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Contact:
Heather McLaughlin
[email protected]
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
.
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 ([email protected])
or Christopher Rosgen ([email protected]) 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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