Get dungeon crawling from December 17
Following a very lengthy delay, publisher GameSpark has announced that a classic entry in the old-school dungeon crawling franchise Wizardry is finally ready to make its western debut on PC later. Wizardry: The Five Ordeals was initially supposed to hit Steam Early Access way back in the summer of this year, but will now bring its fantasy exploration to players from December 17.
According to GameSpark and developer Studio59, the early access edition of The Five Ordeals will feature all five titular scenarios, each of which promise “dozens of hours” of gameplay. Unfortunately, the much-vaunted Game Editor is not quite ready for distribution and as such will follow in a later update scheduled for 2022. The team offered an apology for this missing feature in a statement on the game’s official Steam page.
“We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause to former users who were looking forward to the new editor, as well as to new users who were considering starting their own adventure sooner rather than later,” wrote the team. “As previously announced, the game will be launched in Early Access, as the editor is not functional for the time being and there are many items that cannot be adjusted.”
Wizardry: The Five Ordeals is a spin-off from the legendary home computer RPG series, one of the very first ever to exist. While The Five Ordeals launched in Japan way back in 2006, this will be the first time it has been made officially available in English.
The spin-off is highly regarded by Wizardry fans for its dungeon and monster design — though it has to be said that the real core of the release is the editor… The very feature that is, unfortunately, not launching until next year. That is something of a disappointment, but given that it has taken 15 years for Wizardry: The Five Ordeals to cross the pond, a little further delay shouldn’t hurt die-hard fans too much.
