If you are already a fan of the Death Gate novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, all you really need to know is that this dark fantasy world will soon be available for your PC as Legend's first CD-ROM release. For the rest of you...
When the world was whole, the mensch races (elves, dwarves and humans) lived in fear and respect of the two magic wielding races, the Sartan and the Patryns. These rivals battled for supremacy over the world, and the mensch worshipped them as gods. In a last gambit, the Sartan combined their powerful sorcery and divided the world into five new worlds, one for each element (fire, stone, water and air) and a prison Labyrinth for the Patryns.
In the game, the player takes the role of a Patryn named Haplo. With the help of a fellow prisoner named Lord Xar, he manages to escape the Labyrinth with a noble quest: Heal and rejoin the worlds.
The original spell was accomplished by the creation and breaking of the World Seal. A fragment from this piece exists on each world. Also, in order to travel from world to world, Haplo must learn the rune symbol for the destination. So this job is no walk in the park.
As Haplo makes his way from world to world he learns many things, including new magic disciplines that will be very useful later on. But one of the more unpleasant lessons Haplo learns is that Lord Xar is not the charitable soul he seems to be, and that the Sartan may not have been so crazy to cast the Spell in the first place.
The game is full of the staples of the fantasy genre: Dragons, fairies, etc. But the story is not as cut and dried as most adventures of this sort. The very quest itself is ultimately called into question. Maybe the worlds are better off separate? Ultimately the choice belongs to Haplo.
Death Gate features Super VGA graphics, full digitized speech, and a fully orchestrated score complete with leitmotifs for characters and events. It should be on the shelves in September.
