EYE OF THE BEHOLDER

Go back to the future of D&D with a 2005 remake of a 1990 classic.

-  By Justin Wagner

Back when the idea of approximating Dungeons & Dragons—gasp—on a computer was a lofty ambition, Westwood ruled the roost with RPGs like Hillsfar and Eye of the Beholder. There's no denying the blobber style of dungeon crawler is showing its age, what with its grid-based sword flailing and UI that swallows two thirds of the screen. And while modern releases of those Gold Box classics have done some heavy lifting to modernize the old formula, it might be an easier sell if it were truly brought into the 21st century. That's right; I'm talking about the bleeding-edge, breakthrough year of 2002, when Neverwinter Nights took us boldly into the 3rd edition of Dungeons & Dragons with an endlessly moddable framework to boot.

That framework paved the way for mod author Rick Francis to fully remake Eye of the Beholder in Neverwinter Nights' level editor, a project that was first submitted to community forums in 2005 and continued to receive updates for 15 years. It was so popular that it was absorbed directly into Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition, reigning as one of the game's most played and highest-rated mods on fan forums like The Neverwinter Vault for two decades. Solely as a recreation of Eye of the Beholder, though, it's an interesting beast—and worth a visit for fans of classic pen-and-paper roleplay or Baldur’s Gate III just the same.

OLD BUT GOLD

Right off the bat,