Review: Neverwinter Nights (Enhanced Edition)
Let me start this review by admitting that I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I sat down to play this game. I honestly thought that Neverwinter Nights was going to be just another Infinity Engine game like Baldur’s Gate or Icewind Dale. Nothing could be further from the truth. For starters, it’s not an Infinity Engine game. Neverwinter Nights actually runs on the Aurora Engine which is a 3D successor to the classic Infinity Engine. So immediately, Neverwinter Nights looks and feels significantly more modern than similar games that came before it. On top of that, Neverwinter Nights isn’t so much a game per se. Instead, it’s more like a collection of game building tools and a framework in which finished scenarios can be loaded and played. Finally, where the Infinity Engine games included multiplayer support almost as an afterthought, Neverwinter Nights was built with online play very much in mind. In this respect, some argue that it was initially intended to be the “online version of D&D“.
This argument holds some weight for a number of reasons. For starters, Neverwinter Nights shares its name with an old online multiplayer game from AOL. The original Neverwinter Nights ran from 1991 to 1997 and shares a number of similarities with other CRPGs of the early 90’s except that it was entirely online. This is something that was almost unheard of at the time. With the online portions of Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale being so popular, the developers knew that online play was going to have to be a bigger focus this time around. With this in mind, they decided to “resurrect” the original Neverwinter Nights experience with their new title, thereby adopting its name.
When it was released by Bioware in 2002, Neverwinter Nights shipped with a single playable scenario; The Wailing Death. It also included a Dungeon Master client for online play and the Aurora Toolset – a set of tools that allows players to create custom content. A year later, two expansion packs were released that added two additional playable scenarios; Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark. Aside from these new playable campaigns, the expansions also introduced new playable classes and a number of updates to the original game. From here, a number of community made packs were released to much fanfare and distributed on the game’s official site/forums.
In 2004, Bioware launched an online store to sell new scenarios ala carte. Three new official scenarios (now called Modules) were released during the store’s initial launch; Kingmaker, ShadowGuard, and and Witch’s Wake. The Bioware store proved to be successful and a number of additional DLC modules were released before its closure in 2009. The closure of the store’s servers proved to be very a controversial move. A number of the premium modules sold there were distributed using Digital Rights Management. Once the store was closed, the DRM servers were taken offline. This meant that players who purchased some of this DLC were unable to play the scenarios they paid for. Fans were left having to use shady hacks and other questionable methods to enjoy the content they technically had the rights to use.
Thankfully, today we don’t have to worry about that. In 2018, Beamdog Software released Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition. This version of the game includes all three official scenarios, all of the Premium Modules from the old Bioware store, and a number of Community Made modules as well. The DM client and the Aurora Toolset have also been updated. This new version incorporates a number of fixes to the original engine, graphic and sound improvements, and new official game servers. Without a doubt, this makes the Enhanced Edition the definitive version of the game. Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition is available on PC, Xbox One/S/X, PS4/5 and Nintendo Switch.
On PC, the Enhanced Edition contains all of the following playable content.
The Wailing Death
Shadows of Undrentide
Hordes of the Underdark
Kingmaker
ShadowGuard
Witch’s Wake
Contest of Champions
The Dark Ranger’s Treasure
The Winds of Eremore
To Heir is Human
Neverwinter Chess
There’s also new paid DLC Premium Modules available for this version of the game. At the time of this writing, the following DLC scenarios are available to purchase:
Tyrants of the Moonsea
Darkness over Daggerford
Dark Dreams of the Furiae
Pirates of the Sword Coast
Wyvern Crown of Cormyr
Infinite Dungeons
And if that was not enough, there’s also a considerable amount of community content available to play as well. PC users who purchase the game on Steam are able to access this free content via the Steam Workshop. There is also a link to a third-party tool within the game that allows players to download mods independently if they wish.
One important note to mention is that the paid DLC is free on the new console releases of the game, while it is not free on the PC. This is largely because the console releases don’t support mods or community created content. So the new Premium DLC was included as a bit of a consolation.
For my review I decided to play Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition on the PC. I own the base game and all of the Premium DLC. Needless to say, that’s A LOT of content. The Wailing Death scenario alone is about 50+ hours of playtime. This left me in a very unusual predicament. I usually play through every shred of existing DLC when I make a game review. But in the case of Neverwinter Nights EE, if I did that, it would take me months maybe even a year or more to complete everything. That’s entirely too long to stay focused on a single game. So, for the sake of this review I decided to focus on the official scenario and the two expansion modules that were released with the original game. The portion of my review that focuses on the single player aspect of NNEE is only in reference to this content. The other stuff, I plan to play at my leisure whenever I feel like it. I’m not sure if I will review any of that separately at a later date. Time will tell.
