Beamdog, Canadian publisher known for enhanced editions of Infinite Engine old RPGs, is looking to create an enhanced edition of Icewind Dale II. The RPG game became an instant classic when it was released, with the same top-down isometric play as the Diablo series.

There's only one problem with enhancing the old game, as Beamdog’s CEO, Trent Oster, tells us:

We’ve searched all the archives we have access to, including all the data handed over to Wizards of the Coast from Atari and there is no source code for Icewind Dale II.. We’ve reached out to our friends at Obsidian, as many of them were the development staff behind Icewind Dale II, and they do not have any source code. We’re stalled on the project without source and the project won’t move forward until we can find it. We’ve naturally moved on to other things until there is a change in the situation.

Icewind Dale II was created by Interplay working off a customized version of the BioWare Infinity Engine. They took the Infinity Engine variant they used to ship Icewind Dale and started from there. Somewhere along the path of the Dungeons and Dragons license moving from Interplay to Atari and then reverting to Wizards of the Coast, preserving source code and transferring it to the new rights holder, somehow data was lost.

IceWind Dale II is of course still available for sale and download online, but that means nothing without the original source code. All the data required to enhance the special effects and graphics is in that code. I would dearly love to see this game enhanced, if not brought to current gen consoles. It was an epic fantasy rpg so close to my fantasy author heart, and would probably mean as much to me as a Remastered Diablo 1.

So, if you are a hoarder of ancient floppy disks or have some stored under a pile of dust in your attic, please have a look and see if you don't perhaps have this code hidden somewhere. I'm sure Beamdog will make it worth your while.

Here is a trailer for the original version: