all of the changes that
V_K and
DavidBVal mention, i.e. the larger map sizes (And how they interconnect), the weapon ranges, the new abilities, the hard-counters, etc; this was new and first added to Wizardry 5, however:
- this does not mean that:
a) these were all of Bradley's machinations. this are incredibly sublte while simultaenously exponential improvements to the classic Wiz 1-4 foundation of mechanical systems; and there is no evidence whatsoever, not even enough evidence for one to "head canon" this, that Bradley implemented these changes of his own impetus.
b) it is quite possible, and IMO most definitely the
truth, that these huge changes (above mentioned) that forever changed how Wizardry's combat and all of its interwoven systems played out during game play were actually iterations that the Sirotek brothers, and/or their "small group of beta testing developrs" friends*** had already thought out and designed on the prep-work for the 5th Secnario--
***= this is a reference to the true makers of Wiz 3, Legacy of Llylgamyn, which was not actually coded/designed by the Sirotek brothers and instead was almost entirely developed by friends of the brothers; these were the same people the brothers had been using to "beta test" Wizardry all the way from the very first "build" of Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord.
These guys were put in charge of designing the 3rd Scenario because the Sirotek brothers were hard at work thinking up ways of making Wizardry "evolve", and their answer to this was: Wizardry 4: The Return of Werdna.
And before you cry foul, W4:TRoW is indeed the most wildly different Wizardry game EVER MADE,
even more than the games designed by DW Bradley!!!! Why? Because Wiz 4 does not place any focus/importance on the acquisition of the enemy's fallen loot nor on the traditional concept of earning experience through battle nor even the standard idea of "leveling" a character in order to implement character advancement and game progression.
W4 doesn't even allow the player to control their party! This is as diametrically opposed to the Wizardry 1-3 (and later 5-8) paradigms as one can possibly get. And the reason I went into this W4 tangent is to heighten my earlier point about how the 3rd Scenario was given to friends of the brothers because they were hard at work with making the most un-Wizardry Wizardry ever made, before and ever after.
Anyway, back on point: to put it bluntly these huge changes that the 5th Wizardry scenario brought to the series were almost definitely not born purely from Bradley's loins; this I guarantee although there is frankly no evidence either to the pro or to the contrary.
He did however completely re-work the code in Wiz 5 to allow ways for the game's (extremely limited) engine to actually allow the player to explore these huge, huge maps that for the 1st time exceeded 20x20 grids.
There is an interesting article out there in Google land where you can read all about how Bradley had to do insanely outside-of-the-box coding exercises in order to accomplish the larger map areas, such as tricks like making tiles "teleport" the player to an entirely different area/floor/map but in-game it would be completely "normal", with the player simply walking to and fro and never once even imagining that 3 steps ago he actually changed memory addresses inside the code.
tl;dr: Please don't attribute the mechanical changes to Bradley, as there's no doubt he didn't implement them; however please do give him all the credit for the coding required to make the new, huge areas work int he Wizardry engine and also for his (IMO mediocre/amateurish) implementation of talkative NPCs and puzzles that served to gate player progression.
EDIT: In any case there is no doubt about the fact that Bradley never wanted to make Wizardry games. He began converting the series into his own version, for good or ill, and suddenly Wizardry was no longer about exploring dungeons and party management/progression; it was now about dumb aliens and stupid races-- er, sorry, I slipped into hate-mode there... it was now what Bradley wanted: something that was not Wizardry but rather, in his own view, "better".
There are many, many,
many people (like me) who'd rather play Wiz 1-5 and "miss out" on the riveting sci-fi story telling of Mr. Bradley or his "playful" imagination at work with races that were literallly Chewbacca but rnamed something else, and so on.
And before anyone points out that Wiz 6's combat system features limb targeting and multiple types of attacks; please remember that he then DROPPED this stuff (the mechanical stuff) the further he went along, with Wiz 7 concentrating more on exploring an endlessly large world map (dungeons? what are those?) and then lastly culminating with his magnum opus Wizards and Warriors which features not even half the mechanical depth that his own Wiz 6 featured.
