Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights was released in 2002, developed by the Canadian studio BioWare and published by Atari. It is a Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game presented in an isometric view, supporting both single and multiplayer sessions.

What set it apart from other role-playing games of the time was not its story but its tools. The package included an editor for building custom modules and a mode in which one participant acted as storyteller, steering events for the rest. That brought a computer game unusually close to the way Dungeons & Dragons actually works at a table, where the dungeon master cannot be replaced by software.

2002 also meant a move to the then-new third edition of the D&D rules. Those were tidier and translated into code far better than the older systems, which shows in character creation and in how skills are organised.

Technically the game broke with earlier isometric role-playing titles. Instead of painted backdrops it used three-dimensional environments with a rotating camera, a necessity if worlds were to be assembled from prefabricated pieces inside the editor. The look lost some of the hand-painted atmosphere, but gained the ability for players themselves to produce content.

The editor also gave the game an unusually long life. Where most role-playing titles end with their final act, here new modules and persistent servers kept appearing for years after release, and a portion of the player base never touched the original campaign at all. That model of community authorship is why the game is still routinely cited in histories of the genre.

Want to see how it looked? Its images sit on OldGame.cz next to the release year and the credited studios.