Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition Announced

[CoM_Solaufein]

 

August 30th, 2014

Beamdog and Wizards of The Coast announced at PAX today that pre-orders have begun for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition ahead of its upcoming release.

Originally released in 2000, Icewind Dale is hailed as a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure based in Wizards of The Coast's legendary Forgotten Realms campaign setting. The Enhanced Edition will allow new and experienced gamers alike to enjoy this epic adventure as never before. Available on PC, Mac, iPad, and Android tablets and phones, the game will retail for $19.99 on desktop and is available for pre-order now.

Icewind Dale has been enhanced with new kits and character classes, dozens of new items and spells, and restored quest material cut from the original game. The redesigned user interface features Zoom capabilities and a Quickloot Bar, among numerous other improvements. Up to six players can simultaneously enjoy Icewind Dale with the new cross-platform multiplayer mode.

 

http://icewinddale.com/

[Bartimaeus]

Icewind Dale always was more combat-heavy than Baldur's Gate - maybe they won't immeasurably screw this up in my eyes with their ridiculous fanfiction additions. Best of luck to the project.

[Leferd]

Hmm.

 

Interesting that they went with the IWD route instead of PS:T.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Hmm.

 

Interesting that they went with the IWD route instead of PS:T.

IMO, a remastering of PST would need to add stuff the original lacked, like equipable armor.

 

As it is, I'm going to stick to the originals until most of the better mods are made compatible. Playing BG2 without Ascension and SCS seems wrong.

[CoM_Solaufein]

I look forward to IWD EE. Its one of my favorite games. Hack 'n slash, perfect setting, perfect soundtrack, best places to explore, almost a near perfect game.

[ktchong]

I'm disappointed that they didn't go with Planescape: Torment.

Edited August 31, 2014 by ktchong

[ManifestedISO]

Very good, will play for sure. The music alone is worth it. 

[Woldan]

I loved Icewind Dale so this is a no-brainer for me. 

[Keyrock]

I have to be honest.  This won't be a popular opinion here, but it's how I feel.  I was never a fan of Icewind Dale, or Icewind Dale 2, for that matter.  I thought thety were easily the two weakest entries of the Infinity Engine games.  While the combat in them was good, better than BG, BG2, or PS:T, the story... ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

 

Edited August 31, 2014 by Keyrock

[BruceVC]

For me IWD highlights everything wrong with a game where you don't have meaningful party interaction, like being able to talk to your party members or Romance

 

Its an entertaining game and fun but you notice the fact that your party members are just paper dolls and lack any substance. You never build a connection with them and for me I only cared if they lived and died because they assisted in combat

Edited August 31, 2014 by BruceVC

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I have to be honest.  This won't be a popular opinion here, but it's how I feel.  I was never a fan of Icewind Dale, or Icewind Dale 2, for that matter.  I thought thety were easily the two weakest entries of the Infinity Engine games.  While the combat in them was good, better than BG, BG2, or PS:T, the story... ZZZZzzzzzzzzzz.

 

For me IWD highlights everything wrong with a game where you don't have meaningful party interaction, like being able to talk to your party members or Romance

 

Its an entertaining game and fun but you notice the fact that your party members are just paper dolls and lack any subsistence, You never build a connection with them and for me I only cared if they lived and died because they assisted in combat

 

[Humanoid]

The development of IWD2 is the reason I initially registered on the BIS forums, so I have history with that. It might seem strange then that IWD1 is the only IE game I've never played, not even for a minute. To be fair though, I started with BG2 and IWD2 was simply the next title in the 'series'.

 

As for the other PS:T, by that stage, was actually pretty hard to find in stores, it might have taken a year or so to finally stumble upon a beaten-up copy at a K-Mart or Target somewhere - might have contributed to my never having finished it. BG1 I probably tried last, and by the time I did it had aged so badly that I didn't enjoy it at all.

[MrBrown]

They're just carrying over the stuff from BG2? Bah.

[Volourn]

"While the combat in them was good, better than BG, BG2,"

 

IWD's combat was better than BG1 but not BG2. And, IWD2 combat was subpar despite the extra character options. IWD2 was also the only IE game I did not finish out of its sheer crappiness.

 

Playing with kits in IWD1 is intriguing but Beamdogs and they haven't suckered me yet they won't now.

 

I'd rather pay another $250 for a xp less PE than touch Beamndog's desperate trash.

\

i also guess they got stuck remaking IWD because their bosses haven't  been impressed enoguh to give them a BG3 to ruin.

[Monte Carlo]

Day One purchase on Steam for me.

[Majek]

i love IWD so i will hate this remake. Never touchhng it.

[Gromnir]

we woulda' paid $100 each if enhanced editions o' bg, bg2 and iwd were using the iwd2 rules mechanics.

 

*sigh*

 

is not to be... and am knowing how much some o' you folks hate d20 d&d, but we thought the one thing iwd2 got right were the 3.0 d&d rules.

 

am also curious about an eventual ps:t enhanced, but am not certain where/how we would start improving the game mechanically. ps:t were... different. gain abilities up to 25. can choose 3 different classes, though only one at a time. there already exists the widescreen mod for ps:t, as well as kinda post bis patches that fixed remaining bugs. have a group o' developers sit and try and figure out how to improve ps:t w/o changing too extreme might result in a bunch o' folks staring blank at the walls for a considerable amount o' time.

 

add more factions? sure, but that would take considerable new content rather than mechanic fixes, yes?  you could add other factions and have 'em be little more significant than adding a kit, but that would be kinda lame.

 

am s'posing cleric option for TNO could be added, but wisdom is already the You-Win ability.

 

is tough to come up with mechanical ps:t changes... in part 'cause ps:t were so odd/broken, but still wonderful.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited August 31, 2014 by Gromnir

[BruceVC]

Oh one thing I will add is I haven't ever played IWD2 so it that gets an EE then I will purchase it

[Gromnir]

additional observation:

 

is there a way to possibly enhance Heart of Winter so that it doesn't suck? we think not.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Monte Carlo]

 

 

we woulda' paid $100 each if enhanced editions o' bg, bg2 and iwd were using the iwd2 rules mechanics.

 

This.

[prodigydancer]

IMO, a remastering of PST would need to add stuff the original lacked, like equipable armor.

No. Just no.

 

PS:T was 200% of pure perfection as it was. And this is one of the reasons why I won't even touch a "remake" if it's ever made. It's just won't be the same thing. When you're developing a remake the temptation to "improve" something is just too great. Unfortunately, in the case of PS:T remake "improving" anything means insta-ruining the whole thing.

Edited August 31, 2014 by prodigydancer

[Humanoid]

A remastering of PS:T would involve throwing away all the game assets except the dialogue trees and coding everything else from scratch.

[Sarex]

I'm looking forward to IWD2. As it is now you can't play it without tons of mods, because of the graphical bugs.

[Monte Carlo]

 

IMO, a remastering of PST would need to add stuff the original lacked, like equipable armor.

No. Just no.

 

PS:T was 200% of pure perfection as it was.

 

 

Ha ha ha ha ha. Fanboi is gonna Fanboi.

[Mamoulian War]

IWD2 was for me biggest letdown unfortunately, when the development started they introduced many new kits compared to BG2. That promised many options and replayability, instead we got new 3.0 rules with few feats and lot of them bugged :/