If you were to judge a book strictly by its name, today’s title sets the bar quite high: The Citadel of Chaos frankly sounds rather cool. It promises whimsical magic, rolls of the tongue and hints at even greater things to come. So, the question we are going to ask today is: Does the content match its wrapping?
Really? The name seems somewhat generic to me. Even its predecessor had a bit more character. Never mind, let us dive right into the prologue: The sinister Balthus Dire (nomen est omen) is threatening the helpless, honest people of a nearby village. So, this time you are going to be a really ‘good’ guy.
Sometime, the time is just right. In 1984, along with its contemporary Elite, The Lords of Midnight broke completely new ground. To really understand how revolutionary it felt, you have to take yourself back to the computer gaming world of the early 1980s. The video game console market had just crashed. Somewhat affordable computers were slowly making their way into people's homes (hence "home computers"), but gaming-wise, the formulae inherited from the arcades and already imitated by said failed game consoles were still the norm: simplistic twitch gameplay, usually on a single or few screens. The only thing added in home computer context was the occasional puzzle or board game, ported over straight from the physical world. And then, out of nowhere, these new games came along.
In the history of CRPGs, the Wizardry series should give every old school gamer a chill of ecstasy. The series began already in the early 80s and ended only in 2001 with Wizardry 8: Destination Dominus, but under licence, it has multiple further spin-offs. like Wizardry Online, primarily in Japan until the year 2012. An icon of game design called D. W. Bradley created the huge worlds of Wizardry V: Heart of the Maelstorm (1988), Wizardry VI: Bane of the Cosmic Forge (1990) and finally Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant (1992) for the company Sir-Tech before jumping ship and founding his own software company. D. W. Bradley even surpassed himself and created the (in my view) only legitimate successor to Wizardry 7, namely Wizards and Warriors, already one year before Wizardry 8.