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Classic roleplaying game Wizardry: The Five Ordeals just got a stealthy English-language release on Steam during the Future Games Show at Gamescom Powered by Mana.
The historic Wizardry franchise started life in 1981, and the eight games that made up the main series are among some of the most influential in gaming, with the likes of Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy drawing inspiration from them. As well as finding success in North America, Wizardry became extremely popular in Japan; dozens of spin-off titles have been released in the region over the past few decades, and now one of them is returning to Western audiences.
The Five Ordeals offers the same classic dungeon-crawling gameplay, but its early access Steam release last year brought a suite of improvements. Enhanced graphics and UI, in-game scenario selection, gamepad and Steam cloud support are all offered in this modernised version. For all of those changes, however, the developers - part of the team that worked on the original Japanese release in 2006 - promise that the core gameplay has been left unchanged; the simpler, JRPG-style elements blend seamlessly with the hard-as-nails retro tabletop experience.
When Wizardry: The Five Ordeals arrived in Steam Early Access last year, it only offered Japanese language support. As of right now, however, you can finally experience the classic with full English Language support, so get dungeon-crawling!
Check out some of the excellent titles that Wizardry helped inspire with our list of the best RPG games.
If you’re looking for more excellent games from today's Future Games Show, have a look at our official Steam page.
