Infogrames announced yesterday that BioWare’s long-awaited role-playing adventure game Neverwinter Nights has gone gold master, and today the company’s Mac subsidiary, MacSoft announced plans to publish it. The news brings to an end years of anticipation from gamers and game press who first got a peek at the game at various E3 Expo events of years past.
BioWare Corp. is the same game developer responsible for Baldur’s Gate, and the company has a long history of bringing to the computer games based on the Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper role-playing game series. Past BioWare creations that have come to the Mac also include the Baldur’s Gate expansion pack Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur’s Gate II and Shattered Steel.
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Developed using BioWare’s Aurora Engine, Neverwinter Nights also follows the core Third Edition Rules set out by Wizards of the Coast’s Dungeons & Dragons role playing game, to provide an authentic D&D-style role playing experience. It sports a single player campaign that BioWare estimated will take 60 to 100 hours to complete, and multiplayer mode is also supported.
Neverwinter Nights producer Trent Oster explained that the game provides players with “limitless adventure” and unprecedented game options. “Due to the player options, this game builds excitement as the first complete role-playing system, allowing players to step into the shoes of the Dungeon Master to tell and create their own stories and adventures.”
Unlike many past computer role playing games, Neverwinter Nights also features editing tools called the BioWare Aurora Neverwinter Toolset. These editing tools enable aspiring Neverwinter Nights Dungeon Masters to create their own scenarios which can be shared over the Internet. BioWare has said in the past that these tools would not be available for the Mac, but MacSoft today told MacCentral that it plans to bring the BioWare Aurora Neverwinter Toolset pending a review of the toolset’s code.
“We are thrilled to bring a product of this caliber to the Macsoft lineup,” said Al Schilling, product manager for MacSoft. “The Macintosh community is already eagerly awaiting Neverwinter Nights because of its dynamic single player storyline, advanced graphics technology, revolutionary on-line multiplayer capabilities and the new ‘Dungeon Master’ feature.”
Infogrames’ Atari imprint have the PC game on store shelves by the end of June, but the Mac version will take a bit longer: with some work to be done on the Macintosh version of the game and a review of the toolbase code pending, MacSoft told MacCentral it hopes to wrap it up the Mac conversion of Neverwinter Nights late this summer. Neverwinter Nights is coming for Mac OS X.