Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter Preview

The odds didn't look good for the original Icewind Dale when it was released by Interplay: For one thing, it shipped to stores at exactly the same time as Diablo II, which was one of the most highly anticipated games in years. Since both Icewind Dale and Diablo II were apparently the same type of game - both were touted as action-packed isometric role-playing games suitable for all types of players - you'd think most players would instinctively overlook the former in favor of the much more well-established latter. As if going head-to-head against Diablo II weren't enough, another serious threat that faced Icewind Dale was the imminent release of yet another important sequel: Interplay's own Baldur's Gate II. Since the release dates of these two games were only a few months apart, presumably some players planned to wait until the higher-profile game was released. After all, if you didn't know any better, you might have mistaken Icewind Dale as merely a feeble effort by its publisher to milk the Dungeons & Dragons license for all it's worth. But despite all these potential problems, Icewind Dale actually turned out to be quite successful, and an excellent role-playing game in its own right - as well as a viable or even a preferable alternative to Diablo II and a perfect antecedent to Baldur's Gate II.

Icewind Dale turned out so well for a number of reasons, most notably because it succeeded in its intention to be a sort of throwback to classic Dungeons & Dragons-based computer role-playing games that emphasized combat. Unlike previous Black Isle Studios fantasy RPGs, including the superb Planescape: Torment and the original Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale didn't focus too heavily on plot and character interaction, though it by no means overlooked these elements. Instead, the game relied heavily on lots of action-packed, epic battles. Using the Infinity engine as seen in the previous two Black Isle D&D-licensed games, Icewind Dale's combat sequences often played out like highly tactical squad-level skirmishes. You controlled six different characters, which you'd have to use to support one another in the game's bloody clashes with dozens of types of evil forces. The pacing of the combat in Icewind Dale was just right; the challenge of the battles would escalate slowly but surely, just as the story would unfold and finally fit together, piece by piece. Other factors that contributed to Icewind Dale's success included its fantastic orchestral music score by composer Jeremy Soule, as well as the game's outstanding hand-drawn character graphics and cutscenes by Jason Manley. These talented artists gave Icewind Dale's presentation a high level of polish that's unsurpassed by any other Black Isle Studios game to date.

Players apparently took notice of the critical acclaim that Icewind Dale received, and positive word-of-mouth reviews also probably contributed to the game's success. Indeed, perhaps some of the initial backlash against Diablo II, which suffered from network stability issues and short supply in its first few weeks, also helped Icewind Dale. Regardless, the game sold enough copies to justify the publisher's and designers' decision to create the forthcoming expansion, Heart of Winter. And this expansion promises to be every bit as satisfying as the original game turned out to be. Read on to find out what to expect from this second volume.

The Cold Facts

Heart of Winter effectively extends the original game with an all-new quest designed for high-level characters, which your characters certainly will be by the conclusion of Icewind Dale. Yet, you'll be able to start the Heart of Winter quest from almost any point during Icewind Dale, provided you feel that your characters are powerful enough - which means that they are at or past the ninth experience level - to face the challenges; and this is quite powerful indeed by D&D standards. You'll also have the option to simply start the expansion quest from scratch by importing your high-level characters straight into the new scenario.

The original Icewind Dale offered about 40 hours of gameplay overall, as the player traveled through a dozen distinct areas. Heart of Winter will be slightly shorter, offering somewhere between 20 and 30 hours of play and five brand-new settings. However, one of the new additions planned for the expansion is an enhanced difficulty level, which will significantly boost the power of your enemies but will suitably increase experience rewards. This should extend the expansion's replay value, as well as that of the original game, since this enhancement will be retroactive. Of further note, the designers are still deciding to what exact capacity to raise the game's experience cap. Icewind Dale let your characters gain experience up to around the 15th level, depending on character class. Heart of Winter will extend this limit to at least the same point as in Baldur's Gate II, which means you'll be able to gain at least several more levels as you fight through the game. However, D&D fans will be excited to learn that the designers are doing their best to try to lift the experience cap altogether, thereby theoretically letting your characters reach or even exceed the 30th level. This is a godlike status for D&D characters, and it should be an exciting prospect for players who've wished for a D&D computer game that lets them rigorously train their characters all the way up to this point. The enhanced difficulty setting should make this possible.

