Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

Gameplay

The game allows for an updated multiplayer feature, including cross platform, letting players play together regardless of the platform they played on. Much like Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition features a revamped user interface and a new renderer. To enhance gameplay several different viewing modes are available, as well as touch commands for mobile editions. The enhancements include 60 new items and 30 class/kit combinations and the playable blackguard class, a feature first presented in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition. Due to the intense difficulty presented in the original game, a new difficulty setting was implemented to make the game more approachable for new players.

Development

August 30, 2014, Beamdog announced that it would release an enhanced edition of Icewind Dale. It was to feature new content, widescreen compatibility, and continue to use 2nd Edition D&D rules.

Due to its similarity in programming with the original Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale was pitched by Beamdog's Overhaul Games to Wizards of the Coast to receive an enhanced edition. With the intent of announcing the game only a month prior to release, this was later changed, forcing the team to reveal it at the Penny Arcade Expo. The game was developed through use of an updated Infinity Engine, referred to as either the Infinity Enhanced Engine, Infinity Plus Engine, or the Infinity Bless Engine.

Although most of the assets of the original Icewind Dale were retrieved, the original programming done by Black Isle Studios was dumped. Instead, coding used in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition was utilized. New code was then created by Overhaul to replace lost programming from the expansion Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. While most of the code for Heart of Winter was rewritten, the majority of the original game's assets remained.

Release

The game was released on October 30, 2014 for Windows, OS X and Linux computers through GOG.com, Steam and Beamdog's official website. The game was also released for Android on the same day of PC release. The iOS devices release was delayed to November 11 as Apple did not originally approve of placing it in the App Store, citing partial nudity in the game's CGI intro.

Reception

Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition received mostly positive reviews from critics. The PC version has a score of 80/100 on Metacritic for the PC version based on 13 reviews while the iOS version has a score of 83/100 based on four reviews.

Gameplanet gave it a review score of 9/10 praising it for graphic upgrade over the original, bug fixes, rule tweaks and adding in all the additional content of the game while critisicing it for its uninteresting story mode and dated graphics. Gamezebo gave the mobile version a review score of 3.5/5 praising it for its new features, being free of lags and glitches and having a customisable UI. At the same time it criticised it for being difficult towards newcomers and being hard to play on a touchscreen. PC Gamer gave it a review score of 74/100 calling it "a cool must-play for RPG fans who’ve not tried it before, and a warming flashback for those who have." Softpedia gave it a review score of 8/10 praising it for its replay value, vast world, adding new UI and other features and for adding all its additional content and never-before-seen content. At the same time it also criticised it for not showing much graphic improvement over the original, being too difficult for new players and having no Dungeons & Dragons ruleset system tutorial.

Josh Sawyer, one of the designers of the original game, commented on the Enhanced Edition in an interview: "As one of the main designers on Icewind Dale, seeing the BG2 [Baldur's Gate II] kits in there destroy all the balance kind of made me a little sad. The BG2 kits are really powerful and Icewind Dale was kind of balanced around one thing. But it was still really cool to see it with all the tech upgrades."