It was a big day in the Wolens household (which consists of me, Wolens) when Beamdog suddenly released a surprise 2.7 beta patch for its collection of enhanced Infinity Engine games. It wasn’t anything earthshaking—Apple Silicon support for those of us playing on our Macs, some additional languages and whatnot—but it was a nice surprise, 14 years after release, and the suggestion that Beamdog would continue to tinker in future was very welcome.
I recount all this to say: there’s never been a better time to play some of the greatest CRPGs ever made and, oh, whaddya know? Some of the greatest CRPGs ever made happen to be part of an ongoing RPG Humble Bundle.
It consists of, well, Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, the Enhanced Editions, and also a bunch of other rather well-regarded CRPG bangers. We’ve got two Pathfinders—Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, as well as Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader. We’ve got Neverwinter Nights 1 Enhanced. We’ve got Beamdog’s Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale, and MythForce, which does rather feel a bit tacked on considering its company of crunchy CRPGs but, hey, we’ll take it.
These are some of the best games ever made, if you ask me. BG1 and 2 need no introduction: they’re a swashbuckling romp through Faerûn that takes you from a puny level 1 dweeb to a roided-out god-killer doing battle with interplanar beings. They are fantastic, and hold a place in my heart no other game—not even the very good Baldur’s Gate 3—can ever really touch.
The same goes for Planescape, except the offering there is pretty much entirely narrative—the combat rarely feels like much more than filler. But is it still worth playing? Absolutely. It’s still one of the best stories ever told in videogames, and served as the inspiration for PC Gamer’s former top-100 reigning champ Disco Elysium.
I’ve not touched the rest, personally, but fellow PCG CRPG sicko Ted Litchfield is a stalwart fan of Neverwinter Nights and Wrath of the Righteous, while Icewind Dale also has its diehards. MythForce is, well, a bit of an outlier, like I said: it’s got a Mixed review score on Steam at time of writing. But hey, it has its fans, and we’ve enjoyed our time with it in the past.
$23 (£20) will net you the whole lot. It’s a good deal for enough CRPG stuff to last you the whole dang year.
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