Beamdog is enhancing BioWare's Neverwinter Nights next
Waterdeep game that was.
The next game Beamdog will enhance is BioWare's Neverwinter Nights from 2002 - fitting, given Beamdog founder Trent Oster directed the original.
Beamdog announced the project on Twitter yesterday evening. The plan was to have full reveal this evening but a trailer and details subsequently leaked elsewhere.
Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition gains 4K support and pixel shader and post-processing effects, according to GameInformer, and appears to include game expansions Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark, judging by footage in the trailer (I don't know about Kingmaker). It will cost $20 but has no release date.
Hordes of the Underdark was brilliant by the way - easily my favourite memory of the Neverwinter Nights saga. It tells the story of an underworld invasion and adds epic D&D levels, effectively making you a kind of demigod. It also features a talking sword, a brief stint in the afterlife, and lets you play general in a climactic battle.
Alone, you see, Neverwinter Nights was a bit dull, but the campaign was only half the draw. The real allure was in the game's online multiplayer and modding scene, which was very active for many years. Out of the box NWN came with a full toolkit and multiplayer support, including a Dungeon Master mode, and it wasn't long before projects as ambitious as bespoke persistent online servers were numerous.
It's crucial, therefore, this Enhanced Edition be compatible with all the mods made for Neverwinter Nights before. Thankfully it will be, and the community has been involved, suggesting their own updates and improvements.
As with the games Beamdog has enhanced before (Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale) Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition should be available on tablets as well as desktop computers. But if you're on a desktop computer, you could always grab the original unenhanced Diamond Edition of Neverwinter Nights from GOG for £7.59 now. There are plenty of mods out there to enhance the experience yourself.
Beamdog was recently suspected of working on a new and original Planescape: Torment game, but in a statement said while it was exploring the idea, it never amounted to anything.