The first thing I want to discuss is the game itself. That means, the actual playing of the three base scenarios. If you’ve played any of the Infinity Engine games, then you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. The biggest difference this time around is that the game is rendered in 3D. This means sharper visuals with shadows and lighting and you can rotate the camera around a three-dimensional environment and zoom in and out. Having played Baldur’s Gate and the like, this new level of control took me a minute to get used to. Playing on the PC, the majority of the controls are done using the mouse and the default sensitivity is pretty touchy. But after a while, I did get used to it.
Neverwinter Nights is built using D&D 3E rules. So the mechanics of the game work a little differently than the older Infinity Engine titles. This mainly affects things like race, class and spell availability. All of these things line up with what was found in 3E. But even behind the scenes, all of the rule math follows the 3E standard as well. One neat feature of this game is actually seeing all of this in the text window at the bottom of the screen. Things like attack rolls and saving throws all appear here.
The first scenario, The Wailing Death, focuses on a terrible plague that is infecting the city of Neverwinter. The goal is to seek out a cure for the plague. Of course, as the story develops, it turns out there’s much more going on behind the scenes. When starting the game, you are prompted to either create a character or select from a list of pre-generated ones. Again, all of the races and classes available conform to D&D 3E. When the game starts you have complete control over your character. But only your character. Unlike Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale, in this game you only control a single individual. There are a number of henchmen available to recruit and team up with. But these henchmen are controlled by an AI script (with a little behavior input from the player). The idea here is that if you want to play this game with a traditional party, the player will turn to the multiplayer option – more on that later. Aside from an opening cutscene, the game’s story is told through conversations with NPCs. Each scenario has a main storyline quest. But there’s also a plenty of sidequests given out by various NPCs. Quest progress is tracked via a journal. There’s also a mini-map that starts blank but gets filled in as you explore.
Combat in Neverwinter Nights works similarly to the old Infinity Engine games. Combat is conducted in real time but can be paused and resumed at will. This type of play is considerably different from action RPGs or even turn-based RPGs. But once you understand the intricacies of it, it works quite well. Death in this game is handled by either reloading a previous save or you can opt to lose some exp and be resurrected.
If all of the above sounds overly simplistic, believe me, it’s not. This game can be insanely complex if you allow it to be. What I mean by that this is, you could simply roll a Fighter and just hack and slash your way through the game. However, doing so would be pretty challenging at times. Alternately, you can use the 3E rules to your advantage and create a muti-classed character with a deep level of customization. What about a sneaky rogue with some magic-using ability? Or perhaps a druid who can change into various animals before charging into an attack? All of these things are possible and the framework of the game allows you to try things that don’t seem plausible at first. That’s a big part of the charm here.
When first starting out, it took me a little while to get accustomed to just how the game worked. I think I went in expecting Neverwinter Nights to look and work like the old Infinity Engine games. This expectation slowed me down a bit at first. But, eventually I grasped all of the new bells and whistles. The first scenario took me about sixty hours to finish. I found it to be a bit slow paced at first, but it really picks up in the second half. The storyline and the module itself is a pretty good depiction of what D&D is all about. But it was the second and third modules that really impressed me.
Shadows of Undrentide is a completely separate story from The Wailing Death. While it is technically possible to use your Wailing Death character in this expansion scenario, it’s not recommended. The third scenario, Hordes of the Underdark, on the other hand is a direct sequel to Shadows of Undrentide. It is aimed at a higher level character and importing your SoU character in HotU is expected. Personally, I found the storyline for the expansion scenarios to be much more gripping and interesting than the base game. But then again, I’m a sucker for D&D staples like fiends and the Underdark. These scenarios were chock full of such things and I had a blast playing them. The word on the street is that the new Premium Modules are even better.
As I mentioned above, there’s plenty of other playable scenarios included with Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition and it took me close to one hundred hours to complete the core content. So you certainly get your money’s worth just on the single player scenarios alone. But where this game really shines is the online multiplayer content.
