The author of this Planescape: Torment retrospective at RPGFan makes his feelings known right from the beginning, and it will strike a chord with a few readers:

They don't make games like this anymore. Bringing video games to a wider audience has its merits, namely making video games a more acceptable form of entertainment, but increased accessibility and multiplayer support has wreaked significantly more havoc than good in recent years. And it only looks to be getting worse. In an effort to make games that every Joe Simpleton can play and enjoy, developers have streamlined gameplay, simplified story, axed challenge, and watered down the single-player experience. Developers have thus spawned a landfill of shovelware and dreck so large it could contain every one of Peter Molyneux's unfulfilled promises and save room for those from his next game. Everyone from Nintendo to Bioware has gone to the dark side, giving us pitifully easy Zeldas and overly streamlined Mass Effects.

There will never be another Planescape: Torment. Released in 1999, it is better than almost every other game in the last decade, better than perhaps all but one game released in the last five years, and certainly better than any RPG released during that time. Torment is as complex in story and characters as it is in gameplay, and we'll never see anything like this again if the world continues to worship multiplayer experiences and developers continue to target an audience that includes everyone and their unborn children.

Thanks, Necrosis!

Remember Greg Kasavin?  Former EiC of GameSpot?  GameBanshee has noticed his blog and an article called The Gift of Torment, on one of the pioneering aspects of Torment's dialogue.  He makes some curious assertions about Mass Effect 2 but it's otherwise a nice piece:

In other words, Torment is the first RPG to introduce player intent into dialogue, which may be contradictory to the substance of the dialogue -- it's a game in which you can say one thing and mean another, and use this to deliberately lie at times, by means of the authored choices presented to you.

In a typical RPG, you might be asked by a character to retrieve an item, and tell that person "Yes, I'll do it" even if you as a player don't really know if you're going to do it or not -- probably you just want the quest logged in case you stumble upon it. You don't think about these types of interactions, and, as evidenced by the completely disposable text content for quests in games like World of Warcraft, they do little to build a meaningful connection between you, your character, or the gameworld. But in this same type of situation, Torment typically would give you at least two options: "Yes, I'll do it" (Truth) and "Yes, I'll do it" (Lie). And it would fully support these choices -- lying would affect your character's moral alignment, leading to other changes in gameplay. But even when it didn't really matter whether you told the truth or not, the game made you stop and think about what you were saying.

If you've tried bigg's widescreen mod on Planescape: Torment, you'll appreciate the interface elements are less than ideal.  Step in Ghostdog, who has finished version 2.0 of his UI mod, which centres all the UI elements in different resolutions and offers three different font sizes to cope with the smaller text. There's a full description and video here or download from this page.

Time for another play through!

On the 12th of December 2009 Planescape: Torment had its 10th birthday. Since the game has been re-released to work on modern day systems, questions naturally arise whether Planescape: Torment should be revived in some way - or not.

In a feature article, Planescape: Torment - Sequel, Spin Off, Start Over or Stay Dead?  Editors at the site Diehard GameFan are discussing  just this.  They decided to let the sleeping dogs lie - and let The Nameless One rest in peace:

As happy as I am that the game was re-released to run on modern systems, there's no way in hell I want to see this game being remade as Black Isle Studios is sadly long dead. I also don't want to see a sequel, simply because without Black Isle, there is no way it could measure up. Now, a sequel is possible as The Nameless One would now be fighting in the Blood War, but again, without the original team, a sequel would only sully the good name of the original. A spin-off also isn't that possible because Planescape itself is a spin-off of Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, which no longer exists.

 Do you agree with the statements made by the editors?

Planescape: Torment - along with other Infinity Engine series Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale - are shipping from Amazon.co.uk. There are seperate releases also but I've linked to the total collections and the others aren't difficult to find for the completists.

Resolution Magazine's Lewis Denby has written a 2-page retrospective on Planescape Torment. 

Published to critical acclaim a decade ago, this game never sold well. Yet, it still managed to find itself into the hearts and minds of fans, which, even today, are very passionate about this game. 

And you avatar, The Nameless One, will have a talking skull at his side - and can never die.

He’s bound to live for all eternity, across multiple lives, resurrected after each death and returned to Sigil once more.  This isn’t a measly plot device, either, for Planescape is a game in which you can never die.  You are only ever snapped back to life in an arbitrary location of the world, your memories of lives gone by becoming ever more hazy.

    The writing in the game is superb and continues to be so - even a decade later:

Decoded, it was some of the finest of any videogame in the world, and remains such a decade on.  Its brand of corrupted Victorian cockney slang, merged with the elegance of the best high-fantasy literature, makes it an outlandishly unique thing to read through.  And although it asks a lot of the reader, the reward it pays is remarkable: it tells a story unlike no other game, in a way that no other game has dared to even try mimicking.

