I am not what you might consider a Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) fanatic. True, I have read a few of the novels, and like any Fantasy genre fan I naturally recognize and acknowledge D&D’s place in the galactic balance, so to speak. I also played Neverwinter during its Beta phase on the PC, and I was not particularly impressed with NW compared to the multitude of other MMOs out for that platform. But this review is for the XBOXONE version of Neverwinter and it is a lot more fun than I had expected.
What makes Neverwinter so interesting for the XBOX is the fact that it is (to my knowledge) the first MMORPG, and it is also a “Free-to-Play” title. Yes, any XBOXONE owner can play Neverwinter without spending a single blessed penny. Just download the game client, create your Cryptic account and off you go. Further on, I will discuss just how free-to-play Neverwinter truly is.
Graphically speaking, Neverwinter is not overly impressive. The character models were not cutting edge when the game released for the PC and that was a couple years ago. Despite the seemingly unimpressive graphics, the game suffers from fits and bouts of lag and framerate slowing. This can be very problematic during intense battles where character positioning is key. The character models are decent, but with no real way to zoom in for a closer look, this is not very consequential. Similarly, the armor models look pretty good, and not over the top or plate-bikini focused like many other F2P games. While Neverwinter may not be the most aesthetically amazing game, it still holds up as modern, and with enough variety in landscapes and races to make a significant attempt at creating visual atmosphere.
The combat is going to be the main draw for a lot of players, and I suspect they will be suitably pleased by the different classes and their functionality in combat. The combat is pseudo free-range, which means that it gives the impression of your combat abilities being untethered to targeting, but the game still will not permit one to fire off an attack without a target in range and within reticle. Speaking of the target reticle, it seems to operate less as a concrete lock and more of a “close-enough” kind of targeting system. Rather than snap your target to the nearest implied enemy, Neverwinter for the XBOX merely predicts what enemy you really wanted to attack and goes from there. It’s an inelegant and sometimes damning feature, but it sure does make the combat easier to flow with as targeting accuracy is irrelevant. Much like every modern MMO, the majority of enemy major attacks come with a big red warning circle (or triangle, or rhombus), telling one to “MOVE.” Each class moves differently in combat and avoids attacks in class-specific ways (or merely blocks them in the case of the Guardian Fighter). All-in-all, combat is pretty fun and easy to delve into; simple enough to repeat ad-nauseam, yet varied enough to make killing a little more entertaining. And you will do a lot of killing.
Neverwinter’s dungeons (it’s in the bloody name, people) are plentiful and very, very large at times. You will visit many and perhaps even enjoy a few. Problem is, that with the dungeon design currently, there is much less spelunking and more plowing through seven dozen enemies on the path to the end-boss. In every dungeon, not just the group ones, “trash mobs” are unavoidable and numerous. This results in a lot of corridor hack-and-slash but very little (if any) puzzle-solving or exploration. Rather a shame, as enemy encounters are so frequent that it can become a slog to the end.
Sadly, as of this date, Neverwinter’s XBOX servers seem rather unstable and prone to drops, especially when loading instances. As well, the text chat interface is particularly unused due to the fact that most people rather detest trying to type out chat using thumbstick letter entry. Along with the lack of specific servers (you merely arrive in one instance of dozens of whatever section of the game world your character moves to), there seems to be little game community at all in the XBOX version of Neverwinter. Also, as a Free-to-Play game, you may be wondering just how “free” and “playable” this game is. The answer to that is a little complicated. While anyone can play Neverwinter without spending a single dime, it is quite impossible to maximize your character at end-game without months and months of farming for enchantments and so-forth, or spending a little real coin in the “Zen” market. Overall though, since nothing on the path to level 60 requires any output of real money, anyone can try this game free-of-charge to determine the amount of monetary investment they wish for endgame.
Overall, I feel that Neverwinter for the XBOXONE is well worth a trial by anyone. For starters, the game is free-to-play, so your only concern would be hard drive space. Secondly, the combat is interesting and it is a very easy game to pick up and play for five minutes to five hours. While doubts exist about both the developer’s ability to support this game technically and content-wise, I would suggest refraining from diving in feet-first on a financial basis. Overall, bugs/frame-rate issues and server problems drag Neverwinter’s score down to a 7.5. I will round down on this one as a final mark against the far over-priced Zen Market and the multitude of ingame currencies adding to player confusion. A 7 is still a respectable score and should not scare anyone off from giving this game a try.