There’s a couple different ways to enjoy NNEE online. The most basic way is to simply play through the various scenarios with friends. However, this would admittedly take quite a bit of co-ordination. These days, hosting local games isn’t as popular as it once was. Instead, most people are going to turn to internet servers. Online servers are not particularly good for playing the published modules. The majority of the servers online don’t host the official scenarios. Instead most of them are what is known as “persistent worlds”. These are always-on game worlds that are filled with custom content. Back in the old days, before the Enhanced Edition, these persistent worlds were hosted on Gamespy. Today, the servers are not centralized but rather all over the world. They are, however, indexed by Beamdog. I’m honestly surprised at the variety of content on these servers. Browsing through the index, you’ll find fan-run servers based on a number of classic D&D settings. For example, there’s Ravenloft, Greyhawk, and others. There’s also plenty of custom homebrew worlds. Most of these servers have their own maps, textures, NPCs, quests, etc. It’s very much like an MMO. These servers are also fairly active even though the Enhanced Edition is now several years old. So far, I’ve only spent a little time exploring these persistent worlds. I wanted the main focus of my review to be the single player experience. But I must say, I was beyond impressed with what I saw.
With all of this in mind, Neverwinter Nights is a gaming experience quite unlike any other I’ve come across. It’s a CRPG, it’s a sandbox, it’s a game hosting platform, it’s an MMO. It’s a creative masterpiece. But it can also be a bit overwhelming. I have to admit, this game is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. But make no mistake, this game is really something special.
If you’re a D&D fanatic who wants to experience the cities of The Realms and interact with the characters you’ve come know through the years, this game is may be what you’re looking for. If you’re an old school CRPG fan who wants to try something a bit more modern, this also may be exactly what you’re wanting. But, if you’re an action RPG fan drawn to this game because it looks like Diablo or Dungeon Siege, just know that this is a completely different animal.
Version Reviewed: PC
Difficulty: Variable– Neverwinter Nights EE offers a handful of difficulty options. The options available are: Very Easy, Easy, Normal, D&D Hardcore, and Very Difficult. These options modify certain aspects of the 3E rules to make the game easier or more challenging. For example, when selecting D&D Hardcore Rules, there’s a chance that enemies can land critical hits on your character. Very Easy and Easy modes, have his option disabled. Overall, I find these difficulty options to be well balanced and appropriate. Naturally, online servers can set their own difficulty rules, so your experience online may vary.
Multiplayer: Local and Online multiplayer. Persistent worlds with co-op and PVP options. Very community driven.
Story: The three main scenarios are very well done and are a great representation of D&D. I personally enjoyed the two expansion packs a bit more than the main scenario. Very heroic with plenty of lore. Really epic stuff.
Originality: This game takes a winning formula and modernizes it considerably. The multiplayer options in this game were ahead of its time and really makes Neverwinter Nights a game like no other.
Soundtrack: The music in this game is absolutely amazing. It’s well composed and fitting. I found it to be the perfect accompaniment to the action on the screen. Music aside, the ambient sounds are also commendable. When exploring the towns and wilderness in Neverwinter Nights, you can hear birds chirping, dogs barking and the chatter of villagers. All of this creates some incredible immersion.
Fun: If you’re a fan of the old Infinity Engine games or even just CRPGs in general, this is a game you’re going to want to experience. It’s everything great about classic CRPGs but with a facelift and a greater attention to detail. It doesn’t matter if you want to only experience the single player content or if you’re focused on the online play. There’s hours and hours of entertainment waiting for you.
Graphics: This game was a huge visual upgrade from what came before it and the Enhanced Edition only improves it further. More than once while playing, I stopped to appreciate the level of detail or the amazing lighting.
Playcontrol: I played this game on the PC so I have only really experienced it using a mouse and keyboard. I found the default mouse sensitivity to be pretty loose but I did eventually get used to it. The console versions of the game are played using controllers, but I can’t speak to how effective or ineffective that might be.
Downloadable Content: Official add-on scenarios and a slew of community content.
Mature Content: Fantasy Violence, Mature Themes
Value: This game currently sells for around $20 on most platforms. Console users get all of the DLC for free, while PC users have to pay a bit more. Still, even if paying full price for everything I feel it’s very much worth it. Combine this with all of the free community content and this game is very much worth the price.
Overall score (1-100): 95 – Of all the games in the series so far, this is by far the best to date. Beautiful visuals, an enchanting score, hours and hours of unique stories, and a nearly endless supply of community content. Like I said before, I’ve never played anything like this before and I was blown away. This is a game that will probably stay on PC forever.
Original System: PC
Available today on: PC, PS4/PS5, Xbox One/X/S, Switch – (Updated as of Summer 2024)
Best Experience: PC – (Updated as of Summer 2024)
Other Reviews In This Series:
Baldur’s Gate – Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear – Baldur’s Gate II – Baldur’s Gate III
Icewind Dale – Icewind Dale II
Neverwinter Nights – Neverwinter Nights 2
Excellent review, well-written and accurate!