Neverwinter Nights

aka: NWN, Wu Dong Zhi Ye
Moby ID: 6771
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

A plague known as the Wailing Death is terrorizing the city of Neverwinter. Lady Aribeth summons an adventurer, who teams up with her fiance Fenthick Moss and his friend Desther to capture four monsters which are needed to prepare the cure. However, the matters become more complicated when the protagonist is attacked by mysterious assassins. It seems that an evil cult is behind the infestation, and the hero must find out what its ultimate goals are, and eventually save the city.

Neverwinter Nights is a role-playing game based on the third edition of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rules. The game utilizes 3D graphics with a zooming function and free camera rotation. Combat is handled in real time, and is similar to that of Baldur's Gate series, allowing the player to pause in-battle to issue orders. Unlike other RPGs that utilized this system, Neverwinter Nights allows the player to fully control only one character. Various "henchmen" may join the hero during the journey, but their functionality as party members is limited, as they cannot level up, have no inventory, and only follow general commands.

The multiplayer modes include Dungeon Master, in which a "DM" controls the traps and battles set for other players in the dungeon, and a range of game types such as hunting for treasure or a simple death match battle between players. The game also comes with an extensive tool kit for the construction of custom adventures. It allows players to create their own maps using a tile system. It is possible to add objects to the areas and even produce scripted events, cutscenes, and conversations.

Spellings

  • 无冬之夜 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 絕冬城之夜 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

313 People (287 developers, 26 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 88% (based on 73 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.8 out of 5 (based on 199 ratings with 10 reviews)

Neverwinter Nights is a very ambitious game that almost lives up to my expectations

The Good
Neverwinter Nights (NWN) is a very difficult game to review because there are so many different ways to play the game. NWN's biggest strength is as a platform for game development since it is so expandable you never run out of things to do whether you are a player, a Dungeon Master, a world builder, or all three.

The pre-made modules make up a good RPG with good characters and a fun, if somewhat cliched storyline. Bioware did a good job of making it possible and fun for any class to solve the game using class-specific special abilities and your henchmen helper. The graphics, while not as good as Dungeon Siege, are still very good, and the quests and dungeons are well done.

Gameplay is straightforward and easy to get into. Bioware gave you three sets of configurable hotkeys for activating abilities, weapons, emotions (like waving or anger), and spells. The character sheets are well laid out and easy to read and the automap and journal make it easy to figure out where you are and what you are supposed to be doing.

The journal is especially well done, letting you sort your quests by priority, completion status, and several other criteria as well as giving you the option of adding your own entries. The automap lets you mark locations on the map, and is automatically updated with obvious marks such as local stores and points of interest.

Multiplayer play is very easy to set up (I mostly played a few PvP modules and played some cooperative games through the main game). I can't comment on the Dungeon Master modes yet as I have not tried them, but I had a lot of fun dungeon-delving with my friend through Neverwinter.

The editor is easy to get started with, and has all the tools you need to make a game just like the included Neverwinter Nights (unless if you want to add new graphics, movies, or sounds of course).

The Bad
The main problem with Neverwinter Nights is that it is not an exact implementation of 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons rules. The combat is very well done, but the lack of crafting, professional, and knowledge skills really limits the flexibility of a Dungeon Master trying to add spice to his campaign. Other notable skill and feat omissions are: no Tracking feat, no acrobatics, balance, jumping, climbing, disguise, or forgery skills for thieves, no magic item crafting feats for magic users, several fighter feats are missing including Great Cleave and Whirlwind, and my favorite weapon, the spiked chain is not implemented.

Bioware initially stated that flying, climbing, mounted riding, and crafting skills would not be included, but why get rid of knowledge and profession skills, even if they aren't used in the Neverwinter campaign? Any creative DM could put in skill checks when necessary, even if the skill isn't directly supported in the engine. Also, I was very disappointed that you had to take Parry to get a defensive skill because the Acrobatics/Jumping combo was one of my favorite thief or Monk skill combos.

