Neverwinter Nights 2

[DuckofDeath]

I'd agree, Arcanum remains one of my top 5 rpgs of all time. However, I got very sick of Troika whinning about how all their problems were because of publishers. 3 buggy and unfinished games under three different publishers (I think, was Vampire and TOEE different?) is a bit too convienient.

btw, I don't really see how Oblivion is dumbed down. Making your game easier to control is always a good thing, and gameplay options seem to be expanded over Morrowind. Elder Scrolls in general may, at times, be simplified but I've been playing them since Arena and each one seems to add more gameplay while becoming simpler to dive into for a newbie, a good thing in my estimation.

[Peacedog]

Why do people keep asking for a sequel to Baldur's Gate?

Had to come back and say this: because a new BG game was in the works and got canceled.

It didn;t, FWIW, continue the story of I & II to the best of my knowledge. But no, this isn't the same as asking for LotR IV. The new BG was going to be set in the Forgotten Realms (shocker, I know). It used the BG name because it was an established brand name (another shocker, hehehehe).

[Kael]

My RPG wishlist:

1. A complex, interesting, new story.
2. Interesting characters with personality.
3. A party of characters I can tweek to work well together.
4. A varied world to explore.
5. Quests I can follow, ignore, or perform in the order I want.
6. Real decisions that effect the world/story.

Baldurs gate did 2, 3, 4 and 5 really well. Final fantasy 7, 9 and 10 did 1, 2, 3 and 4 really well. Might and Magic did World of Xeen did 3, 4, 5 and 6 really well. I don't think I have seen the game that does these all. And the current current trend toward single player RPG's is killing my 2 and 3, which makes me sad.

[razgon]

On the other hand, think about this scenario...

1) You start out as a commoner, with no-one paying special attention to oyu, and without any special powers

2) you dont have much money

3) you play the entire game as a commoner, without any special powers

4) your father really DID die during the war

5) you never get to leave the damn village, and you die an old, bitter and lonely man...

[DuckofDeath]

I actually think that'd be pretty funny. You spend a few hours of gameplay thinking something will happen but.... nope.

[EddieA]

Worthplaying has hi-res versions of those 4 screens here. There's also some info on the game, including this -
"Recruit up to three companions to assist in your adventures. Improved party control allows for more dynamic tactical decisions in combat and more personal interaction." Sounds good

[Jaymann]

As a commoner with no money, you steal some food and get caught. They throw you in a cell with nothing but rats for company.

You get hungry and start killing the rats for food. This makes you stronger so you kill more rats, bigger rats. You begin to craft weapons from the rat teeth, and armor from the rat pelts. This allows you to take on gangs of rats, including rat lieutenants and rat bosses.

After weeks of killing rat hordes, you hear a loud gong, and the rats turn blue and become easier to kill. Now you are strong enough to punch a hole in the wall from whence the rats emerge. You crawl through the muck, laying waste to armies of rats with your rat tooth knife until you finally emerge into the Chamber of the Rat King.

The Rat King kills you with one bite.

[DCL]

Worthplaying has hi-res versions of those 4 screens here. There's also some info on the game, including this -
"Recruit up to three companions to assist in your adventures. Improved party control allows for more dynamic tactical decisions in combat and more personal interaction." Sounds good

Bah. What I'm waiting to see are more detailed screens with character models. And I really hope the models are mucho improved over the first version. The player models in the first version were *seriously* bad IMO. Sometimes I had trouble telling the female warriors from the skeletons....

[Dave Allen]

You start out as a typical commoner. No one really pays much attention to you; you are no more or less special then anyone else in the village and the NPCs react as such.

It sucks when fantasy resembles one's reality.

[EddieA]

Gamespy has a lengthy new preview here and there are a bunch of new screenshots here.

[weeskwee]

June 2006

[Eightball]

June 2006

They'll be facing stiff competition from Oblivion by then

[Max Peck]

Rise, and be reborn! Maybe?

Original story: There's probably a few holdouts somewhere, but for the most part, it seems like we've all come to accept Beamdog's "enhanced" versions of D&D classics like Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, and Neverwinter Nights 1 as those games' go-to editions. But there are a couple of classics still missing from the lineup: Icewind Dale 2 and Neverwinter Nights 2.

Icewind Dale 2's missing source code means the outlook for a remaster of that one looks grim, but an addition to SteamDB (spotted on Reddit) has me pretty much convinced we're due for an imminent dolled-up re-release of Obsidian's follow-up to the OG Neverwinter Nights, which up to now has reputedly been in licensing rights purgatory.

The package on SteamDB—which, if you're not familiar, is a third-party website that tracks changes to Steam's backend—is called Dungeons and Dragons Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition. Which could mean anything, really. I'm not a detective, how do you expect me to work out what that could possibly signify?

But wait, there's more. Alongside that inscrutable name, the package's update history suggests we'll be able to launch the game in default mode, Dungeon Master mode (misspelled "Dungen Master," somewhat charmingly), or launch the NWN2 Toolset. It's also already been tagged as: RPG, Action-RPG, Dungeon Crawler, Story Rich, and Fantasy.

Yeah, I'm as stumped as you are. Unless, wait, could "Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition" possibly be an enhanced edition of Neverwinter Nights 2? It just might be, and according to SteamDB's data, the new release of the classic will come in at a meaty 36GB of size, compared to the original's 5.5GB of required HDD space. It also seems to come with Steam Deck support out the gate.

To be fair, it looks like the devs have done a bunch of upscaling for the game's textures and whatnot to make them fit for modern screens. Plus, it looks like it comes with all the gubbins for the game's expansions: Storm of Zehir, Mask of the Betrayer, and Mysteries of Westgate.

Update 14/02/2025: Well, now I'm just confused. Since everyone started chatting about an NWN2 enhanced edition, Beamdog has taken to social media to tell everyone that—whatever's happening with the game—it isn't involved with it. Could Aspyr be handling this one solo?