If you take a look back at the original Neverwinter Nights you’ll probably notice that while the vanilla version of the game wasn’t bad, it lacked polish and had a campaign that was mediocre at best. Its expansions however ended up fixing pretty much all of the shortcomings of the original and brought forth singleplayer campaigns which are amazing even by today’s standards. Fast forward a few years – Neverwinter Nights 2 came out and although a solid game it suffers from a poorly optimized engine and a decent, but slightly boring story. Can Mask of Betrayer repeat the success of the original’s expansions and be what NWN2 should have been from the get go?

Once a hero, always a hero

Mask of the Betrayer picks the story up right where the original left it – after defeating the Shadow King in the original the hero/heroine and the rest of the party are left for dead. For some strange reason however the player wakes up in the heart of a cavern network, with absolutely no idea how he got there. To make things even more convoluted there is a Red Wizard standing right next to him when he wakes up and the crystal shard that has been your character’s lifelong companion is missing, replaced with a nasty scar in the middle of his chest. Later on the story grows even more dark and gloomy, so it is safe to say that the game will appeal to a more mature audience than the original.

In line with this more serious approach the characters you meet in the game usually have a darker background and as such make digging their past up that much more compelling. Replacing the brawling dwarf, self-absorbed sorcerer and other stereotypical party members from before, MotB introduces fallen celestial beings, wizards with a troubled past and (on a lighter note) even colorful animal spirits. Each of them comes with a unique background and I personally found some of their quest-lines even more intriguing than the main quest, which is saying a lot considering how well written the later is.

Considering that the story is in fact a continuation of the original’s you’ll probably want to play it with the character you used to finish the Shadow King saga (exported automatically at the end of the campaign). If you lost that character due to uninstalling the game or some other obscure reason all is not lost. In fact, you might be even better off considering the new races which are included in the expansion. Besides a new elf race (Think wood elves) and a half-elf race (at last you can officially create a surface dwelling dark half-elf) there are several new elemental half-breeds to chose from, one for each of the standard elements (air, fire, earth, water). They come with some unique resistances and stat boosts, but most importantly with looks that reflect their elemental heritage. The Fire Gensai for example have charcoal black skin and glowing red eyes, as well as hair that might as well be fire.

New races are not the only reason starting a new character might be in order. On the long list of new features are also two base classes – the Favored soul and the Spirit shaman. Both are at their core spellcasters, but each with their own very specific quirks. The Shaman is pretty much what you would expect - relying on natural spells in a similar fashion to the druid class. The Favored soul on the other hand is a close relative to the cleric class, sharing with it a similar relation to the Sorcerer/Wizard one. Should you decide to continue playing with your original character you can still gain access to some new content however – with 5 new prestige classes you can further customize your hero while at the same time not stray too far from his original path.

Saving the land

Once you finally decide on a character and get the show on the road you’ll soon realize that the game core has seen some significant changes. Most noticeably, the camera system received a complete overhaul, getting new options and giving players an even greater freedom of control. By default you can switch between character and tactical control. The first is similar to what you see in games like World of Warcraft, where the camera is positioned directly behind the character. Tactical control on the other hand resembles something you might find in a squad based strategy – you can freely move it around (within a set distance from the character you are controlling) and easily select your characters by simply left clicking on them. Outside of combat you’ll most likely end up using the character camera, as the immersion factor increases significantly because of it, while you’ll probably rely on the tactical mode during combat, especially once your party grows to 5 or more members. You can always tweak the settings and use a completely different approach however (which is what I ended up doing, configuring the camera to mimic the one found in the original NWN).

After performing a minor genocide on the local spirit population and leaving the network of tunnels behind players will be greeted by another surprise – the game takes place far away from the well known locales of the Sword Coast. In a way the land of Rashemen couldn’t be more different than what you normally see in a Forgotten Realms based RPG. Spiritualism is highly important here and Witches and Red Wizards are constantly contesting for political power. As if all of this wasn’t enough, the darker and more sinister land has a direct link to the shadow realms, so demons and worse are often jumping out of nowhere.

This shadow world also plays a crucial role in the games narrative. Many quests will lead you to the other side of seemingly random spawning portals and for some at first unknown reason the player seems to have a special bond to the shadow world, experiencing flashbacks at various times when traveling “abroad”. To make the shadow realm more than just a gimmick the game now also tracks the time of day, so a good part of MotB is simply inaccessible during the day (the shadow portals only open at night). Finally, the shadow realms aren’t just mirror copies of “our” world, but end up being twisted, perverted versions of it. Exploring a building in each of the realms offers two completely different experiences, with the shadow version often being lethal for the careless.

What I am about to say is a huge spoiler, so if you want to enjoy the narrative to its fullest you should just skip to the next paragraph. To help build on the characters history (from the original NWN2) and make players more interested in the overarching story MotB incorporates a soul meter early on. At its base this meter acts as a sort of a time bomb (forcing you to keep moving on, avoiding unnecessary resting), but later on becomes a powerful tool which can be used to beat the living hell out of pretty much any foe.

It’s not like you’ll be needing it towards the end though. Spellcasters especially will end up being unstoppable machines due to all the epic level (20+) abilities and spells. Carefully built fighters will be just as powerful, though they won’t be nearly as flexible as the wizards and sorcerers with their meteor showers and mass insta-kill spells. Luckily enough your opposition will get stronger as well, up to the point where you’ll be slaying epic monsters one after another as if you were swatting flies. This goes against tabletop rules, but it helps keep the game interesting. For an epic-level adventure you’ll be doing a surprising amount of talking and quest solving, so sometimes it feels like combat takes a secondary roll, acting only as the glue between the various quest parts. Some might not like this, but I personally welcomed the nice change of pace.

Engine updates

The vanilla Neverwinter Nights 2 was full of technical issues and it took a few patches before things were finally stable enough to enjoy the game on most machines. MotB brings new engine enhancements, most of which are thankfully optimizations aimed at improving performance. As a result the game performs better on most hardware, though there are still some quirks that occasionally pop up, mainly with stability and performance (nVidia 8800 cards suffer from unexplainable slowdowns after entering new areas for example). Not all of the new features help improve performance however. The most important addition to the list of features are full screen post processing effects, such as full screen sepia tones and other kinds of color distortion (some of them pretty imaginative).

As for the rest of the core game, most of it remained unchanged. Conversations are still split into two groups, directed ones with voiceovers and less important ones where you retain control over the game. The same can be said for all of the sound effects and music (with some notable exceptions). Even the voices of the characters sound strangely familiar. If this was a sequel I’d definitely berate the authors for this, but considering it is only an expansion we should probably let things like this slide.

Conclusion

There is actually not much more that can be said about MotB. If you liked NWN2 and want to play more of the same you should go for it. If you liked NWN2 but want something new, more polished you should also give MotB a try. Heck, even if you didn’t like NWN2 but enjoyed the original NWN this expansion should strike home. In fact, the only people that should avoid MotB are those who hate RPGs and avoid them like the plague. But they probably aren’t reading this review anyway.