Icewind Dale borrows some other elements from Baldur's Gate II - the game's enhanced support for display resolutions exceed the default 640x480, and the game uses 3D acceleration features for enhanced special effects. These features actually both first appeared in Icewind Dale, but they were more polished in Baldur's Gate II - so, in a sense, Heart of Winter will merely reappropriate a few Infinity engine enhancements. It'll also borrow Baldur's Gate II's breakaway interface panels, which gave you the ability to view the game in a full-screen mode; and it'll take other miscellaneous features, like the inclusion of scroll cases and gem bags for helping you keep your characters' inventories in order.

Otherwise, Heart of Winter adds more than 100 powerful, new magic items for you to discover - you'll read about a few of these very interesting additions further on. It also includes about 50 additional magic spells (many of which are completely original to Heart of Winter), which not only extend the various magic-using classes' arsenals, but also help balance out some of the casters. Specifically, some players felt that the druid class was too weak in Icewind Dale, so they will be pleased with the additions to the druid's repertoire in Heart of Winter. Read on to learn more about some of the gameplay additions in Heart of Winter.

Something Old, Something New

Heart of Winter will not feature the alternate character-class kits from Baldur's Gate II, like the berserker and kensai variants on the basic fighter class. The designers still haven't decided whether they'll be able to implement dual-weapon-wielding as in Baldur's Gate II, either; in Icewind Dale, the ranger class couldn't dual-wield per se, but it would gain an additional attack per round if he kept his other hand free. Otherwise, Heart of Winter will fundamentally continue to adhere to the 2nd Edition AD&D rules. However, the game will include a few optional elements from the new 3rd Edition rules, like the sneak attack ability, which replaces the thief class' backstab attack in 3rd Edition. Sneak attacks are typically weaker than backstabs, although they're easier to pull off. Heart of Winter will also give the bard character class a wide variety of magical songs, which will help the entire party in battle.

Heart of Winter will also provide much more detailed textual feedback during battle. It won't just tell you how much damage you inflicted - as in previous Infinity engine games - it'll actually tell you what type of damage you inflicted (for instance, slashing or crushing), as well as whether your opponent managed to absorb any part of the blow. This should allow for even more tactical depth, as you'll have better means by which to decide what sort of equipment is best for each particular encounter.

The original Icewind Dale was noteworthy for its superb production values, thanks to the quality of its orchestral score and also of its first-rate voice acting; all the main nonplayer characters in Icewind Dale delivered all their lines with remarkable conviction. Unfortunately, some players noted that, ironically, the only characters in the game that didn't sound good were the player characters themselves, whose dialogue was amateurish compared with the excellent performances throughout the rest of the game. To amend this, Heart of Winter actually provides at least six additional sets of character voices, all of which are superb. Other nonplayer characters in Heart of Winter, including a mighty barbarian chief named Wylfdene, sound as good as any nonplayer character from the original game. Of further note, Heart of Winter will also feature all-new orchestral arrangements from Jeremy Soule, as well as new cinematic cutscenes, which will help move the game's epic story along. The game will even have an all-new selection of character portraits by Jason Manley. Between these, the new character voices, the enhanced difficulty, and the higher experience cap, it seems that the designers are giving players all the necessary incentive not only for playing through the expansion, but also from starting an all-new party from scratch and working their way through the entire game again.

The new magical equipment in Heart of Winter will also give a lot of incentive for keeping you occupied with the game - not just until you finish it, but for a while after as you try to uncover anything you missed your first time through. The designers are consciously trying to differentiate their game from Baldur's Gate II, and the consequence of this is that the new equipment in Heart of Winter can seem rather extraordinary by Dungeons & Dragons conventions. Read on to find out what makes them so special.

The Spoils of War

The new gear you'll find in Heart of Winter promises to be some of the most powerful seen in any D&D computer game to date. However, not all of the new magical items are straightforward; actually, most of them are not. For instance, you might happen on the cursed mourner's armor, which is suitable for most classes and actually provides a significant boost to that character's health - but upon donning it, the wearer becomes completely immune to pain. Hence, you won't have any indication of that character's remaining health when the mourner's armor is equipped, and you won't be able to remove it without a high-level cleric's "remove curse" spell. This is just one of the many interesting, new equipment additions in Heart of Winter. Expect to find plenty of other magical armor, as well as helms, shields, swords, bows, axes, maces, and more. Most of these will have additional effects besides being extrastrong, as they might be able to cast certain spells, bestow beneficial effects on the wielder, cause extra damage to certain types of foes, and more.

