Neverwinter Nights is a series of video games created by BioWare and Obsidian Entertainment. It uses the Forgotten Realms world from the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The games take place in the city of Neverwinter. They are not connected to the 1991 Neverwinter Nights online game or the 2013 Neverwinter online game.

Overview

The Neverwinter Nights series mainly takes place in the city of Neverwinter, which is located in the Sword Coast region of the imaginary world called Faerûn. The city is also known as the City of Skilled Hands. Neverwinter was originally a community with people from many races called Eigersstor, which was established hundreds of years before the first game in the series. When the first game begins, the city is facing a magical illness called the Wailing Death. In the second game, the city is in danger from an attack by its old enemy, the King of Shadows.

Gameplay

The Neverwinter Nights series is a collection of role-playing games. These games use the same rules as Dungeons & Dragons, a table-top role-playing game first created by TSR, Inc. Each game in the series, including Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2, includes three different ways to play: a main story campaign, a multiplayer mode for multiple players, and custom game content.

Campaign

Both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 include a default story that helps players grow their character through a series of different acts. In addition to the main story, players can complete side quests. Some of these side quests are part of larger storylines that last throughout the whole game. Players can make important choices during certain quests. These choices can influence battles, key events, and the overall story.

Before starting the story, players must create a new character using the game’s character creation tool. Players can either design a character from scratch or choose one of the ready-made characters provided by the games. If a player creates a new character, they will go through a series of choices, such as race, class, and appearance. Some choices, like gender and appearance, only affect how the character looks. Other choices, like race and class, change how the character fights and what abilities they can use.

In addition to the main story and multiplayer mode, both Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 include tools that let players create their own campaigns. Neverwinter Nights came with the Aurora Toolset, while Neverwinter Nights 2 included the Electron Toolset. The Electron Toolset was completely rewritten by Bioware using the C# programming language.

Reception

The first game in the series, Neverwinter Nights, received positive reviews according to Metacritic, a website that collects reviews. It earned a score of 91 out of 100 based on 34 critic reviews and a score of 8.1 out of 10 based on 608 user reviews. Greg Kasavin of GameSpot praised the game's ease of use, stating it is "one of the few games that offers something valuable to almost everyone, even those who are not familiar with role-playing games." Gamezone highlighted the game's graphics and sound design, noting that "the music becomes more intense before battles and is well made." Allgame reviewer Mark Hoogland praised the Aurora toolset included with Neverwinter Nights, describing the many options for creating levels, stories, environments, and modules as "impressive." Eurogamer reviewer Gestalt was less convinced, pointing out that the single-player campaign focused more on fighting than on roleplaying, but believed the game's support for player-created content would help it remain popular over time.

The game series was praised for allowing players to customize their characters, including choosing their gender, and for its non-player characters. Kotaku editor Mary Kenney described these characters as "fun, flawed, and unusual," with examples including paladin Lady Aribeth, kobold bard Deekin Scalesinger, and writer and troublemaker Volothamp Geddarm.

Legacy

The Neverwinter Nights series has been used by many teachers in classrooms to help students learn. At the University of Alberta, Professor Mike Carbonara and his team used the Aurora Toolset to create an "economics game" that teaches students about fixed prices, markups, and how supply and demand work. At MIT's Education Arcade, Squire & Jenkins developed a multiplayer game called Revolution. This game lets players act as characters with different opinions and political beliefs in 1770s colonial Williamsburg, helping students learn about the American Revolution. In 2005, researchers Nora Paul and Kathleen A. Hansen created a special module for journalism students. In this module, players act as journalists investigating a train derailment in a fictional American town called Harperville. They must explore and examine different sources to find answers.

Games

• A "premium module" is a small adventure that can be used on its own.
• An "adventure pack" is like the premium modules from the first game.