# Neverwinter Nights

- Work: Computer RPG
- Date: 2002 (Windows)
- Made by: James Ohlen (Designer); Ray Muzyka (BioWare co-founder); Greg Zeschuk (BioWare co-founder)
- Houses: BioWare
- Platforms: Windows, Linux (2003), Mac OS X (2003), Enhanced Edition: Windows, macOS, Linux (2018), Android, iOS, PS4, Xbox One, Switch (2019)
- Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/neverwinter-nights/

> BioWare hands players the Dungeon Master's screen: a D&D campaign in plague-struck Neverwinter, plus the tools to build worlds of their own and run them live for friends online.

**Why it matters:** Neverwinter Nights brought D&D 3rd Edition to the computer and, more lastingly, gave players a professional-grade toolset and a live Dungeon Master client, spawning thousands of fan modules and persistent online worlds.

## Quick answers

**When was Neverwinter Nights first released?**
Neverwinter Nights was first released in 2002 (Windows).

**Who created Neverwinter Nights?**
Neverwinter Nights was made by James Ohlen (designer), Ray Muzyka (bioWare co-founder) and Greg Zeschuk (bioWare co-founder).

**Who published or developed Neverwinter Nights?**
BioWare.

**What kind of work is Neverwinter Nights?**
Neverwinter Nights is a computer RPG in the Western Computer RPGs (CRPG) tradition, released for Windows, Linux (2003), Mac OS X (2003) and Enhanced Edition: Windows, macOS, Linux (2018), Android, iOS, PS4, Xbox One, Switch (2019).

**Why is Neverwinter Nights important?**
Neverwinter Nights brought D&D 3rd Edition to the computer and, more lastingly, gave players a professional-grade toolset and a live Dungeon Master client, spawning thousands of fan modules and persistent online worlds.

## Overview

For two decades, computer role-playing games had borrowed the rules of Dungeons & Dragons while leaving out the one thing that made the tabletop game what it was: the [Dungeon Master](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/game-master/), a person inventing and adjusting the adventure as it happened. [BioWare](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/bioware/)'s *Neverwinter Nights*, released for Windows in North America on June 18, 2002, set out to put that person back. It shipped with a full single-player campaign in the [Forgotten Realms](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/forgotten-realms/), but also with the Aurora toolset used to build it and a client that let one player run a game live for others over the internet. The campaign was received politely; the tools changed how thousands of people played.

## Origins

The name was a deliberate tribute. [*Neverwinter Nights*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/neverwinter-nights-aol/) on America Online, which ran from 1991 to 1997, had been the first graphical online role-playing game, and BioWare licensed its title and set its game in the same city on the Sword Coast. Having shipped [*Baldur's Gate*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate/) and [*Baldur's Gate II*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/baldurs-gate-ii/) on the 2D Infinity Engine, the studio built a new 3D engine, Aurora, with real-time lighting and shadows, and a goal of emulating the interactions of a pen-and-paper session. It worked with D&D's designers to follow the newly published [3rd Edition](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dnd-3rd-edition/) rules closely.

Development involved about 65 people, a multi-million-dollar budget, and a change of publisher. The game was originally to be published by [Interplay](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/interplay/), but Interplay's financial difficulties, and a relationship with BioWare that ended in November 2001, led to Infogrames releasing it under its Atari label. The project was directed and produced by Trent Oster, one of the studio's earliest employees, with Brent Knowles and [James Ohlen](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/james-ohlen/) among its designers; Jeremy Soule wrote the score. It won the E3 Game Critics Award for best role-playing game three years running, from 2000 to 2002, before it had even shipped.

## How it plays

In the official campaign, the player creates a single [character](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/player-character/) under 3rd Edition rules and is sent through the city of Neverwinter, which is dying of a magical plague called the Wailing Death. The cure requires four creatures from Waterdeep, a dryad, an intellect devourer, a yuan-ti and a cockatrice, and the hunt uncovers a cult and an ancient power: the Old Ones and their queen, Morag. The paladin Aribeth de Tylmarande, whose grief over her executed lover drives her to betrayal, gives the story its tragic heart. Across a prologue and four chapters it runs to about 60 hours, with a single hired henchman at the player's side rather than a full [party](https://www.lanternhall.org/lexicon/party/).

The real game was in the box beside it. The Aurora toolset let anyone build areas, place monsters, write dialogue and script events in NWScript, a language based on C. The Dungeon Master Client let a human run a server in real time, spawning creatures, possessing monsters and improvising, a feature widely regarded as the first successful implementation of the idea. Servers held up to 64 players, and fans built persistent worlds that ran for years, part tabletop campaign and part [MUD](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/mud/), a halfway house between D&D and the [MMORPG](https://www.lanternhall.org/atlas/mmorpg/).

## Reception & impact

Infogrames shipped a million copies to stores, and the game debuted at number one on the NPD computer-game chart, holding the spot for two weeks until *Warcraft III* displaced it. It sold about 330,000 copies in North America by late December 2002, and around 2.2 million copies of the base game worldwide by 2007. Metacritic lists it at 91. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences named it Computer Role-Playing Game of the Year, although several outlets gave their RPG prize to [*Morrowind*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-elder-scrolls-morrowind/). The common criticism was of the campaign: *Computer Gaming World* said the game gave players "a fabulous toolset," but its single-player story "prompted a staffwide shrugging of shoulders."

BioWare supported the game for years. *Shadows of Undrentide* followed in June 2003 and the well-regarded *Hordes of the Underdark*, a descent into the Underdark beneath Waterdeep, in December 2003. From late 2004 BioWare sold premium modules online, among them *Kingmaker*, which won its own AIAS role-playing award.

## Legacy

By the end of 2002 players had released more than a thousand custom adventures, and over the game's life more than four thousand. Universities used the toolset to teach design and programming; Indiana University built *Arden: The World of Shakespeare* with it. Aurora's descendants powered BioWare's *Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic* and, under license, [CD Projekt Red](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/cd-projekt-red/)'s [*The Witcher*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-witcher/) (2007). [Obsidian Entertainment](https://www.lanternhall.org/houses/obsidian-entertainment/) made *Neverwinter Nights 2* in 2006 while BioWare moved on to [*Dragon Age: Origins*](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/dragon-age-origins/). The dream of running D&D for friends over the internet passed on to the [virtual tabletops](https://www.lanternhall.org/culture/virtual-tabletops/) of the 2010s, and in 2018 Beamdog revived the original, toolset and all, as *Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition*.

## Facts

- It took its name from the 1991–97 AOL game Neverwinter Nights, the first graphical MMORPG.
- Its Dungeon Master Client let one person run a server live, spawning monsters and steering players like a tabletop DM.
- Players built more than 1,000 custom adventures by the end of 2002 and over 4,000 in all.
- At $55 it cost more than the $50 typical of PC games in 2002, and some buyers complained.
- CD Projekt Red's The Witcher (2007) was built on a licensed version of its Aurora engine.
- Indiana University's Arden: The World of Shakespeare was one of several academic projects built with its toolset.

## Sources and further reading

- [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neverwinter_Nights_(2002_video_game))
- [Beamdog: Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition](https://www.beamdog.com/games/neverwinter-nights-enhanced/)
- [Neverwinter Vault community wiki](https://nwn.wiki/)

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From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.