Of course, you probably already realize that such powerful artifacts are being included in the game, largely because you're going to need all the help you can get while having to fight through the game's new environments. You'll square off against new and extremely powerful enemies, who will often have the power to kill your party members outright - unless they're very well protected.

Yet, the combat in Heart of Winter promises not to get quite as tactical or arguably as frustrating, as in some of the later battles in Baldur's Gate II. For instance, the designers have opted not to give any of the new creatures the ability to drain experience levels, as restoring these levels often proved more cumbersome in Baldur's Gate II than simply restoring a saved game. Heart of Winter also won't give your enemies the ability to stop time and won't include the potentially devastating line of contingency spells, either. This is because, as with the original, the intent in Heart of Winter is still to provide a relatively fast-paced Dungeons & Dragons experience. The combat will still invariably involve your having to pause the action and reissue custom orders as necessary, but the challenges in battle will be of a different, more straightforward nature than in Baldur's Gate II.

The battles will still be very intense, however. The designers of Heart of Winter have managed to implement support for even larger creatures than those seen in Icewind Dale or Baldur's Gate II. Icewind Dale players will remember their first startling encounters with that game's impressive frost giants and fire giants; and so they'll be excited to think of the possibilities of facing creatures that are even more imposing in the expansion. However, the designers don't want to spoil the big surprises. If you proceed to the next page, we'll tell you some more about the game's plot without spoiling anything.

The Heart of the Matter

You may know that Icewind Dale was named after the series of fantasy novels - written by R.A. Salvatore - that share the same name. Because of the literary inspiration behind the original game and the expansion, expect that the quality of the story and dialogue in Heart of Winter will meet the very high precedent set by Planescape: Torment in 1999. Despite the fact that the Icewind Dale novels introduced some of the most famous D&D characters, like the drow ranger Drizzt, don't expect to see any of these in Heart of Winter. After all, the expansion retains the same design philosophy as in the previous game - just as you'll create your own party from scratch, so too will you get to keep these characters as the central heroes throughout the game. Interactions between your characters will continue to be kept at a minimum; it's up to you to decide however and whoever it is you'd like them to be. In this sense, Icewind Dale - and Heart of Winter thereafter - are in some ways the truest Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games. They play out like classic pen-and-paper modules, which provide a thorough blueprint of the mazes and monsters you'd encounter, but otherwise, any social interactions are left up to you.

That's not to say that Heart of Winter doesn't have a story. The game takes place even farther north than Icewind Dale did. The plot revolves around your party happening on a barbarian town and learning of the barbarians' plans to unite their armies and encroach on the Ten Towns - the civilized areas of the Icewind Dale region. You'll have to find a way to put a stop to this, either because you feel as if it's the right thing to do or because you think it'll pay off - but, in any case, don't expect the barbarians to negotiate with you. Still, though you'll find that most of the barbarians will scoff at your ignorance of their ways, you'll find that some of them seem very wary about the nature of the barbarian intentions. You'll eventually discover the real reason why the barbarians plan to sweep through the area, and by then, they'll have a chance to make history in Icewind Dale once more.

Heart of Winter promises to have an engaging story and even greater battles than in the original game. It'll feature several noteworthy technical enhancements, as well as dozens of new magical items and spells. As in the original, it'll be playable either in single-player or multiplayer modes, and the addition of a very high experience cap as well as an enhanced difficulty option should help boost the replay value in the expansion and in the original game. The all-new, beautifully rendered settings in the game, as well as the new characters and music, also mean that Heart of Winter should look and sound great. But despite these changes and improvements, the designers have focused intently - throughout the project - on providing the same sort of fast-paced gameplay experience that Icewind Dale offered. And judging by their successful execution of the first game, that's a good indication of just how well Heart of Winter will also turn out. The game is scheduled to be released in the first quarter of next year.