       Interplay is re-releasing Planescape: Torment on November 20th 2009

Surely one of the most re-reviewed games of all time, Aussie ISP Internode takes a look at PS:T in what they call a Retro Road Test:

Taking on the role of the Nameless One, a man who does not know who he is, or why he is alive, your job in Planescape: Torment is to find out why out why you cannot die. The game is unique in many ways – death is not the end, and in some cases, it is used as a way of advancing the story forward.

Unlike RPGs released around the same time, Planescape: Torment does not have a primary focus on combat. While there is probably enough fighting to satisfy die-hard AD&D fans, there is a whole lot of roleplaying to do in the game. This is backed up by excellent writing, with vivid descriptions of the NPC's actions, and appearances, all of which could not have been achieved by the graphics of the day.

Blue's has picked up on a tweet from Direct2Drive, saying they'd love to re-release Planescape: Torment if they could only figure out who controls the rights:

@Daggity hah, would love to re-release Plancescape...if we could find someone who actually owns the rights! Sad.

Presumably they would have already started with Interplay and WotC?

Eurogamer has a nice retrospective on Planescape: Torment.  Here's a sample:

Planescape is the game most likely to be name-dropped by PC journalists, after Deus Ex. Planescape is the game that took the cigarette-end of the superb Baldur's Gate engine-based games and immolated their legacy in a ball of conspicuous failure, followed shortly by the apparent collapse of its publisher, Interplay. Planescape is a game that, shamefacedly, one of our writers gave 7/10 to, though his reasons were just. Planescape is the only game I've ever borrowed and not given back (I do hope they're not reading...)

Thanks, Alrik!

Our hosted site The Locus Inn has moved the contents from the old site to this location. You can find it right here and it includes info on all characters and all items in the game, several hints and tips, interactive maps and a walkthrough.

I finally got around to make another update to the site. I moved all the info about Planescape:Torment from the old site. You can find it right here and it includes info on all characters and all items in the game, several hints and tips, interactive maps and a walkthrough.

Sorcerer's Place adds to the online resources for Black Isle's classic tale of the Nameless One, Planescape:Torment, with a recently completed in-depth walkthrough covering all major quests and sidequests in the game, character creation, NPCs and more.

Here's the full description:

After a couple weeks' availability to SPS account holders and fixing up some last minute quirks, we are now ready to open up our brand new Planescape: Torment Online Walkthrough to the (un)washed masses!

Montresor has done a great job writing it, covering just about everything in the game, from the quests to NPCs, items, character creation and more. The walkthrough comes with handy online maps and screenshots for easy visualization, so using it should be a snap.

We believe that the walkthrough is complete and free of errors, but as with any major new feature, something may have slipped our attention. If you spot any such problems, please report them.

You can check it out here.

Play.tm has an article up taking a look back at Black Isle's classic cRPG, Planescape:Torment:

Outstandingly unique, intelligently comedic, and incomparably atmospheric; the masterpiece I'm talking about is Black Isle Studio's Planescape: Torment. Feelings of love, of loss, and of determination and fascination are associated to the mere recollection of the game's name. This is a game which truly influenced my life, the game was released in 1999 and its philosophical themes and thought-provoking dialogue were partially my inspiration, after a life-time of studying pure science, for choosing a typically arts-related subject - Philosophy - as my university degree back in 2001.

The main story-line, the self-discovery of an immortal who only suffers the symptoms of amnesia where a normal man would encounter death, acts as a solid overcoat to the true beauty at the heart of the game - the engrossing artistic tangle of sub-plots, metaphors, expression, and imaginative themes. One such recurring story node is central to this, the brutally profound effect which the protagonist's many lives have had on the individuals who have come and gone in the PS:T universe.

For those who get sucked in PS:T is a game which will cause the thinker to challenge his very perception of the real world, and will shortly after lighten the mood with base-level tongue-in-cheek humour - not dissimilar to the dialogs in Fallout and Fallout 2 with which PS:T shared much of its development team. Much to the credit of lead developer (read: creative coordinator) Chris Avellone, the interweaving of the graphical design, musical score and novel-like finesse of the game produces something that is more emotionally immersive than anything else synthetic I've come across.

Thanks to the folks at Spellhold Studios for letting us know Qwinn's suite of Planescape: Torment mods has been updated.  The Fixpack (incorporating Platter's and Skardavnelnate's fixes) and Unfinished Business have hit v3.0 and the Tweakpack is at v2.0.  Hit up this page at Spellhold for the details.

BellaOnline has a two part interview up with Chris Avellone on  his groundbreaking work in Planescape:Torment. Here's an excerpt from Part 1:

Lisa: With so many people praising Planescape: Torment as the best game ever, have you considered releasing a fresh version of the game, optimized for modern machines, to introduce a new generation of gamers to this environment?

