E3 2002: Neverwinter Nights preshow report

BioWare made its reputation on creating the Baldur's Gate games, richly detailed, story-driven RPGs based on the Dungeons & Dragons universe. Neverwinter Nights builds on this experience but is still a very ambitious project, introducing a new 3D engine and a highly customizable multiplayer campaign system. Dungeons and Dragons fans have been waiting for this game for quite some time, partly because it will be one of the first games built on the more flexible D&D 3rd Edition rule set. Despite some delays, the game is now almost done.

Although the multiplayer is perhaps the most talked-about part of the game, Neverwinter Nights will have a strong single-player campaign. The adventure starts out in Neverwinter--a city in the Sword Coast region of the familiar Forgotten Realms world--where your character has recently graduated from the prestigious academy. Strange things are happening in Neverwinter. Creatures are occupying the academy halls, a plague has struck the population, and bandits have overrun parts of the city. But that's just the start to what promises to be an involved single-player game with plenty of opportunity to level up your character. BioWare says it should take more than 80 hours to finish the game.

Unlike the party system in the Baldur's Gate games, Neverwinter Nights gives each player one character to control. A single character is a natural fit with the third-person-perspective control scheme, but more importantly, it's appropriate for the game's multiplayer system. The game incorporates the full 3rd Edition D&D rules, which means that characters gain skills and special abilities as they go up in levels.

Few computer role-playing games have even tried to mimic the human interaction that's the hallmark of pen-and-paper games, but that's just what Neverwinter Nights' multiplayer is designed for. There's a full set of tools intended to streamline the process of creating 3D environments and story-driven scenarios. This presupposes that people will be willing to create and moderate adventures in a full-fledged dungeon master role. While this sounds like an imposing duty, there are already plenty of fan sites devoted to preparing such adventures.

Neverwinter Nights is scheduled for release this summer. BioWare will be showing the latest build of the game in Infogrames' E3 booth, and we'll report on any new details revealed at the show.