Gateway to the Savage Frontier

When SSI began work on the Dark Sun game engine in 1989 after the completion of Secret of the Silver Blades, they passed responsibility for continuing the Forgotten Realms Gold Box games to Beyond Software. Designers Don Daglow, Mark Buchignani, David Bunnett, Arturo Sinclair and Mark Manyen set the action for the game in an area of the Forgotten Realms that TSR had labeled The Savage Frontier, north of Waterdeep and south of Luskan along the Sword Coast. The area was far to the west of the region that hosted the action for Pool of Radiance and its sequels.

One of the major locations in the Savage Frontier, Neverwinter, spun off a new chapter. Beyond Software gained the support of AOL executive Steve Case to create the first-ever graphical MMORPG, and to base it on the Gold Box engine. To leverage the existing game and cross-promote the titles, Daglow based the new MMORPG in Neverwinter and named it Neverwinter Nights.

The game's principal technical enhancement to the aging Gold Box engine was the addition of wilderness play, where the party traveled long distances on the map while following the basic D&D rules for combat with wandering monsters.

The game also featured character-specific side-quests, with two NPCs who can open these optional missions. The side quests in turn open different endings for the game.

The game spawned one sequel, Treasures of the Savage Frontier (1992).

The game revolves around a standard (for Gold Box adventures) party of six adventurers who inadvertently get caught up in a plot by the Zhentarim to conquer the entire Frontier area.

The storyline, in rough terms, follows:

• The party starts off in Yartar, having just escorted a caravan from the dwarven stronghold Citadel Adbar (ruled by the dwarf king Harbromm). At the tavern, while the party is enjoying the feast and spirits, something is slipped into their food that causes them to pass out, and they are robbed of all gold and gear, especially the magic longsword that one member used to slay a griffon at Longsaddle. However, each character has a purse of coins under their pillow so they can buy armor and weapons.
• Through rescuing the NPC Krevish, the party being hired by the Kraken in Yartar to assassinate a cleric of Bane at Nesme, only to discover that this evil priest was the only individual standing in the way of the conquest.
• Rescuing the magic user Amelior Amanitas from Everlund, an eccentric and somewhat absent-minded wizard who explains how to stop the Zhentarim. Returning to Yartar, the party is captured and imprisoned in a Kraken base below the city. There, the magic longsword stolen at the start is recovered but the party has to fight four giant squid in a huge tank before escaping.
• Finding four magical statues scattered across the frontier before the Zhentarim, led by a General Vaalgamon, gets to them.
• Traveling to the dead city of Ascore to end the Zhentarim plot.

Basically, Zhentil Keep plans to use these magical statues to open a way through an otherwise-unpassable desert for their armies. If successful, the party is hailed as the "Heroes of Ascore", which is carried over into the sequel.

SSI sold 62,581 copies of Gateway to the Savage Frontier.{{Cite web |url=http://www.filfre.net/2017/03/opening-the-gold-box-part-5-all-that-glitters-is-not-gold/ |title=Opening the Gold Box, Part 5: All That Glitters is Not Gold |last=Maher |first=Jimmy |date=2017-03-31 |website=The Digital Antiquarian}} The title was the #1 selling MS-DOS game in North America in August 1991.{{cite magazine | url=http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1991&pub=2&id=89 | title=SPA Top 25 Hits List | magazine=Computer Gaming World | date=December 1991 | access-date=20 May 2018 | author=CGW | pages=124}}

Jim Trunzo reviewed Gateway to the Savage Frontier in White Wolf #29 (Oct./Nov., 1991), rating it a 4 out of 5 and stated that "Gateway to the Savage Frontier earns high marks for graphics, text and depth. The mystery storyline is both interesting and believable but, to reiterate, it doesn't tie you down. The new wilderness style adds greatly to the freshness of the product and proves that there's truth to the idea that 'more is better'."{{Cite magazine |last=Trunzo |first=Jim |date=October–November 1991 |title=The Silicon Dungeon |magazine= White Wolf Magazine |number=29 |page=72 |url=https://imgur.com/a/99BVi1G}}

The game was reviewed in 1992 in Dragon #177 by Hartley, Patricia, and Kirk Lesser in "The Role of Computers" column. The reviewers gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.{{cite journal

|title=The Role of Computers

|last1=Lesser|last2=Lesser|last3=Lesser|first1=Hartley|first2=Patricia|first3=Kirk|name-list-style=amp

|journal=Dragon

|issue=177

|date=January 1992

|pages=57–66}} Scorpia of Computer Gaming World in 1993 called Gateway to the Savage Frontier "standard Gold Box fare ... you've played this many times before".{{cite magazine | url=http://www.cgwmuseum.org/galleries/index.php?year=1993&pub=2&id=111 | title=Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games | magazine=Computer Gaming World | date=October 1993 | access-date=25 March 2016 | author=Scorpia | pages=34–50}}

According to GameSpy, "it was a polished revision of what the early games in the Gold Box series were like, and felt very welcome, to those who'd gotten a bit weary of the far-flung conventions of its most recent installments".{{cite web | author1=Rausch, Allen | author2=Lopez, Miguel | title=A History of D&D Video Games - Part II | publisher=Game Spy | date=August 16, 2004 | url=http://pc.gamespy.com/articles/539/539300p2.html}}

• Zzap! (December 1991){{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/zzap64-magazine-079/page/n51/mode/2up|title = ZZap!64 Magazine Issue 079|date = December 1991}}
• ASM (Aktueller Software Markt) (October 1991)http://www.kultboy.com/index.php?site=t&id=3104 {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2022}}
• Amiga Mania (June 1992){{Cite web|url=http://amr.abime.net/review_3603|title = Gateway to the Savage Frontier review from Amiga Mania (Jun 1992) - Amiga Magazine Rack}}
• Commodore Format (December 1991)https://archive.org/stream/commodore-format-magazine-15/Commodore_Format_Issue_15_1991_12#page/n85/mode/2up
• ASM (Aktueller Software Markt) (April 1992)http://www.kultboy.com/index.php?site=t&id=3106 {{Bare URL inline|date=August 2022}}
• Joker Verlag präsentiert: Sonderheft (1992){{Cite web|url=http://amr.abime.net/issue_2949_pages|title = Amiga Joker Amiga Joker Sonderheft Nr.3 - Rollenspiele Page scans - Amiga Magazine Rack}}
• Amiga Joker (April 1992){{Cite web|url=http://amr.abime.net/review_23850|title=Gateway to the Savage Frontier review from Amiga Joker (May 1992) - Amiga Magazine Rack}}
• Amiga Action (May 1992){{Cite web|url=http://amr.abime.net/review_49425|title=Gateway to the Savage Frontier review from Amiga Action 32 (May 1992) - Amiga Magazine Rack}}
• Amiga Format (May 1992){{Cite web|url=http://amr.abime.net/review_1239|title = Gateway to the Savage Frontier review from Amiga Format 34 (May 1992) - Amiga Magazine Rack}}

• {{moby game|id=/gateway-to-the-savage-frontier}}

{{Gold Box games}}

{{Dungeons & Dragons video games}}

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