u/Ruriah

After spending more than 70 hours playing the original Neverwinter Nights campaign, I finally finished the first expansion, Shadows of Undrentide, in around 32 hours… and honestly? The game improves in almost every possible way.

Compared to the original campaign, this expansion is a thousand times more engaging. The companions actually feel alive now. They comment on locations, enemies, and even on things you do during the adventure. Sometimes they randomly start conversations with you, talk about their motivations, their past, and their personal goals… something I really missed in the original campaign, where companions felt way more bland and lifeless.

And something that might sound small or meaningless to some people, but for me made a HUGE difference in immersion: the animations. Shadows of Undrentide adds many small animations that make the game feel much more alive. There are animations when you get hit hard and fall to the ground, when you receive a curse and kneel down, when you pray inside temples… tiny details that most people might ignore, but if you enjoy immersive and slightly “gruesome” RPG details, you notice them immediately. The game feels far more cinematic compared to the original campaign.

Another thing: this expansion is WAY harder. I played on Normal, but I’m not gonna lie… there were moments where I had to switch to Easy just to get through certain sections, then switched back to Normal later. Compared to the original campaign, combat here punishes you much more.

I started from scratch specifically to experiment with multiclass builds, and it ended up being one of the best decisions I made. I played as a Bard / Red Dragon Disciple / Pale Master mix, and it was insanely fun.

The puzzles also surprised me. They sit in that perfect middle ground: not so easy that they become automatic, but not frustratingly difficult either.

The side quests are also much better than the ones in the original campaign. Even though many of them still follow the classic “go get this item and come back” structure, most of them actually have some kind of story, context, or motivation behind them. They don’t feel like meaningless filler quests. That made me way more interested in completing every side quest I could find.

Another thing I loved was the equipment variety. In the original campaign, it often felt like loot was basically the same armor over and over again, just with different numbers attached to it like +1, +2, +3. In Shadows of Undrentide, there’s much more variety in gear and equipment overall, making loot feel far more rewarding and interesting to discover.

Even the choice system feels more impactful here. You don’t always notice the consequences immediately during the chapters, but near the ending you can definitely feel that your decisions mattered more, and I really liked that.

The characters overall are far more charismatic. Even the protagonist feels like they have a bit more personality this time around, even if they still follow that classic “badass hero” archetype.

And the villain… honestly, she’s so much better than the villain from the original campaign. She has actual motivations, personality, and you clearly understand why she does what she does. She’s not evil just for the sake of being evil.

In the end, Shadows of Undrentide feels like what the original Neverwinter Nights campaign should have been from the very beginning.

Has anyone else had a really divisive experience with Neverwinter Nights? I’m already over 70 hours into the original campaign and wanted to share some thoughts.

I first got introduced to D&D through the old cartoon that used to air on TV when I was younger. Ever since then, I always had this little spark of curiosity about diving deeper into the Forgotten Realms universe. I considered starting with Baldur’s Gate, Planescape, or Icewind Dale, but ended up choosing Neverwinter Nights purely out of nostalgia, since I spent around 4 years of my teenage years playing Neverwinter Online.

So I decided to begin my journey with Neverwinter Nights.

Guys… I’m currently near the end of Chapter 3 finishing side quests, and honestly, the experience has been both good and strange at the same time. You can clearly see some ideas BioWare would later carry into Dragon Age. I honestly think when I eventually play Neverwinter Nights 2, that inspiration will become even more obvious.

But if I’m being honest, I think the game feels pretty weak in some aspects. A lot of the dialogue has this MMORPG vibe of “do this and receive your reward.” I don’t really feel much depth in the interactions between characters, nor a strong personal storyline for companions. Everything feels rushed. The companions themselves don’t have especially compelling development, and even considering the game’s age, the relationship system feels pretty limited.

On the other hand, the gameplay genuinely surprised me. I was impressed by the huge variety of enemies, spells, mechanics, classes, and build possibilities. I think that’s easily the game’s biggest strength. It really does feel like you’re playing something very close to an actual D&D campaign in terms of mechanical freedom.

Now… the villains and the main story so far have felt pretty cliché to me, sometimes even weak. There were moments where I genuinely wanted to take a break because the game started feeling repetitive. In some sections I even found myself skipping dialogue just to move the campaign forward faster.

Even so, weirdly enough, I still find the experience rewarding overall. It’s one of those games where I complain a lot while playing, but still keep wanting to come back to it. And honestly, I can’t wait to finish the original campaign and finally jump into the expansions/DLCs, because I’ve heard from a lot of people that they’re much better than the OC.

I think I accidentally messed something up and got stuck in a quest.

I’m in the “Werewolf Hunter” mission, at the part where I fight Karathis. Right after the fight, I started a dialogue with him, but I had saved the game by pressing “G” on the keyboard without realizing.

After I saved Karathis and turned him back into a human, I went to open one of the chests and got instantly killed. The problem is: when I reload my last save, I appear right in front of Karathis — already human, but dead.

On top of that, the journal didn’t update, so I think I might have bugged the quest.

Is there any way to fix this? Can I revive him somehow?