Icewind Dale, the PC game celebrates its 20th birthday today (June 29th, 2020). It was my favorite video game at the time and it brought my love for video games and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons together. Sure, we had Baldur's Gate, but it wasn't Icewind Dale! I can remember the countless hours that I spent in it adventuring in what is, in my opinion, the best region in the Forgotten Realms.
The game couldn’t have come at a better time for me. I had a summer free of distraction; the last couple of years I had been a camp counselor, but this year I had to take it off as there were a couple of weddings I was attending. That left a gaping hole that would have ordinarily been filled with hiking, making rockets, campfires, craft, kayaking, and the inevitable LAN games in the computer rooms after lights out. There were a couple of us that played D&D at camp and apart from sitting on the ‘comfy’ chairs in the break room rolling dice, we had sunk a lot of time collectively on the original Diablo. I had been looking forward to going back t꧟his year and picking up whe♛re we had left off with the sequel, but family comes first.
This did beg the question of what I was going to do with my summer. I was working as a network engineer so unless something went wrong with the system, and 'turning it off and on again' didn’t fix it, the team generally chilled out in the AC controlled server room and played games. Duke Nukem 3D, Command & Conquer, Warcraft 2, and Starcraft were the games of𒐪 choice. Bas🐷ically, anything where we could play multiplayer!
June 29th was fast approaching and I was itching for something new. It was between two choices, Diablo 2 and Icewind Dale. Both fit the fantasy itch that I had long since had. Don’t fret, the doctor said this was normal and told me not to worry… It was a tough choice but Icewind Dale won. Take that I had long been a DM running D&D games as well as the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, add that my Diablo compadres were on a different continent, and it just made more sense. My experience with D&D influenced my decision, not just because Icewind Dale was using AD&D rules, but mainly because it was set in Icewind Dale. The seeds had been sowed in 1988 when R.A. Salvatore released the first book in what would become The Icewind Dale Trilogy.
Salvatore created the frozen wasteland at the northernmost point of Faerûn, and it would become one of the most iconic landscapes in D&D history. It inherited its name from the icy winds capable of destroying buildings, landscape, and people without prejudice. The inhabitants have been hardened by the environment they live in, and many are escaping a previous life. Settlements were few and far between, with the majority surrounding the three lakes. These are collectively known as The Ten Towns. The towns are liꦍnked by a wagon trail that allows merchants and the few others who dare travel to get from town to town. Outside of the towns live all manner of beasts, dangerous to any who cross their path. Who wouldn🔜’t fall in love with such a place?
Icewind Dale wasn’t the only thing to come from the creative wisdom of R.A. Salvatore. His greatest contribution could be argued to be Drizz Do’Urden, a Drow Ranger, who was an almost accidental creation, only being added on a whim following the request that a character in an early draft be replaced. Drizz and his companions have become a model for many on how to play in a group in D&D and is one of the reasons I started playing in my early teenage years. He is also one of the most recognizable characters to fans of D&D 🦹and his presence extended outside of this trilogy into an ongoing series with prequels and 🌠ongoing sequels.
The summer of 2000 became filled with my adventures in Icewind Dale. I was glad to see the familiar setting and it was good to finally have a virtual vision of how it looked. I was glad that the storyline didn’t follow the novels, as that would have been too easy and spoil the game. The challenges the game presented were fun to solve and exploring the world and interacting with NPCs, accompanied by the fantastic talents of the voice team, felt more real somehow. The accompanying soundtrack set the atmospheric tone perfectly and kept me coming back time and time again, begging for more. It also became the new office game that we placed during downtime, on break, and any other time we could get away with it. Diablo 2, on the other h🏅and, was relegated to the corner, although we did eventually start getting more into it later.
I’m not sure why I loved Icewind Dale and still hold it close to my heart today. It could be my nostalgic past with the novels and how it has influenced my gaming over the years. It could also be the compelling story that unfolds or the environment created🅠 in which you play. It doesn’t matter which one it is, it may be a combination or it could be all of them together; I still love it and probably always will. The Enhanced edition released in 2014 breathed new life into the game with updated graphics, bug fixes, and additional content. It is the best (and only) option to experience the game now, but gamers familiar with the original may feel a bit away from home due to the improved UI and gameplay modifications. It almost feels like the original but misses the mark by the sl🃏immest amount.
I’m excited that Icewind Dale is 20 today, but I am more excited about the future with the upcoming source and campaign book Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden coming later this year for tabletop D&D. My hope is that this will breatꦯhe some fresh life into my gaming the same way the video game did, and I can’t wait for the updates to the lore.