Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone and Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard
SNEG
I forgive you if you never got a chance to play 2004’s Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone or 2005’s Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard back in the day. However, now that they’re widely accessible on Steam for just $9 each, there are far fewer excuses to keep putting off these two excellent D&D games that each deserve more love.
Thanks to the retro revivalists at SNEG, both games are now available as of this week on Steam—although neither seem to have official Steam Deck compatibility ratings. For what it’s worth though, I did see one user review for Demon Stone already mention it runs great on Steam Deck. From the looks of it, they’re basically just like they were two decades ago and don’t have any real enhancements or meaningful changes.
These releases surprised me a bit because, at least personally, I had no idea these were coming. For what it’s worth, both Dragonshard and Demon Stone have been available on GOG for well over a decade as well. Following on the heels of other D&D re-releases like Neverwinter Nights 2: Enhanced Edition from Aspyr just a few weeks ago, it’s a good time to be a fantasy fan.
D&D Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone—Classic Action
I actually still own a PS2 copy of Demon Stone and despite some jank and rough bits around the edges, it’s an extremely fun and addictive hack ‘n’ slash action game set in the iconic D&D Forgotten Realms.
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Gameplay works pretty much just like the Lord of the Rings: Two Towers and Return of the King licensed movie-based console games. The action is presented from mostly fixed camera angles and feature combo-based action gameplay. Everything from the button inputs, on-screen font, game flow and feel, and general mechanics feel like they were lifted right out of the LOTR games.
To be clear: I mean that as a compliment.
The main thing Demon Stone does differently, other than the setting obviously, is that it has you switching between a small band of adventurers throughout the game as the narrative unfolds rather than picking individual characters to level up on each stage.
Honestly, it’s a really good time. For this re-release we’re getting a smoother startup and smoother gameplay, actual widescreen scaling support, borderless and windowed modes, better shadows, Xinput controller support with rumble, and some more in-game settings for modern computers.
Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard—An Innovative D&D RTS
This one I know far less about and have never actually played for myself, but I do remember seeing it around back in the day and had a friend that played every RTS and RTS-adjacent game he could get his hands on. He said it was good, so it must be good.
Rather than being a strict RTS, Dragonshard is more of a hybrid game that mixes in lots of RPG elements as well. As you direct your troops across the overworld, you’ll also manage smaller parties that delve below ground to battle beasts in more fast-paced combat. The loot you gather here will affect your armies above ground as well. In a way, it’s a bit like two interconnected games in one.
With Dragonshard, SNEG added modern resolution support, localization-friendly saves and profiles, smoother timers and physics, ASLR compatibility, and a few other under-the-hood improvements to help it run a bit better.
SNEG has been hard at work bringing back the classics. Coming up in September, they’re also re-releasing 2003’s The Temple of Elemental Evil, an iconic party-based D&D CRPG similar in gameplay to the likes of other classical isometric games of the era like Baldur’s Gate 1 and Baldur’s Gate 2.
You can also snag their massive D&D Classics bundle as well which has dozens of old D&D PC games across the Silver Box Classics, Gold Box Classics, and many others.
UPDATE: Thank you to Mitch Ryan on BlueSky for letting me know these games have been available on GOG for quite some time! I added a call out near the beginning.
