Heroes Of Neverwinter In Open Beta

Atari has announced that its D&D: Heroes of Neverwinter game is now in open beta. The Facebook game is free to play, though there are plenty of opportunities for players to get looted.

The game, which can be played here, takes some of the familiar places and character archetypes from Dungeons & Dragons and plops them into a turn-based dungeon crawler. As with most Facebook games, players can have a relatively decent time without spending a single gp, though it's clear that the most efficient path to progression will cost you.

I checked it out for a short while this morning, with my wizard alter ego Rooty Toot. After recruiting a few level one adventurers to my cause, I descended into a dungeon to figure out why skeletons were walking around. Skeletons shouldn't be doing that. Gameplay is pretty simple, or at least it is in the beginning. If you've played a tactical RPG you have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Characters take turns walking around on a grid, and then they fight.

Unfortunately, Rooty Toot was too lovely for this world. After surviving a few waves of bad guys, she was eventually felled by a blast of fire. Drat. My recruited level one cleric wasn't able to revive me (that skill comes at level 5), but I could buy a revival potion for the low, low price of...I didn't check, because I wasn't about to spend any money on this thing.

At any rate, the beta is live, and you can check it our for yourself now. Huzzah!