The History of BioWare
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With that brief diversion into console action out of the way BioWare snuggled back into the snug embrace of AD&D for another few years, with the altogether inevitable (and wonderfully unpronounceable) Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn dropping stone cold science in late 2000. Fans were chuffed to be able to import their existing characters into this new adventure, and were rewarded with a game of even greater scope. While other RPGs had already set off down the path of relentless hackandslash (yes, Diablo, we're looking at you) Baldur's Gate continued to offer more interesting ways of interacting with the game-world than merely slicing everything into ribbons. Different character classes could conquer and then maintain the various strongholds within the game, while the plot shifted according to the alliances you forged with NPC characters. It was, unsurprisingly, smothered with love and kisses from PC gamers and critics alike and still remains lodged in the upper reaches of every list of the Best Games Ever that matters.
Obviously, by this time the name BioWare had become synonymous with quality hand-stitched RPG entertainment, but the sheltering umbrella of Interplay had buckled and snapped under financial duress. Our plucky band of dice-rolling heroes took shelter under the wing of Infogrames, which is what Atari was called before Infogrames bought the real Atari and realised Atari was a better name than Infogrames. Got that? Good.
Neverwinter Nights was their first project for their new paymasters, released in 2002, and it once again found them knee deep in the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons rulebook (3rd Edition this time, fact fans). A part remake/part sequel to the original Neverwinter Nights, the first ever graphical MMORPG which ran on AOL from 1991 to 1997, this new project required even greater feats of graphical trickery, and so the Infinity Engine was packed into mothballs in favour of the Aurora Engine, which didn't sound as cool but looked loads nicer so that's OK.
