I am an absolute freak for BioWare's 2002 D&D RPG Neverwinter Nights, and somehow this unkillable game just keeps chugging along: Beamdog just put out a new, official update for its 2018 enhanced edition re-release that was assembled by members of Neverwinter Nights' still-active mod scene⁠—if that sounds familiar to you, this isn't the first community update that's been officially christened by Beamdog.

"This release was developed for personal enjoyment and out of goodwill for our fellow players and creators by unpaid software engineers from the NWN community," the update reads, with the "unpaid software engineers" in question going by the handles clippy, Daz, Jasperre, niv, shadguy, Soren, tinygiant, and virusman. The topline features of the new patch include:

• Built-in support for multisample anti-aliasing and anisotropic filtering.
• A built-in analysis tool for players and multiplayer server admins.
• "Major" networking code and performance improvements.
• New scripting functions and improvements.
• QoL adjustments to NWN's Aurora toolset level editor.

Most of these seem targeted at those still running multiplayer servers or building custom campaigns for Neverwinter Nights, though a few of them will be felt player-side. The new graphics options are nice, and I'm curious about the update's "major" performance improvements. That may seem like an absurd change for an RPG from 2002, but NWN was built for single-core CPUs, meaning it fails to take full advantage of modern multi-core processors, and I've had it really chug even on an Alder Lake i5 when certain mods get involved.

As for why this matters, there's still an audience for NWN's persistent worlds⁠—essentially miniature, player-run MMOs built with the Aurora toolset like Arelith. Meanwhile, I'm more of a singleplayer guy: I've got a big soft spot for NWN's official campaigns, and there's also a huge back catalogue of player-made adventures for it. Some are self-contained "modules" like Darkness Over Daggerford or Crimson Tides of Tethyr, while others are sprawling, multipart RPG epics like The Aielund Saga or Swordflight.

The PC Gaming Show will return this year with another blockbuster broadcast on Twitch, YouTube, X and Steam on June 8, 2025.

The first of two shows planned for 2025—with Most Wanted also set to return later this year—June’s showcase will spotlight over 50 games on PC, Steam Deck, Linux and MacOS while celebrating all things PC gaming.

Within, viewers can expect a wealth of world premieres, exclusive announcements, in-depth developer interviews and much more as we shine a light on the best and most interesting games and hardware our platform of choice has to offer today.

It seems impossible the PC Gaming Show made its first-ever appearance way back at E3 2015, but the longevity of the showcase is testament to the enduring mainstream growth of PC gaming and the millions of viewers who underpin it all.

We’re working hard behind the scenes to bring all of this together for you right now, but we’ll be teasing more about the games that’ll take centre stage in due course on PCGamer.com. An exact broadcast time will also be shared nearer our June 8 live date itself.

If you're a game developer who's working on an unannounced game, we'd love to hear from you. Email ✉ jake.tucker@futurenet.com and melissa.makhmaltchi@futurenet.com.

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