If you’ve been a fan of Dungeons & Dragons for a long time, you’ll be delighted to hear that some classics are being re-released soon.
There’s a lot of talk right now about the continued availability of video games due to Stop Killing Games. This doesn’t just affect multiplayer games; many old offline games are also becoming increasingly difficult to run.
This also affects three D&D classics that are over 20 years old. Fortunately, publisher SNEG is currently working on making many of these games available again on Steam. And not only that, the games are even being revamped so that they look good on modern monitors and (should) not cause any technical problems.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard
Dragonshard is a real-time strategy game published in 2005 by Liquid Entertainment, the people who previously brought us Battle Realms, a true RTS classic. Dragonshard is a somewhat unusual strategy game, however. Even more so than Warcraft 3, it borrows heavily from role-playing games.
While you fight classic battles on the surface, you engage in typical role-playing battles with heroes underground. Dragonshard is set in the D&D universe of Eberron. It’s a rather dark world where magical technology is widespread. The new Steam version will be released in August.
The Temple of Elemental Evil
The Temple of Elemental Evil is based on one of the greatest classics among D&D adventures.
The original was actually released in 1985 and was one of the founders of the so-called megadungeons. This classic adventure was translated into the then current 3.5 version of Dungeons & Dragons in 2003 by the development studio Troika Games (which later developed Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines) and was very faithful to the original. The result is a faithful D&D experience with a large dungeon, lots of decisions, tricky turn-based combat, and an authentic old-school feel.
Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone
Demon Stone is a little more action-packed. This action role-playing game allows you to directly control three heroes from a classic role-playing group who have unleashed a great threat upon the world and must now make amends for their mistake.
Throughout the cinematic story, you can switch between the three characters at any time and take on hordes of enemies as a warrior, mage, or rogue. The game is set in Faerûn, so it takes place in the same universe as Baldur’s Gate. The new version will be available on Steam in August. If you visit the Steam page of the publisher SNEG, you will discover many classic games, including many Dungeons & Dragons games. In addition to the three mentioned above, you will also find a few really old games. For example, the strategy game D&D – Stronghold: Kingdom Simulator or the D&D Classics Collection with tons of classics.