Gateway to the Savage Frontier

Plot

The story follows six adventurers who become entangled in a Zhentarim scheme to dominate the Savage Frontier. After escorting a caravan from Citadel Adbar, ruled by King Harbromm, the party celebrates in a Yartar tavern, where they are drugged and robbed of all possessions, including a magic longsword used to slay a griffon at Longsaddle. Each character finds a small purse of coins to buy new gear. The party rescues Krevish and is hired by The Kraken in Yartar to assassinate a cleric of Bane at Nesme, only to learn that priest was the sole obstacle to conquest.

They rescue the wizard Amelior Amanitas in Everlund, who explains how to stop the Zhentarim. Captured and imprisoned in a Kraken base below Yartar, the party recovers the stolen longsword and fights four giant squid. They then gather four magical statues scattered across the frontier before General Vaalgamon can seize them. Traveling to the dead city of Ascore, they thwart Zhentil Keep's plan to use the statues to open a desert route for armies. Success earns them the title 'Heroes of Ascore', carried into the sequel.

Development

Designers Don Daglow, Mark Buchignani, David Bunnett, Arturo Sinclair, and Mark Manyen set the game in the Savage Frontier, a region north of Waterdeep and south of Luskan along the Sword Coast, far west of the area used in Pool of Radiance and its sequels. The location Neverwinter inspired a new project: Beyond Software, with AOL executive Steve Case's support, created the first graphical MMORPG based on the Gold Box engine, named Neverwinter Nights. The main technical addition was wilderness travel, where parties moved long distances on the map using standard D&D combat rules for wandering monsters. Character-specific side-quests, opened by two NPCs, lead to different endings.

Reception

Strategic Simulations sold 62,581 copies of Gateway to the Savage Frontier. In August 1991, it was the top-selling MS-DOS game in North America. Jim Trunzo, writing in White Wolf #29, rated it 4 out of 5, praising its graphics, text, depth, and the mystery storyline, as well as the new wilderness style. Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser reviewed it in Dragon #177 in 1992, giving it 4 out of 5 stars. Scorpia of Computer Gaming World in 1993 described it as 'standard Gold Box fare' that players had experienced many times before. GameSpy noted it was a polished revision of earlier Gold Box games, welcome to those weary of the series' more recent installments.