Something evil is lurking below the city of Waterdeep. The Lords of Waterdeep summon a group of heroes to investigate, but someone or something has been watching the proceedings. After the heroes enter the sewers, the ceiling collapses behind them. The only way out is the way down, into a dungeon filled with monsters, traps and puzzles.

Eye of the Beholder is a dungeon crawler RPG with a first-person perspective based on the 2nd Edition AD&D rules. The starting party consists of four characters and up to two NPCs can join later. Combat and magic happen in real time, similarly to Dungeon Master. There is a variety of monsters to fight and spells to cast. The game features a point-and-click interface for fighting, spellcasting and handling objects.

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Alternate Titles

"EOB" -- Abbreviated title
"アイ・オブ・ザ・ビホルダー" -- Japanese spelling

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	Eye of the Beholder	DOS	$7.48
	Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: Eye of the Beholder	SEGA CD	$6.54
	Official Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Computer Product, Eye of the Beholder.	DOS
	Eye of the Beholder	SNES	$2.00
	Eye of the Beholder
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User Reviews

One of the first good dungeon crawling RPGs of the early DOS times	DOS	Optimus (79)
A decent AD&D dungeon crawl	DOS	pogalogen (14)
Awesome for the time, still a great game today.	DOS	Gothicgene (83)
Dungeon Hacking at it's best...	DOS	Chris Martin (1112)
A champion RPG for it's time.	DOS	Andrew Morgan (2)
A great game, but I liked its sequel much better.	DOS	Tomer Gabel (4418)
Any game with Larry Elmore's art on its cover is a good game.	DOS	OlSkool_Gamer (99)
Wow!!!	DOS	lomikin (4)

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The Press Says

Computer and Video Games (CVG)	DOS	May, 1991	96 out of 100	96
Amiga Points of View	Amiga	Dec, 2003	92 out of 100	92
Amiga Action	Amiga	Jun, 1991	82 out of 100	82
Power Play	DOS	May, 1991	79 out of 100	79
ACE (Advanced Computer Entertainment)	DOS	May, 1991	780 out of 1000	78
The Video Game Critic	SEGA CD	Aug 09, 2002	B	75
Video Games & Computer Entertainment	SEGA CD	Oct, 1994	7 out of 10	70
Game Players	SNES	Aug, 1994	63 out of 100	63
Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM)	SNES	Jun, 1994	6.2 out of 10	62
GamePro (US)	SNES	Aug, 1994	3 out of 5	60

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Trivia

Boss

The final big boss, Xanathar is actually The Beholder, as he (is it he? or was it she? :-) says to you (when you get to the endgame for final confrontation) that all those traps you encountered, and minions you fought was just a play to watch, and that he was watching you all the way (that only gets him beholder title). Now, as you can notice, he looks like a big bowling eye, with many pipes that ends also with an eye (that gives him eye title). So, Eye of the Beholder would actually be himself.

As in this game he's the main bad guy, in Eye of the Beholder II, there are actually many creatures that are from his race, and are no such threat.

Cancelled Lynx port

This game was being ported to Atari's Lynx by NuFX, Inc., but development was halted. Prototypes have since been leaked to the internet.

Ending

Eye of the Beholder was praised for its stylish cinematic opening sequence, which dazzled players and set the stage of the game to follow. However, since the final game's size weighed in at 5 3.5" disks, SSI decided to cut the ending cinematic, figuring very few players would see it anyway, and it was not worth the extra cost of the sixth disk.

When the became successful, many players who slogged it out to the end of the game were not amused when they were "rewarded" with a simple text message and unceremoniously dropped to DOS. SSI soon realized their mistake, but the damage could not be undone. Many players assumed the game simply never had an ending, never suspecting it existed but was not included.

The Amiga version was later released with the final endgame graphic.