One of my favorite D&D videogames is still getting beefy updates after 21 years

pcgamer.com:

Ever since talking to prolific Neverwinter Nights module builder Luke Scull, I've been on a Neverwinter Nights kick, working through some of the huge backlog of high-quality user-made campaigns for Bioware's 2002 RPG. While playing Swordflight, a standout hardcore, ambitious mod, I logged in one day to notice new UI elements, graphics options, and quality-of-life changes, stuff that just wasn't there before. Surely Beamdog isn't still updating its 2018 Enhanced Edition re-release, right?

As reported by Gaming on Linux, that's exactly what's happened. Beamdog's patch summary characterizes the update as «a year-long love effort» by community developers clippy, Daz, Jasperre, Llareth, niv, Soren, tinygiant, and virusman, packaged by the company into an official update for the game. The full patch notes are honestly too extensive to repost in full here, and can be found on Beamdog's official website.

The first things I noticed were changes to how damage numbers are displayed to make them easier to parse, as well as area of effect indicators for where your spells will land—particularly helpful on max difficulty where friendly fire is turned on. The AoE indicator is a small thing, but a huge improvement to the game's playability, especially if you're used to newer CRPGs that more clearly display information like Divinity Original Sin 2 or Dragon Age.

I was very surprised by the new «Toon» shader that was added as well—this creates a thick, comic book-like border around most in-game models that's somewhat reminiscent of the Borderlands games. I wasn't expecting much—Beamdog previously put out a high resolution texture and model pack that, while a fun addition, tanks the game's performance even on modern hardware and never quite