Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition Review

Slinging spells, sneaking around, and bashing monsters is always a good time, and one of the best games to do it back in 2006 was Neverwinter Nights 2, Obsidian Entertainment’s follow-up to BioWare’s original title. Now, 19 years later, Aspyr, the same group that worked on the Knights of the Old Republic HD remasters from several years back, is trying their hand in the Forgotten Realms with a brand new Enhanced Edition release for Neverwinter Nights 2. Spending some time with this updated version, I am comfortable saying that this release certainly has its issues, but it offers enough to make it worth checking out … if you don’t already own the game, that is.

Neverwinter Nights 2 adopts the 3.5 Dungeons & Dragons ruleset, and will feel familiar if you have played any of the Pathfinder CRPG games from recent years, since Pathfinder was created to mimic the 3.5 system. Despite the “2” in the title, the story isn’t connected to the events from the first Neverwinter Nights and can be enjoyed perfectly well with no prior experience with the series. Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition comes complete with the base game and its three main expansions previously included in the Complete Edition of the game - Mask of the Betrayer, Storm of Zehir, and Mysteries of Westgate. They provide that classic heroic fantasy goodness that Dungeons & Dragons is known for, and the stories and characters are just as memorable as they were back in 2006. 

This package offers plenty of games to enjoy. If you own the GoG version of NWN2 Complete, you can also load your saves in this version. However, please note that games saved in Enhanced Edition cannot be loaded back into the older Complete Edition. I was even able to get some fan modules and campaigns running with no issue in this new release, and while I can’t say that every single one will work straight away, it is promising to see. I encountered some issues with the PRC mod, which adds new classes and more to the game, causing it to freeze and crash. However, the fan campaigns I tried ran without any issues.

Like I mentioned at the start, Aspyr’s release isn’t the most polished, having encountered various bugs and issues during my time with it. The first issue appeared moments after starting the game, which is always a foreboding sign. One of the options during creation is choosing your character’s voice, mind you in this game that only really equates to various quips and grunts during gameplay, but the options didn’t line up with the selection. Instead, the options somehow got shifted by one, so you were actually listening to the previous selection, and one of the early choices was just duplicated. Far from a game-breaking issue, to be fair, but it just set the whole game off on an awkward footing.

So many of these small little missteps kept popping up - the game missing hit sound effects during combat, the inability to turn your character if you are moving forward on keyboard, selectable items that aren't there, weird graphical issues on some textures, and the camera being overly sensitive when using a mouse (even after toning it down in the menus) all hit me within the first five minutes of the game. None of these issues are present in the GoG version of the Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete Edition, which I confirmed by loading up that version and double-checking. None of these problems ruin the game, but finding them all upfront was frustrating, and then having to accept them was like accepting that you couldn’t swat the annoying mosquitoes buzzing around you during an outdoor BBQ.

Being an “Enhanced Edition”, Aspyr has checked the bare-minimum boxes of “increased resolution textures” and “improved UI” that players have come to expect from these sorts of things, but with middling results. While technically the resolutions have been improved, outside of zooming in on armor details like chainmail, I really couldn’t tell much of a difference between this version and the Complete Edition. When it comes to the UI, the menus, specifically, while they have been redone, they are a big step backward. All of the menu’s charm and aesthetics from the original release have been washed away and replaced with a generic screen with white text. Sure, it’s easier to read on modern resolution monitors, but did we really have to lose the stylized menu boxes? This sterilization hits you the moment you start up the game, the epic music track, background art, and icons all removed and replaced with an artwork of a skeleton knight, white text, and music that you can barely hear. 

This version does offer two significant additions, which are the main reasons to pick up the Enhanced Edition. This release lets players experience Neverwinter Nights 2 using a controller, alongside a surprisingly smooth controller-tailored UI and menu system. Even though I have only ever played this game using standard mouse and keyboard, I was really impressed with how relatively painless Aspyr has managed to make navigating menus with a controller, minus the times when the “confirm” action could be any one of three different face buttons. I had the chance to play this new edition both on PC and PS5, and playing with a controller reminded me of playing other RPGs of the era that released around the mid-to-late 2000s, like KotOR2, and the swap between mouse and keyboard or the controller on PC was seamless and effortless, as connecting a controller and hitting a button.

Aspyr demonstrated a willingness to invest some effort in this release, making it more accessible to modern audiences through native controller support and a UI optimized for single-handed navigation. However, they failed to take this effort any further. This would have been a perfect opportunity to add in little tweaks like an option to speed up gameplay with a fast-forward button, or even making it so you could toggle on and off the view that highlights interactable items instead of only the press-and-hold approach. I’d be more forgiving and willing to brush off those annoyances I mentioned earlier if other subtle QoL improvements like these made the act of playing this game better, but no such luck.

We now get to the most incentivizing reason to pick up Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition: multiplayer. While this feature was originally available in original releases of the game (and can be modded back in thanks to fans), the GoG version of Neverwinter Nights 2 Complete - and previously the only other still official avenue to play the game - no longer functions. If you and your Baldur’s Gate 3 crew wanted to venture forth through another CRPG classic, then thanks to Aspyr, now you can again with the Enhanced Edition. The multiplayer functionality comes complete with various advanced settings to limit player levels and other options to mess around with. It even has crossplay multiplayer, so regardless of what platform you own this on, you can play together, and the process is easy and quick, only requiring you to be in the same region as your friends. 

If you're looking to try out Neverwinter Nights 2 for the first time, you should ask yourself two questions first: Do you intend to play this game with friends, and is playing the game with a controller or on a console in general important to you? If you answered yes to either of these, then the Enhanced Edition is 100% the way to go. If, on the other hand, neither of those things is really of interest, then save yourself $10 and get the GoG Complete Edition. Neverwinter Nights 2 remains an engaging and stat-rich CRPG that fans of the genre should try if they haven't already. The bones of the game are still solid, despite feeling and looking dated, but unless you really want controller support or multiplayer right out of the box, you can avoid them altogether with that version instead.

So, where does that leave Neverwinter Nights 2 Enhanced Edition? While the multiplayer is nice to have back, and the controller support is solid overall, I was otherwise left uninspired. I will always appreciate games becoming easier for new people to experience or getting a console port, but between the harmless-but-still-annoying bugs, the bland menus, and the lack of meaningful quality-of-life updates, I don’t feel like this release lives up to the “enhanced” moniker it's given itself. The package feels like a missed opportunity. Enhanced Edition is okay. It didn’t crash on me (I’m not faulting this game for crashing due to a mod that wasn’t designed for it), so that’s always good, but that’s a pretty low standard to hold. If you want to play Neverwinter Nights 2 with your friends without installing a mod, or on a console/with a controller, sure, pick up the Enhanced Edition. If not, then there is really no reason to buy this version over the Complete Edition that is readily available and at a lower price.