Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is an official expansion pack to the computer role-playing game Icewind Dale developed by Black Isle Studios. It introduced many changes and additions to the original game, and included an all-new campaign. A downloadable expansion pack to this add-on, titled Trials of the Luremaster, was released for free.

Features
Some notable changes include such things as the addition of several types of classic Dungeons & Dragons enemies that were missing from the original (including barrow wights), a much higher experience point cap, new magical items to find and purchase, a special "Heart of Fury" difficulty setting for increased enemy power and higher experience point-gain, and the ability to set the resolution higher than 640x480. The game is still based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset, but like Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn, it included several changes (such as new spell progression tables) from the 3rd edition ruleset.

In order to access the new campaign, the player must enter a previously locked door in the town of Kuldahar while possessing a party of level 9 characters or above, or he could import his party after the main campaign (at which point it is exported).

Plot
The player is greeted by a barbarian shaman, Hjollder, who reveals that he has visions of a great conflict and that the player's party is the key to stop it. Player journeys to Lonelywood, where he discovers that the great barbarian force is gathering nearby, threatening to destroy the Ten Towns. The force is led by Wylfdene, great barbarian warlord who has returned from the dead with the soul of Jerrod in his body, and is now eager to strike the Ten Towns in the name of Tempos.

The party journeys to the camp and meets Wylfdene himself, the back-from-the-dead barbarian chief. Hjollder believes that something is wrong with him, and is exiled from the barbarian camp. The party finds exiled Hjollder in the barbarian burial grounds, plagued by undead and spirits. Here, they discover that it is not Jerrod who resides within Wylfdene's resurrected body.

Now, the only way to discover the truth is to find the Seer, an old woman with vast mystic force. The party journeys to the Gloomfrost, where they find the Seer. She reveals that it's the soul of great white wyrm, Icasaracht, who inhabits the Wylfdene body and seeks to wage war.

After settling all their business in Lonelywood, the party returns to the barbarian camp, where the Seer herself approaches Wylfdene. She is killed by him, but is successful with exorcising the dragon spirit from his body. The last task of the player's party is to journey to the Sea of Moving Ice where Icasaracht's Citadel is located. There, they battle through her minions (including barbarians, trolls, sahuagins) and ultimately find the White Dragon Icasaracht herself. They kill her, but in order to destroy her soul, they also shattered the Soul Stone of Icasaracht, the very one that she intended to use to be immortal.

Features
Trials of the Luremaster is a free, downloadable expansion pack to Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter. It was released by Black Isle Studios due to criticism that, on its own, Heart of Winter was too short. It contains a large dungeon-like location with several new areas to explore, and a handful of new enemies to combat and items to find. It also acts as the game's final patch, fixing a number of bugs and bringing the game's version number up to v1.42.

Plot
The player meets a mysterious halfling, Hobart Stubbletoes, who introduces himself in the Whistling Gallows Inn in Lonelywood. He seeks a party of stalwart heroes for a quest to a place of great wonder, with treasures beyond the imagination. Should the party accept, they will be transported to a new place, far from the icy terrain of the Dalelands, finding themselves within the walls of a ruined castle in an unfamiliar land, the Anauroch desert. The Castle itself is a place where a mad spirit of a bard named Luremaster is constantly challenges adventurers with many traps and monsters. The only way out of the place is to defeat all monsters, avoid traps, find a good loot if possible, and defeat the Luremaster.

Reception
Although the game contained numerous changes that most felt were for the better, it was heavily criticised for the length of its campaign, which was much shorter than the original game's. Despite this, the game still achieved fairly positive reviews.