Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter is a 2001 expansion pack to the role-playing video game Icewind Dale, developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment. It introduced many changes and additions to the original game, and included a new campaign. A downloadable add-on to this expansion pack, titled Trials of the Luremaster, was released for free. Both the expansion and add-on were included in Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition.
Gameplay
Some notable changes include a much higher experience point cap, new magical items and spells, a special "Heart of Fury" difficulty setting for increased enemy power and higher experience point-gain, and a maximum resolution of 800x600. The game is still based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition ruleset.
In order to access the new campaign, the player must either enter a previously locked door in the town of Kuldahar while possessing a party of characters level 9 or above or import the party after completing the main campaign, when the party is exported.
Plot
In Kuldahar, the player's characters are greeted by a barbarian shaman, Hjollder, who reveals that he has visions of a great conflict and that the party is the key to stopping it. The party is magically transported to Lonelywood, where they discover that a great barbarian force is gathering nearby, threatening to destroy the Ten Towns. The force has rallied to Wylfdene, a great barbarian warlord killed in battle the previous season. He claims to be host to the spirit of the ancient barbarian hero Jerrod and is now eager to strike the Ten Towns in the name of the war-god Tempus.
The party journeys to the barbarian camp and meets the resurrected chief himself. Hjollder believes that something is off with Wylfdene, and is in turn exiled from the camp. The party later finds the exiled Hjollder in the barbarian burial grounds Wylfdene rose from, though it is now plagued by undead and spirits. On his recommendation, the party journeys to the Gloomfrost to consult the Seer, an old woman with vast mystical powers. She reveals that it is not Jerrod who inhabits the body of Wylfdene, but rather the soul of great white dragon Icasaracht.
The party returns to the barbarian camp, where the Seer herself approaches Wylfdene. She is killed by him, but succeeds in tricking the dragon spirit into abandoning his body, revealing the deception to the gathered barbarians. The last task of the player's party is to journey to the Sea of Moving Ice where Icasaracht's Lair is located. There, they battle through her minions (including the remaining loyal barbarians, trolls and sahuagins) and ultimately find the white dragon herself. She explains she wished vengeance upon the Ten Towns for the seizure of dragonkind's lands, and for her death a century past.
She claims she saw a kindred spirit in Wylfdene and sympathized with the barbarians, who she claims face extinction from the encroaching Ten Towns. She had thought they would be fitting instruments for her plan. The party kills her, and shatters the Soul Stone that had saved her from death a century before, ensuring her death is final.
Development
Icewind Dale: Heart of Winter was announced on September 25, 2000, shortly before the release of Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. By that time, the expansion had been in full production for between one and two months. Designer Josh Sawyer said that the impetus for the project was the strong retail performance of Icewind Dale; Interplay greenlit Heart of Winter around two weeks after the launch of the original game. The team began work "immediately", Sawyer wrote, as there was "a limited amount of time to work on the project and we needed to sharply define exactly what we wanted to accomplish."
Producer Darren Monahan said that the team "included a lot of fan feedback, particularly relating to the balances of each of the classes in the original game." Another focus lay on importing code and features created for Baldur's Gate II to the Icewind Dale series. One of the development challenges was the straightforward and linear structure of the original Icewind Dale, which left little room for additional content. The team's solution was to take players to a separate region by using the barbarian Hjollder as a "catalyst character", who could be met either in Icewind Dales hub location of Kuldahar or after completing the game's main story. Team members John Deiley and Steve Bokkes handled the "majority of area and quest work" in Heart of Winter, according to Sawyer.