The omissions in NWN may be fixed in patched, hackpacks, or expansion packs, so this may only be a temporary issue, but it should have been addressed in the first release.

The other problems with NWN are only minor. The automap, as it is used in the NWN campaign, tends to reveal too much as you explore. It is a little anti-climactic to see a marker on the map labelled "Orc Chieftan Throne Room" when your character would really have no idea what the room was for until after he had entered it.

Another gameplay issue (for single player play only) is that compared to earlier Bioware games, interaction between your character and NPCs is not nearly as involving as some of the romances and inter-party conflicts in Baldur's Gate 2 or Planescape: Torment. This is mostly a design issue: since you can only hire one henchman (henchperson?) at a time, your role-playing is limited to your interaction with one teammate instead of five teammates.

There are other minor quest and scripting issues in the game, some of which were fixed in early patches. None of them keep you from finishing the game, but they can get a little annoying.

Another design decision that I didn't like was to use tiles to create the maps. The result of this decision is that NWN is the only recent 3D game that does not support smooth terrain such as the rolling hills and steep mountains trails in Dungeon Siege. It may make the map design easier, but I hate the "terraced" look of the wilderness maps.

The Bottom Line
Neverwinter Nights is an implementation of the 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons game on the PC with 3D graphics, sound, and the ability to design and run your own games. It succeeds at providing a good bundled game and a well-designed if somewhat complicated construction set to build your own games. Of the three big RPG construction sets released this year (Dungeon Siege, Morrowind, NWN), Neverwinter Nights is the most successful at what it aspires to do.

Windows · by Droog (460) · 2002

Disappointed

The Good
I liked Baldurs Gate 2. I thought that it was a marvelous game, a shining beacon of light in the darkness of average RPG-s, so of course I was very interested in Neverwinter Nights and hoped to find the same kind of quality in it. I was hoping it to be better than BG2... which sadly it wasn`t.

It seems that someone in Bioware came to a bright idea to do a Diablo-clone. Why Bioware? Why? What about the story, the content, the meaning of the game? It is missing in the endless randomness (I was like level 3 and happily walking around in the city of Neverwinter and looking into barrels and stuff, and then I found an ancient über-cool armor of the Sun God of Mulhorhand in a barrel... kinda breaks the immersion and believability of the world, doesn`t it? EDIT: I understand that this was a bug because what you find in barrel depends on your level; this means that I was supposed to find that armor in that barrel when I would have been near level 20) and boring hack and slash quests. You showed the world that RPG-s can be more than "I kill the mighty dragon with sword of elemental evil of destruction which is doomed +8.... and save the princess of course" and the next thing you create is Diablo.

I liked what you did with shadows, and the clothes were nice and there was something that resembled a story... but I never thought that you could mess up a story which would be a perfect dramatic tale of loss of innocence in a cruel uncaring world, where people only care about their selfish fleshly needs and the innocent ones die tragically by trying to save the world, or by just trying to live according to their hearts. How can possibly anyone mess that up? What happened?

The Bad
Really...what happened? Remember Jeremy Soule - the musical genius behind Icewind Dale. Remember how beautiful the music was in that game, how inspiring and romantic. His music in Neverwinter Nights is boring, awful, uninspiring and unromantic( His Kotor work wasn`t much better in my opinion).

Remember the party members in BG 2, how interesting they were, how they interacted with the world and other party members? Well forget it about here in Neverwinter. You only can get one henchman, and they just kill everything that is red. Although some of them have nicely written backgrounds. But talking to them leads only to quests which are like "find-the-most-rare-and-sacred-flower-of-fallen-angels-in-a-barrel-in-the-middle-of-nowhere-please".

