Neverwinter Nights, released in 2002 and developed by Bioware, is one of the most well-regarded titles in the massive library of Dungeons & Dragons video games.
It helped to usher in a new era of gaming for D&D, being the first release to properly adapt the then-new third edition ruleset and featured a number of technological advancements, mainly in terms of graphics and engine capabilities, over its predecessors.
As much a sandbox-based toolkit as a proper game, Neverwinter Nights released with a number of tools (based around the Aurora toolset from which the game runs) that allowed players to create their own worlds and adventures. These tools are largely what have kept Neverwinter Nights popular in the two-decades since its original release, with a number of full-length adventures published by fans over the years.
The two official expansions for Neverwinter Nights, Shadows of Undrentide and Hordes of the Underdark, both released in 2003, were well-received. Shortly after, Bioware shifted towards releasing smaller content packs dubbed ‘modules’ through their online store.
They were, for all intents and purposes, an abstract failure.
Many modules were saddled with strange always-online requirements, even if they were played in single-player, were oftentimes too short and featured spotty writing and implementation of new features and mechanics. A handful saw cancelations before they could be completed.
Not to mention, the worst part about the modules might’ve been the fact that no one needed them; by that time they started to be released, an entire community of fans were busy making their own content for free. There was no real incentive for players to pay for extra content, even if the cost was reduced to reflect the scale and effort present.
The first of the modules, entitled Kingmaker (which, confusingly, also became the name for a compilation of modules sold together at a later date) stands alone as the only official module from the original run that’s still worth playing today.
In comparison to its siblings, Kingmaker features fleshed-out characters, clear-and-defined quests for the player to undertake and a story that, while far from great, does enough to keep things moving. The module won an award from the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences for “PC RPG Award of the Year” in 2005.
The premise of Kingmaker is simple: the player is tasked with winning an election to become the lord of a local keep. To ascend to the throne, they must court enough votes from the nine local guild leaders and doing so allows them to uncover secrets of their past, as well as defeat the evil that plagues the keep.
What Kingmaker does best is present the player with choices that change the course of the game. They can decide which companions travel with them and which guild leaders they align themselves with, among other things.
It manages to pack enough content into its five-to-six hour run time to serve as an engaging experience, despite its smaller scale. It benefits from a good amount of replayability, owing to the aforementioned choices the player gets to make.
Kingmaker is far from a perfect experience and, honestly, pales in comparison to Neverwinter Nights’ proper narrative experiences, and even more so when put against all-time fantasy role-playing games such as Baldur’s Gate or Planescape. But it’s a suitable fix for anyone that might be searching for a shorter adventure that won’t take up too much of their time.
A more detailed review of Kingmaker can be found in the embedded video above (and here). Kingmaker, as well as several other modules, was included most recently in the ‘Enhanced Edition’ of Neverwinter Nights, released in 2018.
