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First reported by Gaming on Linux, backend updates to the yet-to-be officially announced Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition recorded by SteamDB show that the remaster of Obsidian’s 2006 classic is already Steam Deck verified.
The tags on SteamDB were updated a few days ago on April 3, and SteamDB is also how we became aware of the unannounced project in the first place. Infinity Engine and OG NwN Enhanced Edition studio Beamdog has come out and said it’s not on this one.
Instead, the EULA tied to the Steam listing mentions Aspyr, which has previously made a name for itself bringing a ton of Star Wars PC classics to modern platforms, including Obsidian’s first game, Knights of the Old Republic 2.
This is all great news for me, as I’m not only a big Obsidian sicko, but specifically a Neverwinter Nights sicko. NwN 2’s original campaign and expansions Storm of Zehir and Mysteries of Westgate are very dear to my heart.
But its Mask of the Betrayer expansion is on a whole other level. MotB is a strange, unsettling, personal story set in an under-explored corner of the Forgotten Realms, and its thought-provoking writing calls to mind genre classic and RPG forum guy fixation, Planescape Torment.
NwN 2 also, paradoxically, is more in need of a remaster than older RPGs which have already gotten them like the first Neverwinter Nights. NwN 2’s technical and graphical ambitions left it a more chunky, finicky game than its predecessor.
The Complete edition currently available on GOG (not Steam) can be frustrating to wrangle. The biggest issue, I’ve found, is that the UI gets unworkably tiny past 1080p, while it also crashes when swapping resolutions ingame—you gotta do it in an .ini file instead.
Apart from that, some of my dream stretch goals include cleaning up the game’s scripting and companion AI, some of which was really borked in the earlier campaigns with the release of later expansions. Cleaned up controls would also be great, and the Steam Deck verification gives me a lot of hope on that front.
This game has never had proper gamepad support, and though theoretically possible to get it running on Steam Deck already, the current workaround, bastardized mouse and keyboard-via-gamepad scheme you’d have to use really isn’t worth it.
Full (or as full as possible) mod compatibility would make this remaster essential. NwN 2 never had as big a scene as the legendary NwN 1, as the new Electron engine’s tools were overly complicated in comparison to the sweet spot Aurora engine toolset for the first game, but NwN 2 still has a repository of interesting custom campaigns I’d like to dig into some day.
I’m champing at the bit to do one of my customary, every few years or so full replays of NwN 2 and its expansions, so I’m eager to hear more about this remaster project when Aspyr’s ready.
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Kurt Indovina
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