And they only give you information about them when you have gained enough levels. "Hey, Tomi. I am now almost level 10. Can I now hear your story?" "Hmm...nope." "Why? I just killed 10 000 orcs. I deserve to know your story." "You have still 3 expierence points missing to hear my story!" "Aaarrrghhh...please. I just want to believe that this game is more than hack and slash...that there is beauty to it....please talk to me...have mercy on me...be interactive." "Nope, can`t do." *In frustration the player kills himself.

Remember how interesting the Forgotten Realms world was in BG. In Neverwinter Nights I found out that FR is a patchwork of genres, it tries to be a little bit of everything.... and it does it horribly (another dimensions, heaven and hell, polytheistic religions, western, fantasy, pulp fiction, over thousand secret organizations all trying to conquer the world, etc). It goes way over the board. In BG Bioware used the most interesting parts of FR and fitted it in nicely and logically. In Nights they dont try to achieve realism. There is an ancient alien-like race, who are called Creators, and they try to bring back the glorious days of their old empire; then there sacred barbarians, demons, evil brotherhood of mages, politics,... it just is too much... it doesnt have the one single feeling which the game needs to have a sense of believability.

They have lots of sidequests in Nights, but they all contain bad dialogue and hack and slash solutions. But you learn more about FR, unfortunately too much. Speaking of dialogue.... it is quite horrible, especially for Bioware. And the voice acting... lets not better go there. In BG 2 there was a nice balance between the personal story and the sidequests story. I myself don`t care about sidequests, I like it when my games are personal, linear and dramatic. The more personal, the more it affects me emotionally.

NN consists only of sidequests... and there isn`t actually any freedom of choice in them (I only tolerated Fallout because there you could make choices). Either the " I-love-people-they-are-very-nice-and-I-like-flowers-because-they-are-pretty" way or the "I-am-so-selfish-and-evil-I-want-lots-of-money-I-luv-money-I-love-killing-people-for-money-I-love-me-with-money" way. Talk about deep moral choices.

And now, Aribeth. She was the character I fell in love. The only character in the game that seemed like character... atleast when she wasn`t giving you quests. Basically Aribeth was another try of Bioware to do their Moral Crusader who-is-to-brutal-in-enforcing his/her-views-on-the-world (like Anomen in BG 2) kind of character. Now Aribeth was the innocence which I mentioned earlier. She was the only noble and pure character. Everyone else in the game were selfish, low, full of hate, etc. And what does Bioware do? Bioware enforces the player to believe that the people in the city of Neverwinter are good (they raped,killed and tortured each other...and not some evil maniacs, but common people) and that Aribeth was evil; she tried to help the people in Neverwinter and they hanged her lover.... of course she goes mad and wants to kill them all... and Neverwinter deserved such punishment.

Unfortunately you can`t choose sides. You have to kill Aribeth for the good of Neverwinter because the noble Lord Nasher demands it (noble lord who hangs innocent people because the mob demands it). The twisted one-sided moralism in this game sickened me. There was no love in this game, no mercy. Only hatred, violence and money.

Edit: Other minor things. Because of tile-set design, new locations did not feel new (all the villages, caves, forests looked same). It kind of intensified the feeling of been there, done that. And I swear those barrels were everywhere.

The Bottom Line
Bioware trying to be Blizzard. No love, no redemption. Only killing... and killing... and hatred.

Windows · by The Fabulous King (1332) · 2006

Neverwinter Nightmares

The Good
Whenever I talk about BioWare, there is always one game I try not to mention, and that is Neverwinter Nights. You can jump straight to the "Bad" section to find out why; but for the sake of objectivity, the game's good sides should be listed as well.

As a disclaimer, I must state that my review is restricted to the "vanilla" single-player campaign that constitutes the actual game in my eyes. I understand that Neverwinter Nights was conceived primarily with the construction kit in mind, aiming to allow players become dungeon masters and create their own adventures with the included editor. This would essentially classify the campaign as a demonstration of the new engine and rule set. This idea, while certainly controversial for a developer with BioWare's reputation, is not unacceptable per se. My main gripe with the game is the perceived lack of investment into the campaign, even considering its lower priority on their scale.

