Neverwinter is celebrating ten years in operation, releasing on PC back in 2013, with console versions coming a few years later. The MMO from Cryptic Studios has seen multiple new modules released, fleshing out the world of the Forgotten Realms in one of the most fully realized digital versions of the realm.
Ten years is a long time in operation in any gaming medium, especially MMORPGs where games seemingly come and go pretty often. Cryptic Studios has a knack for building games that last, from Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and of course, Neverwinter. Much of that longevity can be attributed to the talented dev team behind each game, building new content players are interested in and that will keep them around.
However, as Senior System Designer Robert Gutschera, who also worked on tabletop games at D&D creator Wizards of the Coast before coming to Neverwinter, told me in an interview last week, the playground of the Forgotten Realms does play a factor here.
"Having Dungeons and Dragons as your subject matter is awesome," Gutschera said when asked about the MMOs longevity. "Every new module there is something for us to explore. It's a rich world and there are a lot of people who are interested in it."
Intriguing Beginnings
Even though Neverwinter was released ten years ago, obviously development on the MMO and the engine that powers it started well before that. Game Creative Director Randy Mosiondz has been at Cryptic for 18 years now, working on City of Heroes, Champions Online and eventually on Neverwinter. Interestingly enough, Neverwinter went through some pretty big iterations leading up to the MMO we all know now - most specifically the decision to make it more narrative-focused or to create the action RPG players have taken to since launch.
Mosiondz mentions that when the team set out to build Neverwinter, there was a lot of "enthusiasm" for building a game with the D&D license.
When Neverwinter was in development, it was an age of World of Warcraft clones, where every MMO came out trying to capture that made WoW so special, and in effect, try to be the WoW-killer. Obviously, World of Warcraft is celebrating nineteen years so those WoW-killers worked out, but Neverwinter sought to go in its own direction.
"There was a lot of enthusiasm for the license, but we wanted to do something that was not just another MMO," Monsiondz says. "When it was first coming out, a lot of the preceding MMOs were more of your typical tab-targeting system, where you just cycle through [enemies] and you have hotbars full of different powers. And we said, 'Okay, do we really want to do this again?'"
As such, the team was prototyping various different styles of MMO, one of which was a game with much more of a narrative focus versus the action focus Neverwinter has today. Narrative is one of the defining features of the Dungeons and Dragons experience, where in a tabletop setting that narrative is what draws people into a game. So it would have made sense if the team built Neverwinter to chiefly reflect this truth.
"We had tried more of a narrative focus where all of the party members could vote on decisions," Randy says. "Decisions like votes on replies to answers, things like that."
Effectively Mosiondz describes an experience where players could vote on how the narrative unfolds in front of them as a group. However, internal feedback from devs, closed betas and more showed that this could have the unintended effect of bogging the MMO down in practice.
Randy describes a situation where a party would be divided on how the narrative choice should go, with some in the party just wanting to push forward while others are unsure of how they want to role-play the situation. Even introducing a timer didn't quite work things out, as those who would take their time still wouldn't go fast enough for those wanting to just plow on. In a sense, people really wanted to get back to the action combat in the MMO, and this was a massive pacing hurdle.
"It kind of really puts a stall on the game," Randy concluded.
The shift from a narrative focus to the action combat that the team was developing in the Cryptic Engine was also a risk, as there just weren't that many action combat MMOs on the market in 2013. Nowadays they are ubiquitous in the genre, with games like Black Desert, New World, and the upcoming anime MMO Blue Protocol all just a small sampling of this system in practice. But back in 2013, Neverwinter was only one of a handful utilizing this, and it was something that players just latched onto.
"We decided to step away from the more narrative-focused game and more into the action combat focus because the people who are in it for the action don't necessarily want to sit through long dialogues where they are waiting for other people to make their choice and response to stuff," Randy concluded.
Once the MMO dropped on PC as a free-to-play MMORPG, it launched with quite a few zones to start with. Our initial review done by our very own Suzie Ford back in 2013 called the combat "one of the shining gems in the entire genre." Clearly the dev team made the right decision to focus on the action, though they didn't neglect the narrative.
Neverwinter still tells plenty of stories, with the ability for those players to dive further with complicated dialogue trees for each character should they choose the explore the story more. So while parties won't be voting on responses, the narrative is still very much alive in Cryptic's Sword Coast.
Building a community
The PC launch did great numbers, but the plan all along was to also release Neverwinter on console, according to Randy. This is where, in his words, the MMO went "gangbusters."
"Getting that in the PC launch was great, and we had a lot of great responses, and we had lots of zones to play through at the start. And we kept on developing from there. From the start, we also decided to build it for console because we knew eventually we would want to get it onto console. So we put some deliberate restrictions on the amount of extra powers that we would add so we could eventually make that transition.
"So eventually it came time to do that console transition, and we did that, and it went gangbusters. Like, everyone on Xbox and PlayStation just loved it."
It's actually where I got my start playing Neverwinter back in the day, on my Xbox One. I had heard about the MMO from a friend and just jumped in headfirst on Xbox One, creating the first digital incarnation of the Drow Elf Rogue Eld.
This initial influx of players helped to build a community that still thrives to this day. Whenever I log into the MMO, whether it be on PC or my console, Protector's Enclave is always bustling. Ten years on the MMO just doesn't feel like it's showing any signs of slowing down, either.
Randy even mentions a situation that happened last week where he was on a stream and some of the people were talking about being in the MMO for ten years with their guild.
"I think that's a big part of its strength, the people who have invested saying, 'I love the world of Neverwinter, I want to invest time with my friends and build that community.'"
