14 DAY TRIAL // No longer a mystery to anyone, Atari's financial troubles eventually resulted in officially dropping support for Neverwinter Nights. It happened once Infinite Dungeons (the last of the professionally developed module) was released, a sad day considering the huge community support that Neverwinter Nights enjoyed, with its 4000 fan mods. Alas, hope dies last as the waiting was once again rewarded by Ossian Studios, with the release of the new lengthy single-player campaign Darkness over Daggerford. The small Vancouver based game studio brings another exciting 25-30 hours of adventuring in the Forgotten Realms, freely available for download at the Neverwinter Nights Vault.
Here's what Bioware learned from Ossian co-founder Alan Miranda: "The BioWare Premium Mod program was cancelled after Atari stopped giving approvals, and I think you could say that we were the ones who were totally surprised. It was at that point that we decided to keep quiet on our game and concentrate on completing it to the highest level of quality. It gave us a bit of breathing room that actually made the module better." Ossian must be a dedicated team indeed, since they released the mod for free, at the pricy standards of an official release.
Darkness over Daggerford presents itself as a classic Dungeons & Dragons adventure that takes place in the area surrounding Daggerford, the town which is located along the Sword Coast in between Waterdeep and Baldur's Gate. Storylines from all across the Bioware RPG franchises meet to this famous D&D location, south of where Hordes of the Underdark took place. The new world map system allows extended exploration of the Neverwinter Nights universe, complete with the good old random encounters RPG fans enjoyed in Baldur's Gate. Challenging quests await players through the freshly implemented stronghold, complementing the rich story line packed with more than 200,000 words of dialogue.