Here and there you can find glimpses of genius that earned the company its stellar reputation. The writing is somewhat awkward, but some optional dialogue choices attempt to bring back the glory of the sprawling conversations and the moral decisions of Baldur's Gate. There is also humor to be found, if not in characterization, but in some of the dialogue lines. A few characters are promising and could have evolved into substantial figures if this side of the game were given any serious attention. In short, even what BioWare does without care and love is still not completely devoid of merits.

The graphics are technically good, with some impressive shadows and nice-looking spell animations. Even though you can't look up and down, at least they included the possibility to rotate the camera left and right, as well as zoom in and out. Generally, I welcome the transition to 3D, though I think it should mean more than just modeling everything in the new fashion, and perhaps include physical interactivity. Still, it is important that a non-Bethesda RPG tried to be a bit more modern in presentation.

The Bad
Neverwinter Nights reminded me of Quake. I nearly had a feeling of deja-vu when I fired up the game, saw the impressive graphics, played for a while, and felt more and more that I was playing a tech demo. Just like with Quake, the game was obviously created with multiplayer in mind; in this particular case, perhaps the toolkit was meant to be the main selling point. I know that many will disagree with me, saying it's not fair to criticize the weak single-player campaign since the game wasn't supposed to focus on that. To this I can only say that anyone who played BioWare's previous offerings may have expected anything but a game with such premise, and I can't blame fans (myself included) for being sorely disappointed.

Probably in an attempt to cater to those affected by the Diablo craze of the time, BioWare decided to reduce most of what made their previous RPGs enjoyable - exploration, side quests, moral decisions, etc. - and concentrated on combat. Everything in Neverwinter Nights is smaller, blander, and much more shallow than what we have seen in Baldur's Gate games. There is little sense of adventure, and surprisingly little to do in general. You basically follow the main quest in one prescribed fashion, and that's it. The complex world full of characters, quests and decisions has disappeared almost without trace.

The laziness in design is evident in everything, starting with the thin, straightforward main story and ending with the abundance of "twins" (same character portraits are liberally used for completely different people). Even in the graphical front, I consider Neverwinter Nights a letdown. The 3D of the game is purely cosmetic; it brings nothing substantial that would enhance the gameplay beyond the previous isometric experiences. While the graphics are technically good, they lack the artistry of the company's preceding creations. Textures tend to be repetitive, and brown-yellow color palette is overused (again, Quake comes to mind). There is something artificial, mechanical in the way the game looks - perhaps not so surprisingly, considering the fact it consists of tiles, presumably with the goal of making it easier for the players to design their own maps. In fact, the whole game does feel like a halfway competent, yet uninspired mod.

However, if you asked me to choose one flaw that contributes most to the game's downfall, I'd answer without hesitation: the absence of a party. This is a fatal error that ruins the game, making me wonder how could it happen that the very same company that revived party-based combat for modern RPGs could overlook it. You don't need to be a RPG expert to understand the simple fact: turn-based combat (whether in its pure form or in BioWare's trademark "real-time with pause" incarnation) doesn't work without a party. It turns into a snore-inducing experience devoid of strategy and satisfaction. I still cannot fathom how these experienced designers released a combat-oriented game in which combat lacks the basic ingredient that would make it enjoyable.

The new shiny third edition rules become useless when you realize they only apply to one single character. You can't replay a game twenty times just to try out every single class and ability combination for the protagonist; moreover, it is pointless because AD&D was designed with a party in mind, where coordinated attacks are the meet and potatoes of combat. What's the point of playing as a lonely fighter, cleric, or mage, if you cannot control anyone who would complement your skills? Yes, you can hire henchmen, but they are pitiful substitutes to real party members, both in characterization and from the gameplay point of view. Like in Fallout, they cannot be controlled; much worse is the fact you cannot have more than one at the same time. Needless to say it becomes impossible to draw any satisfaction from this crippled combat. Even the monotonous clicking of Diablo was more rewarding, since action-based battles sit well with the "no party" policy.

