Contact: Heather McLaughlin

hmclaughlin@interplay.com 

949.553.6655

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

BLACK ISLE STUDIOS ANNOUNCES NEW EXPANSION PRODUCT FOR ICEWIND DALE

(New Storyline & Enhanced Features For Popular Role-Playing Game)

IRVINE, California, September 25, 2000 – Black Isle Studios, the role-playing game division of Interplay Entertainment Corp. (NASDAQ: IPLY), announced today plans to release an expansion pack for its popular role-playing game Icewind Dale™. Developed internally, the new product, Icewind Dale™: Heart of Winter will offer more classic dungeon crawl using the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons® Second Edition rules under license from Wizards of the Coast, including new monsters, spells, and areas to explore within the Forgotten Realms campaign setting. Based in part on the series of books by New York Times best-selling author R.A. Salvatore, Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter will also offer many new technological and gameplay enhancements to the original game including higher resolution, new gem bags, and scroll cases.

"Icewind Dale exceeded all of our expectations, and is another product that Black Isle is proud of," stated Feargus Urquhart, Director of Black Isle. "It truly reminds us of our early days of playing D&D and the expansion pack adds another dimension to this with higher resolution graphics and many new areas to explore."

The original Icewind Dale has received significant critical acclaim in the gaming media. “Icewind Dale is a first-rate D&D dungeon romp,” said Computer Gaming World. “Once again, Black Isle has succeeded admirably in creating a game that both the casual gamer and hardcore roleplayer can enjoy.” Computer Gaming World awarded Icewind Dale with an editors’ choice award in their October 2000 issue

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Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter incorporates the award-winning gameplay elements found in Icewind Dale, offering players the ability to hone their combat skills, and achieve more powerful possessions, spells, and experience. Supporting 800 x 600 high resolution graphics and improved OpenGL 3D support (developed by Bioware for Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn™), Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter adds new spells including the wizard’s Abi-Dalzim’s Horrid Wilting and the cleric’s spell of Blade Barrier. Players will be able to explore five new treacherous lands, as well as Lonelywood (another of the Ten Towns), and encounter new creatures including Barbarians, undead, Remorhaz (polar worms) and more. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter will also feature powerful new magical items like The Ring of the Will-o-Wisp, which allows the wearer to shoot a shower of electricity at enemies, and the Vexed Armor, a suit of armor inhabited by a demon, where the demon inside can destroy the wearer and go on a destructive rampage.

The Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter expansion makes use of a modified version of the award-winning BioWare Infinity Engine™, originally developed by BioWare for Baldur’s Gate™, and the forthcoming, Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter offers novice and advanced players more challenges, allowing them to reach levels upwards of 22nd depending on the character.

Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is being developed in-house at Black Isle, and will be available for Windows® 95/98-based computers. Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter expansion will require an installed copy of the original Icewind Dale in order to run. Complete information on Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter can be found at http://www.interplay.com/icewind.

Coming soon from Black Isle Studios are Baldur’s Gate II™: Shadows of Amn and Neverwinter Nights. A sequel to the award-winning and much loved Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate II will be a mythic saga continuing the Baldur’s Gate storyline along the southern portion of the Sword Coast in the merchant kingdom known as Amn. Neverwinter will bring the pen-and-paper D&D game experience to the PC by allowing players to create their own modules, host those modules on their own server and even “DM” the game. Baldur’s Gate II and Neverwinter are being developed by BioWare Corp. and will be published by Black Isle Studios.

Wizards of the Coast, the worldwide market share leader in the trading card game and tabletop role playing game categories, is a leading developer and publisher of game-based entertainment products as well as the owner and operator of one of the nation's largest specialty game retail chains. Producing both the Pokemon™ and world's best-selling Magic: The Gathering® trading card games, the company holds an exclusive patent on the play mechanic of trading card games. Publisher of adventure games such as the classic Dungeons & Dragons games, family card and board games and electronic media products, Wizards of the Coast is also one of the world's leading fantasy and science fiction book publishers. Headquartered near Seattle, Washington, Wizards of the Coast has international offices in Antwerp, Paris, Milan, London and Beijing. For more information on Wizards of the Coast, visit the company's web site and electronic retail store at http://wwww.wizards.com.

Black Isle Studios is a division of Interplay Entertainment Corp., a leading developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment software for both core gamers and the mass market. Interplay currently balances its development efforts by publishing for personal computers as well as current and next generation video game consoles. Interplay releases products through Interplay, Shiny Entertainment, Digital Mayhem, Black Isle Studios, 14° East, is distribution partners and its wholly owned subsidiary Interplay OEM, Inc. More comprehensive information on Interplay and its products is available through its worldwide web site at http://www.interplay.com. For investor relations’ inquiries, please contact J. Scott Liolios (scott@liolios.com) or Christopher Rosgen (chris@liolios.com) at Liolios Group, Inc. (949) 574-3860.

Safe Harbor Statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995:

This release may contain forward-looking statements involving risks and uncertainties that may cause actual future events or results to differ materially and adversely from those described in the forward-looking statements. Important factors that may cause such a difference for Interplay include, but are not limited to, risks of delays in development and introduction of new products, dependence on new product introductions which achieve significant market acceptance and the uncertainties of consumer preferences, dependence on third party software developers for a significant portion of new products, risks of rapid technological change and platform change, intense competition, seasonality, risks of product defects, dependence upon licenses from third parties, risks associated with future capital requirements, dependence upon third party distribution, dependence upon key personnel and risks associated with international business, intellectual property disputes and other factors discussed in the Company's filings from time to time with the Securities Exchange Commission, including but not limited the Company's annual report on Form 10K for the year ended December 31, 1999. Interplay disclaims any obligation to revise or update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by it or on its behalf.

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