Game News SSI Forgotten Realms RPGs released on GOG

[Infinitron]

Tags: Curse of the Azure Bonds; DreamForge Intertainment; Dungeon Hack; Eye of the Beholder; Eye of the Beholder 2: The Legend of Darkmoon; Eye of the Beholder 3: Assault on Myth Drannor; Forgotten Realms: Unlimited Adventures; Gateway to the Savage Frontier; Hillsfar; Menzoberranzan; Pool of Radiance; Pools of Darkness; Secret of the Silver Blades; Stormfront Studios; Strategic Simulations, Inc.; Treasures of the Savage Frontier; Westwood Studios

Earlier this month, GOG-watching Codexer Blackstaff brought to our attention this video of an interview with a GOG employee at Gamescom. Said employee revealed that GOG were planning to release an oldschool 1980s RPG franchise this month. It would be a "huge" release, one that they'd negotiated for four years to acquire for the site. Our knowledgeable users immediately realized that the mention of the word "huge" probably narrowed down the options to either the first five Wizardry games or SSI's AD&D RPGs, while the mention of extensive negotiations seemed to point towards the latter. As usual, our users were correct.

I'm pleased to announce that today, for the first time since Interplay's last compilation re-release in 2001, the classic SSI Forgotten Realms RPGs are available for purchase. That includes all of the Forgotten Realms Gold Box RPGs, the Eye of the Beholder series from Westwood, as well as sundry others such as Dungeon Hack, Menzoberranzan and Hillsfar. Divided into three separate collections, the release appears to be identical to Interplay's three-part Forgotten Realms: The Archives compilation re-release from 1999, but without the newer D&D-themed RTS Blood & Magic that they included in its third part. And of course, since this is a Forgotten Realms collection, it doesn't include SSI's D&D games set in the worlds of Dragonlance, Dark Sun, and others. Hopefully all of those will come later.

Anyway, here's GOG's writeup:

We're casting True Resurrection on Eye of the Beholder and twelve more D&D GoldBox classics.

You are sitting in a tavern. The mighty Wizards of the Coast bestow upon you their greatest treasures: Forgotten Realms: The Archives - long lost relics of an RPG renaissance that changed the face of gaming forever. Today, one of the forgotten grails of gaming history is within your grasp, should you travel to a magical, DRM-free realm known as GOG.com.

Eye of the Beholder, Pool of Radiance, Menzoberranzan - the list of groundbreaking RPG classics goes on. We set out on the quest for Forgotten Realms: The Archives a long time ago, and though it was a perilous journey - after years of searching, huge help from our friends at Hasbro and Wizards of The Coast, as well as months of technical work - we get to be freaking excited to sit here and say:

Forgotten Realms: The Archives are available now, DRM-free on GOG.com

The Archives are a set of thirteen D&D GoldBox classics packaged across three collections:

--Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One features Eye of the Beholder I, II, and III. It's the three and only, the gold-standard in classic RPG dungeon crawling.

--Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Two features more gameplay hours and secrets than we could ever count - with Pool of Radiance, Hillsfar, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Gateway to the Savage Frontier, Pools of Darkness, Secret of the Silver Blades, Treasures of the Savage Frontier, and D&D: Unlimited Adventures.

--Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection Three features near-infinite replay value and and an important chunk of RPG history with Dungeon Hack and Menzoberranzan.

We are now home to precisely 20 years of digital D&D RPG history - from Pool of Radiance (1988) to Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir (2008). You can also complete your personal collection with all the remaining D&D titles on sale at up to 80% off in our early D&D Weekend Promo! Planescape Torment, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights - they're all here, so head straight to the promo page, or read more about it.
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The first two collections will cost you $10 each and the third one $6. GOG will also be streaming some of the games on their Twitch channel today. With the Shadowrun: Hong Kong release later today and other good news on the horizon, this Thursday is shaping up to be the beginning of a real week of incline.

 

[Don Peste]

No new features like automap for Eye of the Beholder?

 

[Zed]

infinitron is 'pleased to announce' this sweet 24 euro deal for 30 year old games.

http://www.abandonia.com/

fuck gog.

 

[Morality Games]

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

Spoiler

Need Dragonlance and Dark Sun though

 

[Infinitron]

infinitron is 'pleased to announce' this sweet 24 euro deal for 30 year old games.

http://www.abandonia.com/

fuck gog.

 

[Sinatar]

No new features like automap for Eye of the Beholder?

http://personal.inet.fi/koti/jhirvonen/ase/

 

[mindx2]

It shows GOG as the publisher... what are the implications of that and how did they manage it?

 

[LeStryfe79]

Collection 3 looks particularly awesome.