The Bottom Line
I can easily understand why many fans are angry at BioWare for making Neverwinter Nights. Regardless of its innovations as a toolkit, the actual game is a dry, uninspired, formulaic affair with dubious design choices. To those looking for simple, unpretentious AD&D hack-and-slash, I'd rather recommend the conceptually much more coherent and fulfilling Icewind Dale. Devoted BioWare admirers should probably move on.

Windows · by Unicorn Lynx (181780) · 2014

[ View all 10 player reviews ]

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Neverwinter Nights appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Advertisement

To coincide with the US release of Neverwinter Nights, Infogrames bought a full page ad for the game in the men's magazine Maxim. The interesting detail is that unlike other publicity for the game this one was a unique layout that mimicked the monthly "Have you seen this girl?" one-page pictorials of the magazine, which contain a full-page picture of a hot babe along some minimal info à la Playboy (likes, dislikes, etc.). In this case the pictorial shows a nymph named Anna, (wearing nothing but some seashells and vines). Her comments in case you are interested include: "I'm all about beauty but height has never been an issue" (on her dream guy) and "I'm not just a fantasy girl" amongst some other stuff.

Engine

Neverwinter Nights uses the Aurora engine, but originally it was going to use the Omen engine, developed by Bioware for their third-person action title MDK 2.

German version

In the German version, the in-game gore setting was removed, i.e. permanently stuck on the lowest setting.

Intro

Although the opening intro has literally nothing to do with the main game besides the symbol on the sword, a keen observer may notice that the hero wears the same armor as Lord Nasher of Neverwinter, and their basic facial features seem to match, although the hero at the beginning is clean-shaven and far younger. According to The Art of Neverwinter Nights, a compendium of all the artwork that went into making the game and bundled exclusively with the Collector's Edition, it is in fact Lord Nasher.

This video sequence premiered at the 2002 Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, California.

Music

The game's music files are listed with a *.bmu file extension, but in actuality they're encoded in plain-old MP3 format. So basically, you can listen to them in Winamp without any special form of decryption required.

Neverwinter

The city of Neverwinter is located south of the Spine of the World where the Icewind Dale games take place, and north of the Sword Mountains, the northern extremity of Baldur's Gate.

Online servers

The game's online servers which were hosted on GameSpy were shut down on 5 December 2012.

Ports

Original plans were to include the Linux and Mac versions (and eventually a BeOS version) in the same box as the Windows version. Though the game code was said to be fully portable, various design decisions - most important: the use of the Miles Sound System, which was not available for Linux at that time - delayed these versions for over one year. Official movie support and the Aurora toolset were never finished, the BeOS version was never released at all.

References

In the courtyard of the Arcane Brotherhood you can hear the chant used by the temple healers in The Bards Tale 2: Destiny Knight (Amiga version).

Support

Publisher Atari halted support for the game in May 2006, with no more patches or premium modules for the original game.

Violence

Tweaking some of the game's configuration files makes the violence in the game much more graphic. Several mods for the game use configuration files tweaked in this way to create a more visceral effect.

Awards

  • 4Players
    • 2002– Best PC Role-Playing Game of the Year
  • Computer Games Magazine
    • March 2003 (No. 148) - #2 in the "10 Best Games of 2002" list
  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – RPG of the Year (Readers' Choice)
    • April 2003 (Issue #225) – Best Development Tool of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2002 – PC RPG of the Year (Readers' Choice)
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2005 - #35 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, Iggi, Jason Musgrave, kbmb, Michael Palomino, PCGamer77, Sciere, Zack Green and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Kartanym.

Macintosh added by Corn Popper. Linux added by Iggi.

Additional contributors: Droog, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Christian Boel, Sciere, Pedro_Hebeler, Zeppin, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Plok, FatherJack.

Game added June 24, 2002. Last modified March 6, 2024.