Wizardry: The Five Ordeals is coming to Steam Early Access on December 17

Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2021-12-13 09:01 JST)

IID has announced that the 3D dungeon crawler Wizardry: The Five Ordeals is entering Steam Early Access on December 17. The game is being published by the team behind Game*Spark, a Japanese media website operated by IID. The Early Access release will only support Japanese at first, but there are plans to add English support at a later date.

Wizardry: The Five Ordeals was initially scheduled to enter Early Access on June 18 but was delayed just before it was set to begin. With this announcement of the game’s Early Access release, they have also stated that the editor that was to release at the same time as a separate application has been delayed. After changing their distribution method for the editor and redeveloping it, the team behind the game says in a message on Steam that they aim to release it by the end of 2022.

Wizardry: The Five Ordeals is a remade and modernized version of a Wizardry spin-off that released in 2006 in Japan. According to IID, the game is being developed with permission from Drecom, the current Wizardry trademark holder, and say the game will release without issue.

In the game, players create characters from various races and professions to form a party of up to 6 characters. The party then takes on labyrinths full of enemies and traps. Combat is done through a simple turn-based system, but powerful spells have a limit on the number of times they can be used. And if your party wipes, you’ll need to set out to rescue them with new party members. It’s a difficult game that requires players to make tough decisions as they trek through the dungeons.

This renewed version is moving the game to the Unity engine with dungeons being depicted in 3D. In addition to the dungeons being remastered, monsters and event scenes will be in high resolution as well by enabling the included free DLC. This new release will also have widescreen support and 4 different UI modes, including ones that support full HD. Furthermore, there will be controller and Steam Cloud support.

The game itself contains 5 different scenarios, each one providing dozens of hours of gameplay. In addition, user scenarios that were uploaded to the original 2006 game’s official servers are being converted, and the team says they’re working to have them playable when Early Access begins. They also say they’re considering making the game’s other official scenarios available as DLC in Early Access as soon as possible.

Along with the delay of the editor, Steam Workshop support for scenarios has been cancelled. But they do say that they are looking into using it for other purposes such as distributing portraits.