BioWare’s
Dungeons & Dragons Masterpiece Is Complete
Edmonton,
Alberta, Canada – June 11, 2002 – Infogrames, Inc. (Nasdaq: IFGM), a
leading global publisher of interactive entertainment software, today
announced that the long awaited and highly anticipated epic, Neverwinter
Nights™, has completed development and will ship to retail stores
under the Company’s Atari label before the end of June. The most complete
software adaptation of the classic pen-and-paper Dungeons & Dragons®
role-playing game ever, Neverwinter Nights is the latest
game from BioWare Corp., creators of the 4 million selling Baldur’s
Gate series.
"Finally,
PC gamers the world over can breathe – their dream computer game is
complete and only days away from their PCs," said Jean-Philippe Agati,
senior vice president and general manager of Infogrames’ Los Angeles
studio. "Neverwinter Nights has lived up to all of its
promises – engaging and exciting single player campaign, a groundbreaking
multiplayer component, never-before-seen user editing abilities and,
for the first time ever, a true translation of the D&D® ‘Dungeon
Master’ to electronic entertainment."
Neverwinter
Nights redefines the electronic role-playing game genre using
the fully-3D BioWare Aurora Engine and the Third Edition of the
Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) core rulebook, published by
Wizards of the Coast, Inc. The game contains an amazing 60-100 hour
single player campaign that is also playable in multiplayer mode. More
than just a game, Neverwinter Nights breaks new ground
as the first complete role-playing system for the computer platform,
allowing its players to step into the shoes of the Dungeon Master to
tell their own stories and create their own adventures in the spirit
of the exciting pen and paper original.
"We’re
very proud of the hard work every member of our development team has
put into Neverwinter Nights over the last five years,"
said Greg Zeschuk, Joint CEO of BioWare Corp. and Co-Executive Producer
of Neverwinter Nights. "When we started developing Neverwinter
Nights, we realized that technology would reach the point where
we could actually have a 3rd Edition Dungeons & Dragons computer
game that brought the best social elements of traditional kitchen-table
pen-and-paper role-playing to people all over the world through their
computer and the Internet. We’re very fortunate to be able to do this."
"Neverwinter
Nights was designed to be everything anybody could ever want
in a D&D™ role-playing game," said Ray Muzyka, Joint CEO of BioWare
Corp and Co-Executive Producer of Neverwinter Nights.
"The development team – a group of exceptionally creative, smart people
- has done an amazing job: Neverwinter Nights has an incredibly
engaging 60-100 hour official campaign, playable in either single-player
or in multiplayer mode. Everything in the campaign has been built with
the same BioWare Aurora Neverwinter Toolset that is also bundled with
the game. We’ve enabled gamers to join their friends online and play
through adventure modules created by fans and Neverwinter Nights
community members, together with a dungeon master if they so choose!
The game looks amazing – the BioWare Aurora Engine is capable of some
amazing graphical effects. Overall, we just can’t wait to see what the
Neverwinter Nights community comes up with when they’ve
got the game and its powerful tools in their hands!"
The PC
version of Neverwinter Nights will ship to retailers before
the end of June. Linux gamers can anticipate the online release of the
Neverwinter Nights server at launch and the client program
shortly afterward. Linux gamers will still need the Windows version
of the game to register at the Neverwinter Nights community
site (http://neverwinternights.com)
and to import essential game resources into their Linux server and game.
Ed. note:
The rest was boring legal info, so it's not listed here.
