February 9 Livestream Recap

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition is coming to Steam!

Today’s livestream with Beamdog CEO Trent Oster and Studio Director Phillip Daigle revealed two big updates for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition - new character models and news about the NWN:EE beta on Steam! They also shared news about the open beta for the upcoming 2.5 patch for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition.

Missed the stream? It's on YouTube and Twitch!

Here's a quick summary of the highlights from the livestream:

• The 2.5 open beta for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is getting a continuation, this time with additional languages. BG:EE will get Hungarian, while BGII:EE will receive Polish, original Polish VO, Russian, original Italian VO, and original German VO. Other languages may be added to the 2.5 open beta, so stay tuned.
• A translation of Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear into Brazilian/Portuguese is nearly finished, we expect to release it with the full 2.5 patch.
• Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition will get a Czech localization (currently available only on Steam) on Beamdog, GOG and other platforms soon.

“Normals in action. Lighting looks much better than ever” ~ Phil

• Check out full patch notes for 8157 & 8158. 8157 brings regression fixes, while 8158 is all about neat stuff: Steam support, better support for Normal and Specular maps, and more.
• Last week we included support for Norm/Spec maps into NWN:EE. The talented Neverwinter Nights community immediately ran off with the new feature to start work on pretty crazy stuff. It’s still early days, but the difference Norm/Spec maps provides is exciting.
• Neverblender by Symmetric addedNorm/Spec maps and Symphony, showed us what is already being done with Normal and Specular maps in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition.

The community has been extremely busy this week. We can’t wait to see what they will come up with next.

“What is going on?!! New character models?!!” ~ Phil

• New character models are coming to Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition! Lady Aribeth de Tylmarande is leading the charge on the new look. We are planning to update character models in steps as we move forward. After NWN:EE is released, you will continue getting updates with new character models.

“Volume and bounds... Vorpal Sassoon... Bouncy volume colors are coming through” ~ Phil

• New character models for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will be available through the Steam workshop. It’s up to you to decide whether you want to use them or you prefer to play with original models.
• Once we push the beta for NWN:EE on Steam live, you will be able to populate the Workshop with your own creations.

Normal and Specular map testing on updated geometry are several clicks from the player.

• We have to finish the baseline before doing new content for Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition. We’re still skimming and plotting ideas for new content.
• Animations in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition work fine but we’d like to improve them.
• The NWN:EE toolset is one of the things we’ll look into. It’s a big project.

Familiar gameplay with the new look! When you use new models, everything works like it should.

• Throughout the coming week, we will be rolling out early invitations to the NWN:EE beta on Steam. If you hop over to our special Discord channel you will be able to request a Steam key. Invitations will be limited on a day-to-day basis. On Feb 16, we plan to email all Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition Head Start owners beta keys.
• Activating a Steam key doesn’t disable your Beamdog version. When the beta is over, beta Steam keys will deactivate and Head Start owners will be supplied full NWN:EE steam keys for all NWN:EE content purchased.
• The NWN:EE beta on Steam will support the Steam Friends List. It’s as easy to use as you could think: on your Steam overlay you choose the Friends List and invite a buddy into your game, without any port-forwarding on your router.

Excited for what’s next? Come and join the next livestream next Friday!