Following the tradition of naming the games after the location where they take place (ignore Baldur’s Gate II), Icewind Dale takes place in Icewind Dale, [a harsh, frozen tundra in the north of Faerun nestled against the mountains known as the Spine of the World, where the only traces of civilization are a group of ten towns known as (wait for it) the Ten Towns. The party begins in the village of Easthaven, where they learn of an expedition that it setting out shortly to help Kuldahar, which has been facing troubles. The party joins the expedition, but an avalanche takes out the entire group except (as fate would have it) your party. Kuldahar developed around a giant tree known as the Great Oak, which provides cover and magical warmth, but the party learns that that warmth has recently been fading, monster attacks have been increasing, and all routes to and from Kuldahar have been blocked. In other words, they’re trapped here until they can figure out and solve what’s going wrong.
This begins a quest that is basically just a linear series of dungeon crawls, with Kuldahar as a main base. The plot is about as straightforward as you’d expect, but the backstory to the region is actually a bit interesting and fun to piece together. Still, it’s just not as engaging as Baldur’s Gate or Planescape: Torment. One big issue is the fact that you create your entire party in Icewind Dale. In Baldur’s Gate the only custom character was Gorion’s Ward, and your other companions were pregenerated characters with their own stories, personalities, and quests, while Planescape: Torment has no custom characters. Seeing your companions react to events that happened, and delving deeper into your companions’ backstories and problems, made it seem like they were invested in your quest and made you invested in theirs.
But you can’t have that with a fully custom party like Icewind Dale. You can select options in dialogue trees, which does force a voice upon your party face, but otherwise you’re just a group of dolls trudging from one objective to the next. The characters do have voice packs, but they’re all generic and don’t provide any cohesion.
So you’re left with the combat and dungeon crawls. Which aren’t bad but, as I described in my Baldur’s Gate review, a mini-RTS is far removed from the collaborative and tactical pen-and-paper combat experience. (I won’t go into the details of the combat system again—there are only so many words a man can write about thac0 before going mad.)
Just like Planescape: Torment is focused on story and stuck plot, characterization, and foreshadowing in every corner of its world, Icewind Dale is focused on combat, and places enemies in every nook and cranny of its dungeons. While there are some puzzles, most of the game will be spent encountering and fighting waves and waves of enemies. Icewind Dale begins at level 1, so I generally used my “throw my party at the enemies, and if that doesn’t work reload, pre-buff, and throw my part at the enemies” strategy.
This game did have one major mechanical improvement from the previous ones: your party members display little icons over their character portraits showing their current action. In my Baldur’s Gate review I described how it was difficult to manage spellcasters because it was tough to tell what they were doing. With the icons, that’s resolved! When a spellcaster casts a spell, the spell icon appears over their portrait when they begin and disappears when they finish, so you can make sure they’re always doing something without inadvertently interrupting their spells. This also helps you see if a character stops acting in battle for whatever reason. (All that being said, I believe this change is actually a feature added in the Enhanced Edition rather than a change native to Icewind Dale, since I did in fact play the original Baldur’s Gates.)
Icewind Dale also has one (relatively minor) convolution to its gameplay: randomized loot. While all major loot drops in Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment were set, in Icewind Dale each loot drops instead has a table of about usually 3-5 possible items that can drop. Sometimes you can get an awesome unique piece of equipment, and sometimes you get a potion or random +1 item, but ultimately this feature doesn’t change much. The proficiency system means you’re limited in the types of equipment you’re going to be interested in (you have no use for halberds if no party member is proficient in halberds, for instance), and generally the most important aspect of an item is it enchantment level. So all you’re going to be looking for is equipment of the type your characters use of the highest enchantment level. If done well a randomized loot system would encourage multiple playthroughs by introducing variety, but here most loot drops won’t actually matter, so the effect is muted.
If you like the Infinity Engine games and want more adventures in them then Icewind Dale will provide that for you, but I think you can otherwise pass. It feels odd that Planescape: Torment delivered so strongly on story, and then Icewind Dale ran in the exact opposite direction. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to focus on combat and dungeon-crawling, except Icewind Dale changes basically nothing from Baldur’s Gate (whereas Planescape: Torment made massive strides in plot and characterization).
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