NWN2 expansion revealed

By Robert Purchese Published 12 April, 2007

Mask of the Betrayer ahoy.

Atari has revealed a new expansion pack for Neverwinter Nights 2 that will be available this autumn.

Mask of the Betrayer will follow on from the climatic battle against the King of Shadows in the original campaign, and see you wake up deep below the earth's surface surrounded by swarms of evil spirits. It's here in harsh Rashemen that you'll seek out your true destiny.

Perhaps the most exciting new feature are epic levels, which will take you above and beyond level 20, giving you access to powerful new feats and spells.

In addition to this there will be new races, companions, base and prestige classes, as well as the usual slog of new weapons, monsters, armour, crafting options and modding tools.

"Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer's engrossing campaign will conclude the storyline that began in the original Neverwinter Nights 2, and focus on combat, exploration and classic D&D dungeon-crawling," said Feargus Urquhart, CEO of developer Obsidian Entertainment.

"We're also making new advances in story and character development as well as improving upon the acclaimed companion Influence System used in both Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith Lords and Neverwinter Nights 2."

Uncover our Mask of the Betrayer gallery for a look at the latest screenshots.

Neverwinter Nights 2 was released late last year to critical acclaim. Quest your way over to our review to find out more.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 5 years ago

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  • Dizzy #1 5 years ago

    I loved NWN1 and have been holding back on NWN2 until I saw the first expansion pack ;) Guess I will buy the boxed edition end of the year ;)

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #2 5 years ago

    I'm looking forward to those Epic levels. Loved being ridiculously powerful in Hordes of the Underdark.

  • Dizzy #3 5 years ago

    >Loved being ridiculously powerful in Hordes of the Underdark.

    Yeah I could one-hit any mob near the end. Nice to kill a "balrog" with one hit ;)

  • mkreku #4 5 years ago

    Hmm.. I didn't like Neverwinter Nights 2 as much as I thought I would. It was so stiff.. and impossible to play in co-op multiplayer. I don't think this expansion will fix those problems.

  • Inigo #5 5 years ago

    Enjoyed NWN2 though i have to admit that i don't like the epic levels in Hordes of the Underdark they where just too powerful. The game had some of the best NPCs going, where else would you have a pyromaniac sorceress and a drunken Scottish dwarf?

  • aldo_14 #6 5 years ago

    ''where else would you have a pyromaniac sorceress and a drunken Scottish dwarf?''

    Glasgow, Saturday, 1am.

  • Pike #7 5 years ago

    Personally I'd say that it seems like 20% of the RPG npc population consist of drunken Scottish dwarfs.

  • Iora #8 5 years ago

    All the best dwarfs are a) drunk and b) Scottish. Glasgow at 1am is indeed like that but venture out at 3am and those same dwarf turn into horrible gurggling kobolds.

    As for this expansion. Won't touch it. NW2 was one of the most horribly buggy, ugly, down right lazy games made last year. I loathed its mere presence on my shelf.

    NW2 Taught me to never trust any game made by those 'people' regardless of the source material.

    Total utter shite. I can imagine that the only thing this expansion pack will expand is its already vast sea of liquid shiteness and the wallets of the monkies who made it.

    huff puff!

  • gallow #9 5 years ago

    I really enjoyed NWN2 - I thought it was a much better game than the first with a proper party. I shall look forward to the expansion. I'd say it was one of my most favourite games of last year. I enjoyed and played this for much longer than I did Oblivion.

  • Pike #10 5 years ago

    Anyone who belives that NWN 2 was utter shit has not taste in games. It was technically unpolished but narrative wise it beat it's predecessor, and most other competing games by a country mile.
    Edited by 1 at 12/04/07 @ 17:11

  • Dragul #11 5 years ago

    Still haven't played NWN2... And I bought it on launch day... :(

    Anyway I'll be getting this on launch day as well... I'm so excited :D

  • immateriaux #12 5 years ago

    Yeah, I bought it on launch day too and only got to about the second town or so and gave up. Terrible game I thought, useless party AI, no fog of war - seemed like a backwards step altogether, overly simplistic and essentially crude. Probably would win prize "Most Disappointing game of 2006" for me.