Recreating Forgotten Realms
As mentioned before, the Forgotten Realms setting helps a lot. It's a world that is so well fleshed out by Wizards of the Coast and the authors who have helped to bring it to life, that for many (including myself), it's the default world in D&D.
"It's a rich world," Robert Gutschera says. "There are a lot of people who are interested in it, and so it's always sort of in the public eye, at least a little bit."
An example of this he gives is the recent (and excellent) Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves movie, which is also set in the Forgotten Realms. We've seen it portrayed in other D&D games, from Neverwinter Nights to Baldur's Gate and everything inbetween.
Likely the biggest influence on many gamers who are fans of the realm might be the book series by R.A. Salvatore, who has contributed story beats to Neverwinter multiple times, most recently with its Menzoberranzan module. And despite ten years working in the Forgotten Realms, there are still gaps (seriously devs, Waterdeep when?).
"There are always places to go, right?" Gutschera mentions. "One example, Drizzt is a very popular character in Dungeons and Dragons, he's been in the game for a long time. But only recently were we finally able to actually go to Menzoberranzan and create this whole environment for players to explore and introduce a lot of the characters that are not as well known as Drizzt, but sort of fill his background and fill out the history of the Drow.
"We have a bunch more, right? There are a bunch of places in the Forgotten Realms that would be great to visit, and there's never a shortage of stuff that's both fun and interesting for us to do."
Randy credits Cryptic obtaining the Forgotten Realms license as a boon as it allowed the team to recreate more of this fully realized world in video games beyond what we've already seen, and get players invested in it over time, especially those D&D fans who want more Forgotten Realms, but might not have a tabletop game to turn to.
"Getting [the license] was a real boon because I think there were a lot of people who like Forgotten Realms in all types of media. So they played the different Baldur's Gate games [and] they just want more. You know, sometimes it's just hard to get a tabletop game together. I think we've all experienced that, right? But with a video game, especially an online video game, you have that instant connection with the characters of the Realms, right? Our Neverwinter provides a world that you can get invested in."
A shifting landscape
Investments into the engine, whether it's on Star Trek Online or Neverwinter, and even projects under the hood help to shape some of the systems in Neverwinter even today. Randy gives an example of a system built out of Star Trek Online that is used to build out a guild's starship-building project that actually sees life in Neverwinter as the Strongholds feature. According to Robert, having an in-house engine helps to build things and deploy changes quickly. Like the systems mentioned above, every Cryptic game adds to it, bringing even more tools for developers to play with and use in their games in the future.
Neverwinter itself has also changed somewhat what Cryptic as a studio wants to do with some of its projects, according to Mosiondz. Neverwinter's success, especially its action combat during a time when tab targeting MMOs were still all the rage, helped to remind the Cryptic team that experimentation does lead somewhere. Even if a project isn't itself viable, elements of it can be, and this is where the Cryptic team feels Neverwinter has changed the studio's approach.
The other aspect is that gamers today just want different experiences than gamers did ten years ago, and with all of these considerations, Cryptic has to be flexible.
"That's part of the evolution of the industry, and we've adapted for the industry."
A Look Back And Look Ahead
So where does Cryptic go from here, and how have ten years changed the studio into the next decade of Neverwinter? With so much still to uncover in the Forgotten Realms (and Neverwinter has also taken players to other planes, such as a descent into Avernus, for example), what does the next ten years look like for the team?
For starters, Mosiondz sees a shift in when a game is being developed and when it's in the wild being played, effectively that the game isn't just Cryptic's product anymore.
"Once you launch a product, it's not just your product anymore, it's yours and the community's," Mosiondz says. So a lot of that is seeing how they respond to different elements and adapting your game to what kind of fits what people are asking for."
With a game like Neverwinter in the wild, the team is constantly shifting focus to develop based on player needs and wants, such as refining the ease of access to information in the game right down to the number of steps it might take to beat a boss in the game. Robert's mention of having an engine helps to bring changes quickly within the studio likely helps, as it makes Cryptic a more nimble development team as a result.
But the team still has favorites with the modules they've developed in the past. Randy mentions Barovia, the Ravenloft module, as a favorite.
"So working on that was a lot of fun, because that was one of the few zones where we actually have a day and night cycle. It was just so thematic.
"I think we got across a good story, we just follow the Strahd storyline, the immortal love, and just ended up making some creepy stories along the game. It was a lot of fun, I would think it was the most fun I've had."
Randy even teases that the team could do those types of thematic elements again, especially now that the investment in the tools needed to do so has been done before.
Robert himself looks back fondly on the different regions the team has added to the game, with Menzoberranzan being the highlight of the things he's worked on.
"Partly because it does harken back," Robert says. "It always felt like it was missing. We've done so many other places in the Underdark. It is so important for Drizzt, who is probably the single most popular D&D character. So it's great to fill that out some more.
Cities, according to Gutschera, are notoriously hard to build in-game, as Menzo was no different.
"As a game designer, city locations are hard to do as fun place to explore. Because on one hand, the city is like a civilized place to some extent. But it's a game, and so there's some amount of fighting or challenge or something. And because it's a Drow city, that kind of provides both aspects, both civilized and dangerous. And I think the environment team and the content team really nailed it and gave this area that feels distinct."
Looking ahead, both developers were in agreement as to what they would love to see moving into Neverwinter's future: more regions of the Forgotten Realms. And while the team wouldn't share what was coming next, I made to drop a hint about bringing the City of Splendors to the MMO. I mean, Waterdeep Dragon Heist and the Yawning Portal could bring such content for the team to build upon, and give players yet more reasons to explore Cryptic's version of the Forgotten Realms.
I just really want to see Waterdeep, you guys. Here's to hoping we see it in the next decade!
