Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights is a 2002 role-playing game developed by BioWare and published by Infogrames for Windows. Set in the Forgotten Realms campaign setting of Dungeons & Dragons, it uses rules based on the game's third edition. Despite its title, it is not a remake of the earlier Neverwinter Nights that ran on America Online in the 1990s. Players create an adventurer by choosing a race, class, abilities, and alignment before entering a campaign centered on the city of Neverwinter. Combat unfolds in real time with pauses for issuing orders, while dice rolls and statistics govern attacks, saving throws, and spells.

The original campaign begins at Neverwinter's academy, where an attack releases four creatures needed to make a cure for the Wailing Death, a plague ravaging the city. Under Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande's direction, the protagonist searches districts of Neverwinter for a dryad, a cockatrice, a yuan-ti, and an intellect devourer. The investigation later reaches Port Llast and Beorunna's Well, exposing a conspiracy involving the cult led by Maugrim and the ancient being Morag. Aribeth's disillusionment after the execution of her lover, Fenthick, becomes a major part of the story. The campaign eventually returns to Neverwinter for its confrontation with Morag.

BioWare built Neverwinter Nights around the Aurora Engine and shipped it with the Aurora Toolset, which lets players construct areas, place characters, write dialogue, and script adventures. Its Dungeon Master client lets a human host control encounters and inhabit nonplayer characters during multiplayer sessions, bringing a tabletop-style role to the computer game. User-made modules flourished; many groups also ran persistent online worlds rather than short, elaborate adventures. The original release included an introductory module, Prelude, before its four-chapter main campaign. Companion characters called henchmen can accompany the player, although the original campaign generally limits the active party to one henchman.

Two official expansions followed: Shadows of Undrentide in 2003 and Hordes of the Underdark later that year. Shadows of Undrentide begins in the village of Hilltop and introduces the kobold bard Deekin, a character who also appears in Hordes of the Underdark. The latter expansion begins at the Yawning Portal in Waterdeep and takes its hero through Undermountain and into the Underdark. BioWare also released additional adventure modules, including Kingmaker. Obsidian Entertainment developed the 2006 sequel, Neverwinter Nights 2, while Beamdog released Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition in 2018, making the original game available on modern systems and later on consoles.