The remaster of classic D&D RPG Neverwinter Nights 2 is finally real, and releasing next month

At the rumored remaster of Neverwinter Nights 2, a classic Obsidian CRPG using the 3.5e D&D rules and set in the same Forgotten Realms campaign setting as the Baldur's Gate series. Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition will release on July 15th, and you can preorder now for 10% off on Steam and GOG.

Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition comes with the base game and all three official expansions. I'm a freak for all four campaigns, but the first expansion, Mask of the Betrayer, is a moody, cerebral, "weird" RPG not to be missed by fans of Disco Elysium or Planescape: Torment. Trapped in a kingdom of berserkers and matriarchal witches, you're tasked with learning the truth about an ancient war against gods and belief, before its aftereffects eat you alive from the inside.

But the whole shebang's a great "what to play next" if Baldur's Gate 3 was your introduction to the Forgotten Realms or D&D-based CRPGs. NWN2 always felt like a proto-Dragon Age to me in hindsight, and Dragon Age feels like proto-BG3.

NWN2's full voice acting, attempts at cinematic camera work, and visual identity all feel closer to Baldur's Gate 3 than BioWare's sprite-based, isometric original games. It also doesn't hurt that the D&D 5th edition used by BG3 is basically a less scary version of 3.5e.

But even as a superfan of the series, I've found NWN2 crustier and more difficult to revisit than plenty of older games. Its overly ambitious engine was creaky enough at launch, and the game's only gotten more fiddly and cantankerous with age. That's where Aspyr's Enhanced Edition comes in, promising "refined camera controls, polished mechanics, enhanced textures, and full controller with a newly designed controller-specific UI."

In motion, the Enhanced Edition looks a lot like the original, though noticeably less jerky than the last time I tried to replay it on a modern system, and it sounds like those 2006 textures will stand up to closer scrutiny and higher resolutions. Ditto for the interface—past 1080p, the original game's UI gets unusably tiny, while in my experience on modern Windows, NWN2 will hard crash if I change its resolution in-game.

The camera rework will be a real godsend. O.G. NWN2 has three camera modes, and all of them are bad. If we can get just one working one in the remaster, it will all be worth it. I'm also very curious to test out that gamepad . Beamdog and ZA/UM were able to work wonders on their console ports of the Infinity Engine games and Disco Elysium respectively⁠—some of the most M&K-centric RPGs out there.

Neverwinter Nights 2 is already only hop away from the console-first KotOR games in of what it asks of you in its moment-to-moment gameplay. With intuitive controls, and more sensible companion AI than the original, I could see NWN2 EE being a real Steam Deck hero⁠—it's already been verified on the handheld for months.

One open question remains mod compatibility. Beamdog's Enhanced Edition of the original Neverwinter Nights had more or less full for the original game's many fan campaigns, so I have hope for their prospects in NWN2. At the same time, the sequel's technical jank and less intuitive toolset meant the scene never took off as much as the original. A lack of mod back compat here would be a bummer, but not a dealbreaker compared to the original.

I've been putting off a replay of Neverwinter Nights 2 in order to be ready for this very remaster, and I'm so excited to finally dig in next month. You can preorder Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition on Steam and GOG ahead of its July 15 launch.

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