Wizardry 4: The Return of Werdna

Wizardry 4: The Return of Werdna is the fourth Sir-tech Software instalment, dated 1987. As with the earlier parts, that year belongs to the original eight-bit release, with the MS-DOS version following after the delay typical of conversions in that period.

The fourth game is unusual within the series because it inverts the point of view. Instead of an adventuring party the player takes the role of the wizard who served as the antagonist of the first game, working upward through the maze rather than down into it. The subtitle states this outright. The inversion changes everything else too: you begin weak and depend on summoned helpers instead of a hand-picked party.

The game earned a reputation for extreme difficulty. That does not come from speed or from combat, but from the assumption that the player knows the earlier instalments and can deduce the correct route from small hints. It was made for people who knew the series inside out.

The foundations stayed put: turn-based combat, a first-person view inside the maze and mapping done on paper. By 1987 more graphically ambitious RPGs existed, so Wizardry was consciously holding to its spare form and competing on the depth of its rules instead.

Difficulty of this order had a practical rationale. In the eighties people bought few games and expected each to last, so severity was a way of extending the hours spent with a single title. A modern player experiences it differently, having incomparably more alternatives, which is precisely why it helps to know where the harshness came from.

Fancy one of the harshest dungeon crawls ever written? Wizardry 4 launches directly in the browser here.