempt, that i will never again touch that game, god forbid buy anything related to that game.

Yup, that’s the one. Just get the velvet edition and forget the new stuff. Don’t know why they tried to resurrect and average game anyways. Perhaps fix the crap ending first.
I probably still have older installers for most things. New versions just add galaxy requirements. That being said, hd or not, does worldmerge still work?