A fan modification of Icewind Dale 2 is now available with many modifications and changes. Dubbed the Enhanced Edition it is freely available for all.

It has finally arrived! Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition is now available for download.

With its source code lost to time, ICEWIND DALE II was thought to be dead, with no hope of an Enhanced Edition. That time has come to an end. The Red Chimera Group, a team of modders, coders, artists, and other contributors drawn from the Infinity Engine community, is has rebuilt IWD2 with nothing more than WeiDU code and hex editing to streamline IWD2's gameplay and introduce new content.

Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition revises over 300 spells and over 800 items, introduces more than 110 completely new spells, 170 new magic items and 30 new feats, and allows several of IWD2's NPCs to join the party, from Veira the ghost to Vrek Vileclaw the river troll to Xhaan the white abishai to Zack Boosenburry and his spider mount, Aocha. Even better, IWD2EE has major quality of life improvements, including quickloot and significantly faster load times.

This mod also fixes the major issues many players had with the original Icewind Dale 2: you no longer have to solve tedious, cryptic puzzles to complete certain areas, enemies in Heart of Fury Mode are empowered in interesting ways rather than just having lots of HP, and you can revise the experience system so you won't get zero experience for killing enemies late in the game. IWD2EE is fully customizable and the player can tweak their install to taste.

Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition is a free-to-download WeiDU mod. You must have Icewind Dale 2 installed in order to run this mod. Put it in your IWD2 game folder and run Setup-iwd2ee.exe. Once IWD2:EE is installed, a new startup program is added to the game folder: IWD2EE.exe.



You MUST start the game using IWD2EE.exe rather than IWD2.exe. If you start the game by clicking on IWD2.exe, the game will crash during character creation or when you load a save game.

Icewind Dale 2: Enhanced Edition uses a new extender called IEex (similar to EEex and ToBEx), which lets IWD2EE add new features that could not normally be added by mods, such as new feats. IEex only works when the game is started via IWD2EE.exe. Note that antivirus programs might detect IWD2EE.exe / IEex.dll as a virus - this is a false positive. You should make sure to exclude IWD2EE.exe from your antivirus once you download it.

Also, we welcome you to our IWD2EE Discord. Please put feedback and bug reports there.

DOWNLOAD

Matt revisits Icewind Dale 2 for four hours:

Matt Chat 493: Icewind Dale II

Beamdog can't find the sourcecode for Icewind Dale 2:

Real Talk - Icewind Dale II, Enhanced Edition Patch Progress, and a Beamdog Client Update

Icewind Dale II

In the last few weeks, Enhanced Edition fans who follow Trent on Twitter may have noticed few tweets like these.

 At this time, the source code for Icewind Dale II can not be found. We’ve reached out to former developers and publishers with no luck. No one seems to know where it’s got to. Consider this our open call to fans for the code, patched or otherwise.

We’d love to complete the Infinity Engine series and bring you all the game you’ve been asking for, but to make Icewind Dale II: Enhanced Edition a possibility, having that source code, preferably patched, is needed before we can even start assessing whether the project is doable.

UPDATE:  If you personally have a copy of the code, we'd love to get in touch. Please do not contact former developers and other IWD2 team members on our behalf.

Enhanced Edition Patches

As mentioned in previous posts, the team is hard at work on iOS 64 bit patches to ensure Enhanced Edition players will be able to continue enjoying their games after iOS 11 is released. These patches will be released game-by-game in the months ahead, starting with Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition and will include a few bug fixes, but the focus will be on 64 bit compatibility.

The real fun begins once the 64 bit iOS patch series is complete. Planning has only just started on the patches for the Enhanced Edition titles beyond what we’re currently working on so committing to specific release dates, bug fixes, and features at this point is difficult. What we can say right now is that the next update series for BG:EE, BGII:EE, and IWD:EE will include the following:

• Bug fixes and lots of them
• A selection of community-requested features
• 64 bit compatibility on all platforms
• Restored multiplayer compatibility on all platforms
• All stores updated to the latest version (Yes, even the Mac App store)
• Completed localizations
• And more!

Our attention is currently on BG:EE, BGII:EE, and IWD:EE, but we haven’t forgotten about Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition. As soon as we have more about updates on that front, we’ll be sure to share it!
Beamdog Client Update
A small patch for the Beamdog Client will be released today with the following updates:

• Fixes for a few reported user issues
• Spanish and Italian localization for the Client
• An updated version of the Beamdog logo

Thanks rjshae!

Josh Sawyer has posted a video retrospective of Icewind Dale 2.

Answering this question: "Hi Josh, if don't mind, please answer my question! Icewind Dale 2 was released more than ten years ago, it was the last Infinity Engine game and the first game that you worked on as a lead designer (as far as I know). What do you think about it in retrospect? What things would you have done differently, if you had to work on it now?"

Today Good old Games made Icewind Dale II available for download. What's next? BGII?