  • Pac #13 5 years ago

    I never got on with the first one and my PC is so crap it probably won't run the second one.

    I would love it if they made an updated version of Boulders Gate series on the Xbox 360 with online co-op.

    Or am I already living in some kind of fairy land by just suggesting it.

  • Inspirius #14 5 years ago

    I've slowly been playing through NWN2 in co-op since it came out, this will be something to look forward to at the end of the year.

  • Scimarad #15 5 years ago

    "The game had some of the best NPCs going, where else would you have a pyromaniac sorceress and a drunken Scottish dwarf?"

    In every bloody D&D game I was ever in, unfortunately:-(

  • Dragul #16 5 years ago

    @ immateriaux

    I don't know about that, but my problem is the excess of games I have...

    I really loved the first NWN, so I problably will love the 2nd one too...

  • MarkM #17 5 years ago

    NWN2 was a terrible sequel to one of the finest RPGs. Obsidian honestly can't make good games - they hurt the success of Knights of the Old Republic, and now Neverwinter Nights.
    Edited by 1 at 13/04/07 @ 06:01

  • UncleLou #18 5 years ago

    NWN2 was a terrible sequel to one of the finest RPGs

    You can't be serious. The single-player campaign in NWN was absolutely appaling, while NWN2 almost reached the heights of Baldur's Gate 2.

  • UncleLou #19 5 years ago

    they hurt the success of Knights of the Old Republic, and now Neverwinter Nights.


    As it has been said many times already, the writing in Kotor 2 was infinitely superior to the one in Kotor 1. The game just isn't finished which, most probably, isn't Obsidian's fault.

  • Caimbeul #20 5 years ago

    Will this expansion sort out the shite coding? if so i will get it. I have NWN2 and played it for about 30 mins...I have a Dual Core XP4400+ 2Gb RAM, 7800GTX etc and it runs like shit no matter what you do...no its not drivers etc i am compitent in that side of thongs too. Sloppy coding probably ruining a perfectly decent game for all.

  • Inigo #21 5 years ago

    Like UncleLou said, the original NWN had a terrible single player game and was all about the toolset.

    Obsidian have made two games now that are flawed but have amazing writing. If they can get a publisher that will allow them to finish the game then it would be amazing. There's too many mediocre games out that that don't try to do something different. I'd rather have companys like obsidians, biowares and lionhead that try and fail then have companys like EA.

  • UncleLou #22 5 years ago

    Will this expansion sort out the shite coding? if so i will get it. I have NWN2 and played it for about 30 mins...I have a Dual Core XP4400+ 2Gb RAM, 7800GTX etc and it runs like shit no matter what you do...no its not drivers etc i am compitent in that side of thongs too. Sloppy coding probably ruining a perfectly decent game for all.


    Sounds a bit weird. I have a slower PC, and it ran pretty fine out of the box if I tuned down 2 or 3 of the most demanding options. Since then, the patches have significantly improved the performance.

  • gnarl #23 5 years ago

    More dungeon crawling with the horrible interface and terrible, terrible d20 gameplay with added bugs. As opposed to the fairly interesting writing and plot, that still didn't manage to hold my attention because of it's own bugs and dull points?

    Giving that a miss then.

  • hrodelbert #24 5 years ago

    "You can't be serious. The single-player campaign in NWN was absolutely appaling,"

    Agree totally, although i'm not sure it was ever suppossed to be it's forte

    "while NWN2 almost reached the heights of Baldur's Gate 2"

    Rip out your tongue blasphemer!

    In all seriousness though when i first played Kotor i thought if they could take this level of character design and mix it with the great story and freedom of BG2 it would produce something magical, i was genuinely hoping to get that with NWN2 and to be perfectly honest it was once of my greatest computer game dissapointments. Yes it was solid enough and to be fair to it enjoyable, but i really felt they missed a trick it felt hopelessly unfinished and rushed to me. Fortunately some of the user generated content may be it's saving grace, although i'd have loved it if they had got it right in the first place.
    Edited by 1 at 15/04/07 @ 20:27