Video game fans hoping to play locally developed titles should keep an eye out for Digimancy Entertainment CEO George Ziets’ upcoming single-player, narrative-focused role-playing game. With its release date still years out, however, players can weather the wait by checking out titles Ziets worked on as a narrative designer for some of the role-playing genre’s most impactful titles.
With these story-heavy RPGs ranging from 30 to 100 hours in length, you’ll have plenty to do in the meantime.
Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (Obsidian, 2007)
Before Baldur’s Gate 3 , there was Neverwinter Nights .
(Of course, before Neverwinter Nights , there was Baldur’s Gate , and so on, and so on.)
When the first Neverwinter Nights’ developer, BioWare, decided to focus on its own intellectual property after seeing success with several major titles, it passed the series along to Obsidian. Comprised of developers who’d worked for BioWare’s former publisher, Black Isle Studios, this gave the new studio a chance to make their mark on the iconic Forgotten Realms D&D campaign setting.
Players hoping to experience Ziets’ writing as the lead narrative designer can jump right to Mask of the Betrayer , the 2007 expansion where players can either import a character from the main campaign or start anew. But they shouldn’t.
Mask of the Betrayer continues the main title’s cliffhanger ending, so players will find themselves struggling to make sense of the complex fantasy world without context. And while the game has held up remarkably well, nearly 20 years make NWN2 a mechanically bracing experience for anyone who isn’t immersed in the genre.
Brave souls who tackle the series anyway should play the main game first — which Ziets also worked on — and experience a hallmark title for character and storytelling in the world of classic role-playing games.
Only then should you start Mask of the Betrayer.
Fallout: New Vegas (Obsidian, 2010)
Undoubtedly the most well-known game Ziets has worked on, Fallout: New Vegas ’s first or third-person action role-playing perspective differs it from most of the games on the narrative designer’s resume.
Like the rest, however, it shares a deep commitment to in-game choices that change the outcome for each individual, immersing players beyond the typical gaming experience.
Fallout: New Vegas will be the easiest entry point for fans familiar with mainstream role-playing games like BioWare’s Mass Effect series (the company’s bid for their own IP panned out, for a while), the Final Fantasy titles, or the most recent Assassin’s Creed games.
The game takes place after a devastating nuclear war fractured society as we know it, with players exploring the Mojave Desert in search of a would-be assassin who has it out for them.
It’s not perfect: Released in 2010 to a host of gameplay bugs and clunky controls, players should remember that, while the story takes place in the future, the mechanics don’t. But New Vegas ’s narrative is an excuse to explore an open-world landscape populated with side quests and storylines that coalesce into one of the best role-playing games ever made.
Pillars of Eternity (Obsidian, 2015)
After years of making other companies’ games, Obsidian turned to the crowdfunding website Kickstarter to fund its first game based on its own intellectual property, finally achieving what BioWare had done all those years ago.
A spiritual successor to the then-defunct franchises Baldur’s Gate , Icewind Dale , and Planescape: Torment , Pillars of Eternity lets Obsidian writers finally flex their writing chops on their own work.
Although Ziets had been laid off from Obsidian during their well-publicized financial troubles in the early 2010s, his involvement with the project was made one of the easily met $2.8 million stretch goals during the successful Kickstarter campaign, which resulted in a 2015 release for the top-down role-playing game set in a fantasy world where souls are the basis of magic.
With modern controls for systems that harken to RPG games’ roots, Pillars of Eternity is a great place for interested players to find out if expansive storytelling, dialogue-heavy scenes, and complex and customizable pausable real-time combat are for them. Although it lacks a sense of humor, Ziets is far from the only writer whose strengths are showcased in Pillars of Eternity ’s immersive story.
Torment: Tides of Numenera (inXile, 2017)
Reprising his role as a Kickstarter goal, Ziets joined inXile Entertainment for Torment: Tides of Numenera after the studio achieved their $2.5 million stretch goal for developing their game.
Formed from the same pool of developers circulating between Black Isle and then-defunct Interplay Entertainment, Torment: Tides of Numenera not only follows in the footsteps of the RPGs of yesteryear but in that era of Kickstarter revivals, emphasizing storytelling and character customization in a nostalgic table-top based world where science and fantasy have melded together.
With its de-emphasis on combat, new players will find a welcoming home in Torment’s unique setting — as long as they don’t mind reading.
Wasteland 3 (inXile, 2020)
Set in a post-apocalyptic Colorado, the crowdfunded Wasteland 3 follows two rangers who, after surviving an attempt on their lives, must trek through the wasteland to find safety.
As lead designer, Wasteland 3’s story strengths point right back to Ziets. Players’ choices affect the outcomes of the rangers’ lives and the lives of those around them, a commonality between Ziets’ games that overcome differences in setting.
Gameplay wise, the RPG’s focus on tactics-based mechanics, along with its major multiplayer components, separate it from other games on Ziets’ resume, but Wasteland 3 ’s commitment to telling a good story is the same as ever, a fitting farewell to Ziets’ career as a narrative designer on larger studios’ projects.
Where to first?
Ziets’ body of work showcases some of the most interesting and innovative story-focused, top-down, turn-based role-playing games of the last two decades.
Pillars of Eternity ’s fresh narrative is an easy way to join the wave of fans rediscovering the genre in the wake of Baldur’s Gate 3 ’s 2023 release, but its modern look and feel welcomes new players. For those who worry its complex gameplay may lead to head-scratching, Torment: Tides of Numenera is a strong, more recent alternative.
For returning players wanting to revisit games they’ve missed, Neverwinter Nights 2 is foundational for current-day RPGs, while Fallout: New Vegas is a likely contender for the AFI list of top 100 video games that will never be made.
Once Digimancy Entertainment finally overcomes the gaming industry’s historically hostile investment environment, I look forward to seeing where Ziets’ future game lands in his impressive oeuvre.
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