After several months in early access, the full release of Digital Eclipse’s Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord remaster is on the horizon. It’s coming to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC on May 23.
Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord originally came out for Apple II in 1981, helping to pave the way for the RPG genre as we know it. These days, it’s perhaps better known for establishing a particularly unforgiving style of dungeon crawler with complex mazes that, once upon a time, had to be mapped out by hand on sheets of grid paper (a legacy that lives on in games like Etrian Odyssey).
For this remaster, the folks at Digital Eclipse bring their particular expertise for preserving historically significant games in a way that both keeps their original form intact and helps make things more accessible for a modern audience. It’s a complete graphical overhaul, but with the original Apple II game running under the hood, complete with the option of viewing original interface visible while playing.
A variety of user-selectable options for things like automapping, improved navigation, and other modern conveniences let players tailor the experience to their taste. With those options all turned off, the original, more brutal design is still there for those who want it. Numerous other improvements have been made as a result of player feedback since the game launched in Steam Early Access last September, too.
Whatever your platform of choice, there’s no shortage of Wizardry-style dungeon crawlers these days. When Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord hits full release on May 23, the game that started it all will join them.
