Over the past decade, Dungeons & Dragons has gone from a nerdy niche tangled up with a satanic panic to a mainstream IP where a bunch of nerds can sell out Madison Square Garden playing it. Stranger Things’ kids on bikes helped shed a positive, post-satanic-panic light on the game, and its popularity has only grown since. Plenty of folks, myself included, played it for the first time over Roll20, and plenty more got to experience D&D through Baldur’s Gate 3, 2023’s Game of the Year (and contender for game of the century).
But before Stranger Things, Roll20, and Baldur’s Gate 3, Dungeons & Dragons enjoyed decades of adaptations and multimedia projects, from several novels to 2000’s bomb of a live-action film. Neverwinter Nights 2, originally released in 2006, adapted D&D’s 3.5 edition ruleset for a sprawling RPG. I’m a more recent D&D player who’s played as much Baldur’s Gate 3 as the tabletop game it adapted, so I was curious to check Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition out. After its opening hours, I wish I had just started up a new Baldur’s Gate 3 playthrough instead (it’s got new subclasses!).
Image: Aspyr Media
Neverwinter Nights 2 is Obsidian’s sequel to Bioware’s Neverwinter Nights, a neat detail considering that Obsidian also followed up Bioware’s Stars Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with a sequel. (Bioware also developed the first two Baldur’s Gate games, because time is a flat circle.) I loved KOTOR2, and especially its combat, so I thought Neverwinter Nights 2 would just as easily suck me in. That wasn’t the case. Neverwinter Nights 2 has similar combat to the KOTOR games, but it struggles to translate the turn-based, planning-intensive aspects of the tabletop game I love to a video game.
Two of the most fun words a DM can say are “roll initiative!” Whether your party has accidentally triggered a trap, been ambushed, or instigated a fight, rolling initiative elicits excitement (and maybe a bit of anxiety, depending on the situation). There’s no roll for initiative in Neverwinter Nights 2, and therefore no pre-battle rush of excitement. It lacks KOTOR’s automatic pausing when an enemy is sighted. Instead, you just run around areas freely. Utilizing your turn’s movement to carefully position your character in the tabletop game is absent in Neverwinter Nights 2.
There’s also no turn order; combat is real time, in a way. Like in Knights of the Old Republic, you’ll select an action for your character, and the animation will play out. Your actions are on a short cooldown, mimicking D&D’s idea that a round of combat is six seconds long (that’s right — your climatic, 10-round, five-hour fight against the Big Bad Guy only lasted about a minute in-universe). If you actually want to stop and carefully plan your turn in Neverwinter Nights 2, you’ll have to pause the game every six seconds to get the lay of the land.
Image: Aspyr Media/Lucasfilm
I started playing as a Cleric with only healing and protective spells, and the real time combat really sucked away the fun of preparation as I rushed to cast a protective spell on a companion. The dice rolls are relegated to a text box on the lower part of the screen, and I had to pause the game to keep up with their outcomes. Ultimately, Neverwinter Nights 2’s combat doesn’t capture the methodical approach to slow, turn-based battles I enjoy playing so much on a tabletop (virtual or real).
The abundance of combat sessions can work in a tabletop campaign’s favor, if that’s your group’s jam, but works against Neverwinter Nights 2. It gets in the way of the storytelling, which didn’t quite hook me in the first place. Your character’s village is attacked, and your father sets you off in search of some macguffins. It’s a perfectly fine premise, but every D&D campaign I’ve played has engaged me from the start (shoutout to all the incredible DMs out there and their storytelling abilities) and Neverwinter Nights 2’s dull hooks slipped right by me instead of sinking in.
So for anyone like me, coming off Baldur’s Gate 3 and wanting more virtual D&D, perhaps look elsewhere. You might be better off playing Obsidian’s other RPGs, like Knights of the Old Republic 2, or exploring the first couple Baldur’s Gate games. Or, do what you really wanna do: restart Baldur’s Gate 3.
