Boxart of the first Icewind Dale
Icewind Dale is a sister game series to Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment, which was developed by Black Isle Studios.
Unlike Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale doesn't feature NPC companions, but instead the player builds their own party from scratch. Other than that there are only very minor differences in gameplay, such as spells and the like. It was released in June 2000 and also got an Enhanced Edition by Beamdog which was released on October 30, 2014.
Icewind Dale II was released on August 27, 2002. Unlike all other games in the family, it doesn't use Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition rules but instead Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. There was a discussion about Icewind Dale II: Enhanced Edition, but due to lost source code of the game, it proved too troublesome.[1]
Games[]
Over all there exist two main games in the series and one enhanced edition and two expansion packs for the first entry:
- Icewind Dale
- Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter
- Icewind Dale: Trials of the Luremaster
- Icewind Dale II
- Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition
Setting[]
Like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale takes place in the Forgotten Realms and centers around the eponymous Icewind Dale region, including Kuldahar, Easthaven, Dorn's Deep and more, which lie at the very northern end of the Sword Coast.
Cross-references with Baldur's Gate[]
In addition to general references regarding the shared setting, the games also share a number of game specific references between each other:
- In the first Icewind Dale Erevain Blacksheaf's journal, which can be found with his corpse in the Dragon's Eye in the first, reveals that Erevain is Xan's cousin.
- The collector's edition of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition feature a bonus merchant named Joluv, who sells Icewind Dale-themed weapons and gear.
- Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and especially Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear re-use a lot of assets from IWD.
- Belhifet is both the final boss in IWD and SoD.
- Hephernaan has the same character model as Poquelin.
- Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition is a port of the original IWD into a modified version of the BG2:EE engine.
- A series of scrolls by Alveus Malcanter, who is featured in a series of humorous promotional videos for IWD:EE, can be found throughout SoD.[2]
- Edwin also mentions him in SoD: "As Alveus Malcanter said, 'The wise general does not lead from the front of the army.' Think on it."
- In a promotional livestream by Beamdog Inc. for SoD in early 2016, Mark Meer played the game in his role as Alveus Malcanter.
External links[]
- Icewind Dale on the Icewind Dale Wiki, a wiki for the first Icewind Dale game.
- Icewind Dale on the Forgotten Realms Wiki, a wiki for the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Forgotten Realms.