Matchmaking is effortless and takes place behind the scenes in Neverwinter

Neverwinter has been a successful MMO on the PC for a number of years and I think with the newer hardware on the Xbox One and PS4, we are likely to see a few more MMORPG’s crop up in the next few years. With the trend towards co-op gaming only growing, MMO’s are a more and more attractive business model and I am happy to see the gap between console and PC experiences closing.

Despite having the best of intentions, Neverwinter is a game built around anaemic proficiency. There’s a mess of currency options and character classes sat on the forefront of the experience. Despite offering lots of things for you to do and quests to steal away your attention and time, there’s no escaping the realisation that pretty much all of it is boring. That isn’t to say it’s all bad. In fact, Neverwinter skirts very closely to the outer borders of boredom - threatening to make the leap to fun on more occasions than it rightfully should.

It plays like a competent cross between an action-RPG and a traditional sword-and-sorcery MMORPG. The combat has all of the fast and frantic slashing, stabbing and sidestepping systems that would be commonly found in the former. The same can’t be said for dragon encounters. These huge beasts are quite the spectacle, requiring several players to defeat. They only appear in certain locations and once they’ve made their dramatic appearance they must be killed before the time limit has run out. When battling dragons the ease of joining up with other players really excels - you’ll often find players that you can form a group with lingering around dragon spawn areas.

Voice chat opens automatically and loot is then shared using a greed/need/pass system. Those wanting a break from quests can also partake in brief skirmishes against waves of enemies and PvP matches. Matchmaking is effortless and takes place behind the scenes - when looking for a team to enter a dungeon with you’ll often be paired with various classes to keep the party balanced. Aside from the flashy combat, occasional dungeon romp, and the Foundry system, the game doesn't feel too different from the open beta, aside from a number of critical bug and exploit fixes.

General questing will take place in Adventure Zones, the first being Protectors Enclave, which to begin with only has a small number of ‘Go visit this NPC for advice’ style quests. Adventure Zones are then broken down into groups of neighbourhoods and instances, or non-persistent zones. For example, Blacklake District and Tower District - two of the first Adventure Zones you’ll explore before reaching level 20 - are both part of the extended city of Neverwinter. As I’ve said before and will likely say many times over, Neverwinter is a typical MMO in style so many of the simpler quests involve killing a certain number of enemies, collecting certain objects and items, searching for missing NPC’s or delving into caves and mines in search of materials for the NPC quest giver.

Plus, it is hard not to mention that the game is free, so there is no loss if one plays and decides that the game is not for him or her. From experience though, the game has a way of pulling players in and not letting go. Of the friends who have played this game, most have put in 20+ hours already, and I have put in almost 70 and have reached level 58 at the time of writing. With that being said, I highly recommend at least trying Neverwinter before deciding that it is not worth playing. Unlike most other free games, this title has plenty of content and few restrictions on the player.