Chris: No, securing the rights to Planescape is kind of convoluted (if it still exists as a brand at all), and I'd much rather see new stories and adventures in the Planescape universe, like the NWN2 mod community is doing with Purgatorio.

Lisa: If you were making Planescape: Torment right now, are there things you would do differently from the original release?

Chris: Probably start off with more combat - the beginning is very slow and exposition-heavy, and I don't think that helps get the player into the mystery of his character. This is something I tried to correct in the future opening levels of Black Isle games (notably IWD2, where you're in trouble the moment you step off the boat in Targos). Also, I would work more extensively in creating more dungeon and exploration areas, and do another pass on the combat mechanics in the game - the story and quest structure in the game ended up becoming the primary focus of design, and I think the game suffered as a whole when it came to combat.

Part 2 excerpt:

James: What, precisely, was your role with most of the projects that you worked on?

Chris: It usually comes down to character and area design, though it ranges from single areas and characters to groupings of areas and all major characters in a title (Neverwinter Nights 2). Concerning the "role" on projects, I've run the range from technical designer (generating asset lists early on at Interplay), to area designer, to lead creative designer, to lead designer, to Creative Director. No matter what the title, though, the work's always involved characters and area/quest design and various degrees of managing the design.

James: Which game was the most fun or most satisfying to work on? Are there any specific characters or events that you preferred in that game? In terms of the games themselves, which was your favorite?

Chris: Torment and Icewind Dale 2 were the two most satisfying titles I worked on at Black Isle. At Obisdian, I think the first Neverwinter expansion: Mask of the Betrayer, was the most satisfying, mostly because the engine and toolset was relatively complete when we started, which allowed everyone to focus more on the content than actually getting the content to work, for example.

For Torment, the answer's up for Lisa's question, for Icewind Dale 2, I enjoyed doing all the quest and goblin attack structure in Targos, mostly because I'm a huge fan of Glen Cook's Black Company, and dumping the players into a mercenary war band scenario was kind of fun. It also allowed me to poke fun at a lot of fetch quests we've done in previous titles.

Spellhold Studios is hosting three new Planescape: Torment mods, as explained in this post from their front page:

The Planescape: Torment Fixpack is a comprehensive WeiDU Fixpack for Black Isle’s classic Planescape: Torment CRPG. Fixing literally hundreds of bugs and thousands of typos, thereby restoring a lot of lost and inactive content, the PS:T Fixpack (along with PS:T Unfinished Business and Qwinn’s PS:T Tweak Pack) provides a completely new Planescape: Torment experience! Click here for a list of the most important fixes, as well as further information on the mod itself.

Planescape: Torment Unfinished Business takes the almost-but-not-quite-finished content that shipped with Black Isle’s classic Planescape: Torment CRPG and polishes, bugfixes and finishes it so you can see and enjoy the new content in your game! With 14 components in the first release, this mod is a must-have for anyone interested in seeing what the developers didn’t get time to do--or even if you’re just looking for some new content! Click here for information on each of the compenents and further information on the mod itself.

Qwinn’s Planescape: Torment Tweaks adds a few ease-of-use tweaks to your Planescape: Torment install, as well as one or two must-have components! Including a banter accelerator, ease-of-use tweaks and several content changes, this is an extremely useful mod for any player. Click here for information on each of the compenents and further information on the mod itself.

The resolution mod for Planescape: Torment shouldn't be news to our readers (and if it is - it isn't now) but I thought this piece at Rock, Paper, Shotgun was worth a look.  Alec Meer has been replaying the masterpiece in 1600x1050 res and took some screens, showing off the gorgeous artwork that this resolution unlocks:

Playing PST at 1680×1050 thanks to this mod - the pixels not stretched, but rather the game world expanded, a vast amount more of it now visible at any one time - I’m constantly struck by how beautiful it is. It seems less a thing of pixels now, and more a vast painting. Particularly, the cursed, sinister city of Sigil is no longer a collection of short, dingy alleyways and squat, disconnected buildings, but this grand expanse of gothic metropolis - bustling with NPC life, sprawling and darkly gorgeous. I get the sense this is Planescape as it was intended to look. It’s a different game for it, and now I stop to stare at the world as much as I do the elegiac prose. Unfortunately, the increased resolution does make said prose (and much of the UI) squinty-small, but I’m more than happy to make do. Oblivion, NWN2, The Witcher - losers in the 2D vs 3D RPG war. Give me this any day.

