Icewind Dale II

Icewind Dale II followed up on the successful first game with an updated set of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition rules, built on the Infinity Engine, which at the time also powered titles like Baldur's Gate and Planescape: Torment. Unlike Black Isle Studios' more story-rich games, the Icewind Dale series focused primarily on tactical combat and exploring the icy region around Icewind Dale, where the player's party of up to six characters — built entirely from scratch with no pre-made companions — sets out to face a goblin invasion and a darker conspiracy lurking behind it.

The updated ruleset brought expanded character-creation options, more classes, subraces like Aasimar or Half-Orc, and prestige classes available only after meeting certain conditions, pushing the game closer to a more tactical RPG that emphasizes assembling an effective party rather than branching dialogue and choices with moral weight. On PC, the game demanded fairly solid hardware at the time to run its isometric visuals smoothly, with plenty of effects and units fighting simultaneously in large-scale battles, which was technically demanding for its era and made the game one of the more difficult representatives of the genre.

Icewind Dale II is today valued mainly by players seeking purely tactical combat and a deep knowledge of D&D rules rather than those expecting a story as elaborate as Baldur's Gate. It represents one of the last major titles built on the Infinity Engine, after whose release Black Isle Studios ran into trouble with publisher Interplay, closing out an era of classic isometric RPGs at the turn of the millennium before the genre briefly gave way to more action-focused games and was revived a decade later by titles like Baldur's Gate 3. The Enhanced Edition, later released by Beamdog alongside other remastered Infinity Engine titles, let the game run smoothly on modern operating systems and brought minor interface improvements.

Why play it: Fans of purely tactical combat and D&D rules, rather than those looking for a story on the level of Baldur's Gate, will enjoy one of the last titles built on the Infinity Engine, still playable today thanks to the Enhanced Edition.