 

[LESS T_T]

From press release, with quotes from former SSI and now TSI developers:

" The quest for Forgotten Realms: The Archives was a gruelling, perilous journey," recalls Oleg Klapovsky, GOG.com's VP of Business Development and Operations. " The rights were literally scattered across the world, and even with the aid of our trusted companions it took several years of searching and dead ends to round them all up."

On their quest for the D&D Archives, the GOG.com party encountered the very creators of these magical worlds - legendary Strategic Simulations (SSI) developers, all too eager to share their experiences:

" It's wonderful to return to the Forgotten Realms" said Paul Murray, SSI Lead Engineer. " Our attention to deep systems for tactical combat, and exploration really shines through. These games excel at recreating the D&D tabletop experience."

" These games gave players truly deep and innovative RPGs, while allowing me to master design skills I still apply today." says David Shelley, one of the leading SSI Designers. " Being able to work with those rules and settings, trying to makes the games authentic, was a real joy."

 

[Infinitron]

Cool, so they did know about it.

 

[Blackstaff]

It shows GOG as the publisher... what are the implications of that and how did they manage it?

GOG acts as a publisher of old games since a few months ago (I think that Fantasy General and Pacific General were their first forays as a publisher). Obviously they found a way to buy parts of the rights of old SSI games (and old warhammer games) and then can find a deal with the other rights holders (hasbro here) to republish their games. They intend to do it with other old games with entangled rights. One of the good thing coming from the success of witcher 3, they now have some cash to burn.

Potentially that could mean that they can make new games in those series (if they can find an agreement with hasbro for an eye of the beholder 4...), but it's hard to know if they really intend to do that. Would be really great if they could let TSI do somethings with Fantasy General or the others.

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

Any news on how did gog deal with the fucking Codewheel?

 

[Lord Azlan]

I came here, I read the post, I went to GOG, I bought the games, I came again. All over myself.

I can't believe some guys are willing to sell Dungeon Hack -

 

[DarkArcher]

Awesome that these are available. Now fucking bring back Krynn already. We don't just want more Forgotten Realms.

 

[TripJack]

Awesome that these are available.

they were available already, in fact they were free

Now fucking bring back Krynn already.

fucking krynn is still freely available too, why are you so eager to pay for them on gog?

 

[Black_Willow]

they were available already, in fact they were free


fucking krynn is still freely available too, why are you so eager to pay for them on gog?

All games are 'available for free', but not everybody goes to piratebay.

 

[Excidium II]

infinitron is 'pleased to announce' this sweet 24 euro deal for 30 year old games.

http://www.abandonia.com/

fuck gog.

Don't forget http://oldgames.sk/en/ , they even have auto-configured installers for those too illiterate to use dosbox. Grab the games while they haven't been removed yet (inb4 Infinitron sends email to GOG)

 

[Black_Willow]

Oh I SO MUCH WANT an original Neverwinter Nights server now.
JudasIscariot plz make it happen!

 

[KevinV12000]

Speaking of DOSBox, isn't it part of GOG's appeal that they do the tweaking on their end so modern users can play these games without delving into emulators or excessive tweaking? Or am I missing something?

 

[Excidium II]

Speaking of DOSBox, isn't it part of GOG's appeal that they do the tweaking on their end so modern users can play these games without delving into emulators or excessive tweaking? Or am I missing something?

If you call what they do configuration. At least all the DOS GOG games I've played i had to go and configure things like cpu emulation, midi music, aspect ratio and what not by myself to get it right. Not to mention there's some really awesome CRT shaders that if you don't use you are seriously missing out.

 

[J_C]

Speaking of DOSBox, isn't it part of GOG's appeal that they do the tweaking on their end so modern users can play these games without delving into emulators or excessive tweaking? Or am I missing something?

You can do better than them, bet to be honest, I'm to lazy to do it myself so I play these games like they are out of the box. And the settings are fine, even if not the best.

 

[taxalot]

On one hand, I find this ridiculous to give such an amount of money for games I have "owned" in abandonware for years, money that will not in anyway end in the pocket of the actual people who worked on the games.

On the other hand : insta-bought.

 

[Toxic Masculinity]

 

[Morality Games]

It shows GOG as the publisher... what are the implications of that and how did they manage it?

Don't care. Just buy the games before the Atari alliance of evil pulls a Bethesda and removes them.

 

[Alchemist]

Tis a glorious day for D&D games!

Sure, you can pirate anything out there - but buying the type of games you want to see sends a message. Buying these shows publishers / developers that there is still a market for these types of games - and it might lead to new ones being developed in this style. Maybe WotC / Hasbro will see how well these sell and make a new Gold-Box-style CRPG and not the watered down action-RPG pablum like Sword Coast Legends.