Icewind Dale/Icewind Dale II Interview
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GB: Was there ever any plans to develop an expansion pack for Icewind Dale II or even an Icewind Dale III before things took a turn for the worse at Interplay? Chris: After IWD2, Black Isle needed to get focused on finishing Dark Alliance 2 and FR6/Black Hound/Jefferson (whatever you want to call it) - both were to be completed within a year and both were ambitious. So while various ideas were bantered about concerning another Icewind, or even a new but similar dungeon-crawl style game, there was never any momentum for it. The Infinity Engine was showing its age and we were concerned that fans wouldn't appreciate another game like that without us bringing something new to the table.
And let's be honest here, we wanted to do something big and cool and amazing. It had been a few years since Torment, IWD, and BG had hit and we wanted to do that again.
GB: Was there any content you would have liked to see implemented into Icewind Dale, Heart of Winter, or Icewind Dale II that didn't make it into the game?
Chris: We did cut levels all over Icewind Dale, but I don't recall being especially remiss over any of that. I did a lot of pre-design on the Severed Hand, covering it's back story and layout, so even though I didn't do the actual design of the area, I was really quite fond of it. It suffered a few cuts, which were incorporated into the design, but I'd say those cuts were probably the ones I liked least.
GB: Are you pleased with how well the Icewind Dale games have sold and been received over the years? Are there any specific factors that you think helped or hindered their sales?
Chris: I've always been very proud of the Icewind Dale games. I thought that we made a very beautiful and very enjoyable game.
I'm pretty sure that releasing IWD the exact same day as Diablo II didn't really help our sales, but in the long run I doubt that really had much effect.
GB: How has game development changed between your time at Black Isle Studios and Obsidian Entertainment? Do you think a party-based isometric RPG similar to the Icewind Dale games would still be a viable pursuit in today's market?
Chris: Things are a lot different now than when we worked on Icewind. The team sizes are perhaps the biggest change. We had between 24 and 32 people on Icewind, which is approximately the size of the art team on one of our projects right now. To manage out larger teams today we need more leads - and since I'm a producer this just moves me farther and farther away from the day to day creation. For me personaly, this is a big loss because that's what I enjoy the most.
GB: Hypothetically speaking, if you were given the chance to work on another Icewind Dale title, where would you personally like to take the franchise?
Chris: I would be interested in making an Icewind game. I'm not sure I know exactly how I would approach it though. I know I would want to keep a few basic tenets in place: D&D, a wholly created party, big monsters, dungeon crawl type experience, interesting story, and beautiful inspiring graphics.
I think the big questions to answer (which I don't have an answer for) are how to handle the camera and how to handle combat. But those are solvable, imo, and I think that the core of the game is still viable.
Thanks Chris!
