Betrayal at Krondor takes place largely in Midkemia, the fantasy world developed by Raymond E. Feist in his Riftwar novels.

Gameplay occurs mainly from a first-person perspective while traveling the overworld, dungeons, and caves, but switches to a third-person view during combat.

However, the player is given enormous freedom to explore the world however they wish, with ample opportunity to perform optional sub-quests and enhance their characters' abilities, gain cash, upgrade weapons and armor, and so on.

If no member of the player's party can read Moredhel, the writing on the chest will appear untranslated, although it can still be opened by a brute force method of systematically cycling through each tumbler.

Improved healing rate is handled as a status effect as well, as are poisoning, drunkenness, sickness (from eating spoiled rations), and plague, which is an extremely serious condition that can reduce the party to moribund husks incapable of any productive action.

Rations can also be poisoned or spoiled and will sicken characters if they eat it, adversely affecting their health, although careful inspection of all packages of questionable provenance will avoid this possibility.

Injured enemies may try to flee from combat, and will escape entirely and permanently from the player's grasp, unless they are killed or otherwise prevented them from reaching the upper edge of the battlefield.

The player is able to read the inscriptions on the gravestones (usually in the form of a short poetic eulogy), and then decide to dig up the grave (if someone has a shovel).

Ten years after A Darkness at Sethanon, Seigneur Locklear is serving at a northern Kingdom garrison when he saves Gorath of the Ardanien from an assassin.

Gorath has brought a warning of an invasion planned by Delekhan, leader of the moredhel, so Locklear agrees to take him to see Prince Arutha in Krondor.

Arutha arranges for James to escort Gorath to Romney and meet with a group of the king's soldiers investigating recent Nighthawk activity in the east.

James, Owyn, and Gorath follow the trail of the spyglass and the spider north to Cavall Keep and uncover the leader of the Nighthawks, the merchant Navon du Sandau.

After killing him, they enter the Nighthawks' hideout in the caverns beneath Cavall Keep, where they learn that Delekhan plans to attack Northwarden.

Learning of the impending attack on Northwarden, Arutha readies his army and sends Owyn and Gorath to Krondor to seek Pug's help in case the moredhel employ magic.

Returning to Northwarden as the moredhel siege begins, they discover that Nighthawks have murdered Baron Gabot, leaving James in command.

Makala visits Pug in Krondor, telling him that Gamina is considered an abomination by the Assembly of Magicians and that he has imprisoned her until her fate can be decided.

In Northwarden, the moredhel raiding leader is captured and reveals that they plan to use a rift machine in the Dimwood to bypass Arutha's army, enter Sethanon, and free Murmandamus, whom they believe is alive and imprisoned there.

Realizing that the attack was a diversion engineered by Makala, Arutha orders his troops to Sethanon and instructs James, Locklear, and Patrus to find and destroy the rift machine.

Using the Cup of Rlnn Skrr, Owyn restores Pug's powers and they find Gamina imprisoned in a crystal cage in the underground ruins of the Temple of Dhatsavan.

Pug, Owyn, and Gorath travel to the caverns beneath Sethanon and kill the Tsurani Great Ones ("the Six") protecting the Lifestone Chamber.

Feist states in his afterword to Krondor: The Betrayal that he was busy writing The King's Buccaneer during the game's production and that the plot, text, and new characters were created solely by designers Neal Hallford and John Cutter.

Most shops, inns, temples, special locations, and large cities are navigated through pictures usable through hotspots, while smaller towns have 3D buildings.

xBaK is a game engine recreation which allows Betrayal at Krondor to be played natively under the X Window System, using the original data files.

There are minor differences, such as Owyn's last name being Belefote rather than Beleforte and the towns of Tanneurs and Eggley are changed to Tannerus and Eggly, but the novel largely covers the main plot of the game accurately and ignores most of the sidequests.

Sales of the original 3½" floppy disk release were slow, leading Sierra to sell the Riftwar rights back to Raymond Feist, but the game became a hit when it was re-released on CD-ROM.

Graphics and sound are top-notch, character development is logical an fair, combat is beautifully animated, and I have yet to find anything about the game that I don't like.

[10] A less enthusiastic review by Sandy Petersen appeared in November 1993 in Dragon magazine #199 in the "Eye of the Monitor" column, in which he gave the game two stars out of five.

Though Petersen praised the graphics for being "well-rendered" at times and for its "rather entertaining plot", he chastised the gameplay for being slow and for subjecting the player to "dull maintenance activities", such as armor polishing, as well as quests that he found frustratingly hard to understand how to complete.

The editors wrote that it "is the quintessential example of how a computer game should be built from a fantasy novel", stating that they thought it took the most creative risks while readers liked "its play value and non-linear story".

The editors hailed it as "a pivotal title in the evolution of role-playing games", praising its "interactive plot and characters that stir the emotions of the player.