Descent to Undermountain

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Description

In the city of Waterdeep, people are inexplicably disappearing. In this game, you are asked to descend into Undermountain to determine where they went. You'll explore an underground labyrinth in this Forgotten Realms (AD&D) game built with the Descent engine. Your goal is to find the eight pieces of an amulet used to control the legendary Flame Sword of Lolth. With the power of this sword, an infinite army will be at your command, and Waterdeep will be saved.

Screenshots

Promo Images

Part of the Following Groups

• 3D Engine: Descent
• Dungeons & Dragons Campaign Setting: Forgotten Realms
• Dungeons & Dragons (D&D / AD&D) licensees
• Fantasy Creatures: Dwarves
• Fantasy Creatures: Elves

User Reviews

The game that inspired laziness in the game industry.

DOS

Spartan_234 (460)

Critic Reviews

Game.EXE	Windows	Jan, 1998	76 out of 100	76
Power Play	Windows	Feb, 1998	61 out of 100	61
GameStar (Germany)	DOS	Feb, 1998	56 out of 100	56
Pelit	DOS	Jun, 1998	50 out of 100	50
Adrenaline Vault, The (AVault)	Windows	Feb 12, 1998		50
PC Joker	DOS	Feb, 1998	48 out of 100	48
PC Joker	Windows	Feb, 1998	48 out of 100	48
GameSpot	DOS	Feb 06, 1998	3.7 out of 10	37
PC Action	DOS	Feb 18, 1998	27 out of 100	27
PC Games (Germany)	DOS	Feb 04, 1998	20 out of 100	20

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Trivia

Cover

The game box's cover features a painting, "Spellfire", by artist Clyde Caldwell, earlier used as the front cover to Ed Greenwood's 1988 novel of the same name... as well as the front cover to an earlier video game, Westwood's 1992 PC-Engine effort Order of the Griffon!

Development

Originally announced in 1995 (shortly after the release of the original Descent), Descent to Undermountain was supposed to be an RPG powered by the Descent engine and with a strong focus on multiplayer (namely, co-op play). In addition to the absence of the co-op play that was promised, Descent to Undermountain also turned out to be a buggy mess when it was released in Christmas of 1997. Although a patch released in early 1998 seemed to have alleviated some of the game's problems, far too many problems still remain in Descent to Undermountain as it stands today.

Shortly after the game's release, some programmers on the Descent to Undermountain team admitted on a Usenet forum that the game was released even though it was far from finished -- the usual excuse for the buggy, incomplete state of many other games. The reason for the game's premature release was because they wanted to meet the original deadlines for the game -- regardless of whether it was ready for release or not!

Graphics

Even though the Descent engine was one of the very first to be modified for 3d acceleration (in Descent II), Descent to Undermountain features no 3D support.

Information also contributed by Pseudo_Intellectual and Spartan_234

Related Web Sites

• Descent to Undermountain (official website)
• Support for Descent to Undermountain (on the Interplay website (archived))