Trivia
Development
According to lead designer
Josh Sawyer, the game had a troubled development. It was started after
Torn was cancelled and a few people had to be let go as a result. Originally the plan was to develop it in only four months and Sawyer had only two days to write the story and determine the general areas. In the end, development took ten months which is still remarkable because they ported the engine to the third edition of
Dungeons & Dragons. They had to leave out some of the more extensive re-designs of that edition, but in hindsight the team was pleased with what they managed to accomplish. The only thing they regretted is that they had no time to polish the game which led to some unbalanced fights.
Main menu
The main menu, which shows a view of the Targos docks, cycles between a day and night version depending on the system time.
Music
The composer of the original
Icewind Dale and
Heart of Winter soundtracks,
Jeremy Soule, is completely uncredited on
Icewind Dale II, although several of the pieces of music credited to
Inon Zur are actually re-orchestrated versions of Soule's music, including the main theme and the Kuldahar theme. The end credits music is not even re-orchestrated. The collector's edition soundtrack CD also includes all of Soule's
Heart of Winter music, though again, Soule is completely uncredited.
Title
Black Isle Studios used to code-name its projects after U.S. presidents and vice-presidents, an idea by
Josh Sawyer. The code-name for this game is
Project Monroe.
Information also contributed by
Sciere,
Zovni and Patrick Bregger
