Descent to Undermountain

Descent to Undermountain is a role-playing video game developed and published by Interplay. It was released in 1998 for MS-DOS and Windows. Based on the Dungeons & Dragons setting of Undermountain in the Forgotten Realms, it casts the player as an adventurer out to explore the treasure-filled recesses of the Undermountain dungeon. The “Descent” part of the name refers to the game’s use of the 3D rendering engine from the 1995 game Descent. The Descent engine was unsuited for a role-playing game, leading to ballooning budgets and protracted delays. Interplay decided to ship the game in time for Christmas 1997, resulting in a rushed product—although it failed to make even that deadline and actually shipped on January 15 of the next year. The game received very negative reviews and has been called the worst Dungeons & Dragons video game ever.

Gameplay

Descent to Undermountain uses the same game mechanics as Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. At the start of the game, the player chooses one of six different races and four different classes for his character, with multi-classing as an option. These choices impact the player’s statistics, which are used to determine the probability of successfully completing ingame actions. The Yawning Portal Inn in Waterdeep serves as a hub area. In between quests to Undermountain, the player may trade with non-player characters (NPCs) at the inn for goods and services. Undermountain allowed the player to interact with NPCs, monsters, and the general environment from a first-person perspective. Real-time combat would mix with puzzles to provide a variety of challenges throughout the vast dungeon. Defeated enemies may drop items or gold coins. Other such “loot” may also be found lying at random on dungeon floors. These collectibles can be traded with merchants at the Waterdeep hub.

Plot

The player character is an adventurer who has come to Waterdeep looking for employ from Khelben Blackstaff, high mage of the city. Blackstaff informs the player that people have been disappearing mysteriously, and some return from Undermountain with frightening tales. Blackstaff assigns several quests to the player character so he can find out the cause behind the renewed activity from the dungeon. It emerges that the Flame Sword of Lolth is buried somewhere deep within the dungeon. Whoever should possess the artifact would gain control of an undead army from the Abyss. The followers of Lolth, the Drow, are seeking the sword. The only way to subdue the power of the Sword is to reassemble the Spider Amulet, which was broken into eight pieces and scattered throughout Undermountain. Lolth is the final boss of the game.

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