A piece called Don't Trust the Skull at The Brainy Gamer sees the titular player (a college professor, apparently) replaying Planescape: Torment (and another even older called A Mind Forever Voyaging) with an eye on narrative and the aim of comparing the quality of the narrative, characters and emotion with modern samples - namely Mass Effect and Bioshock. Interesting idea, although the result isn't as deep as I'd like. The link above is the conclusion with the idea starting here and then two PS:T game diaries as he moves along (Day 1, Day 5). Spoiler alert, obviously; here's a sample:

The genius of Avellone's narrative construction is the way he ensures an advancing plot while offering complexity and resonance to the player who is willing to explore beyond the main quest and ruminate on how all this fits together. Other games have done this--subplots and side-quests are nothing new--but these rarely matter very much. Such activities often extend the game, giving the player more to do, but adding little real thematic substance. PST unfailingly utilizes such optional activities to add color, nuance, and complexity to the story and characters. Ultimately, the Nameless One will come to know himself--the central quest of the narrative--only by coming to know others. Getting acquainted with sharp-tongued Annah, for example, isn't necessary at all. But oh what you will miss if you don't!

Kieron Gillen has a posted a retrospective piece on PS:T at Rock, Paper, Shotgun, originally written for PC Gamer.  The intro warns of spoilers but none of them are very revealing.  I love this bit:

Don’t underestimate text as a tool for creating emotion. It’s brutally efficient. The effort to create a cutscene which shows a Demon destroying all reality is months of work. The effort to write it? Hey – I’ve just done it. And while it doesn’t have the immediate impact, the fact that Text allows you to throw dozens of these sensations at the player all adds up: every few minutes a line of text or a concept hits you like a nail gun through the heart. With 800,000 words of script, Planescape often feels like the world’s biggest choose-your-own-adventure book.

Chris Avellone has answered a group of fan questions about creating Ravel from Planescape: Torment:

What was the origin of Ravel?

We had a number of physically powerful enemies in Torment, and I thought a night hag would be a good adversary, especially if she was a cryptic, deadly puzzle maker. As the game went on, the idea that Ravel was a branching creature whose life resembled a great tree (or bramble) stretching across the planes, was in love with the player and she genuinely tried to help people at times (only to have it turn against her and the recipient) seemed to be some good hooks to make an adversary.

Writing Ravel was perhaps one of the experiences I’m most proud of in my career. I felt like she came together nicely, and she had a really distinctive tone.

The second and concluding part of Brother None's excellent interview with Chris Avellone and Colin McComb is now online, offering an insight into the creative process, story and more. This part contains spoilers, so be warned:

RPGWatch: Factions featured strongly in the background of PS:T. Any factions you would have wanted to expand or add?

Chris Avellone: We actually wanted to add all of them, but there just wasn't the resources to do it - the Chaosmen was something I realized could be thrown in quickly, so I went ahead and did it. Also, we did want a Doomguard faction just because of Vhailor's presence, but again, we ran out of resources there as well.

Colin McComb: I would have liked to expand the Godsmen. I don’t think I gave them nearly enough credit, nor do I feel I made them interesting enough or involving enough. I think the Harmonium were well represented by Ebb Creakknees. I would have loved to get the Doomguard involved, and the Athar, but the whole no-powers-rule in the game kind of obviated their involvement.

Also included is a short voice sample and the original Vision statement used to pitch the game (conceived as "Last Rites") to management in 1997 (language warning).

Read it all here.

Our latest feature should be a treat for Planescape: Torment fans. An undeniable classic, guest interviewer Brother None talk to designers Chris Avellone and Colin McComb about the inspiration and development of Planescape: Torment in a detailed two-part conversation, replete with some original design documents. Here is a snip from Part 1:

RPGWatch: Planescape: Torment was never developed to be a huge hit. How much involvement or interference was there from the suits of the company?

Chris Avellone: As far as being a huge hit, I think everyone wanted Torment to sell very well (it made a profit, but not a huge one, and certainly not anywhere near Baldur's Gate numbers).

Still, there were a number of elements that I think hurt it in the long run:

- Not an accessible setting. It's not a fantasy world that is comfortable for players to settle into, and we did not take pains to make it comfortable (no dwarves, elves, or halflings, as one minor example).

- Story-heavy in the wrong ways. It has a slow start, and while the momentum does pick up in the Hive, there's a lot of reading, and people don't buy games to read, they buy games to play them.

- Marketing. The box of the product reinforces #1 above - it says, "hey, we're strange," rather than promoting it as a role-playing game using the Baldur's Gate engine, which probably would have made it a more interesting target to the game community.

As far as interference-from-above goes, we probably could have used more than we had - like Fallout, Torment was sort of under the radar for a while, and the producer role changed several times over the course of the project. Brian Fargo was mostly hands off, except to complement us on the writing, and give me a pretty stern lecture (deservedly) about the localization costs for the game. Feargus was also concerned about how much it slipped over the course of the development cycle, and those weren't fun discussions.

For this part, Chris gave us the original dialogue draft he wrote for Ravel and the final design documentation, showing the huge extent of the work involved.

Head here to read it all and watch for Part Two in a day or two.