Still, Planescape is one of my absolute favorite role-playing games on the PC. In fact, a friend and I were gushing about it just the other night, and I was telling him of the cool Widescreen Mod that’s updated the game so that you can see full environments on modern PC monitors. I’d be tempted to get PT again just to see it this way.
Planescape: Torment was such an odd release back in the day — it absolutely bowled over critics and players with its radically different approach to storytelling and setting, but it failed to gather a large enough playerbase to become the smash hit it deserved. It didn’t help that the box art was hideously ugly, that most people couldn’t envision Dungeons & Dragons in a setting other than Forgotten Realms (something that plagues DDO to this day), and that it was more of a thinker’s RPG than a fighter’s. You could actually complete the entire game and avoid combat except for two mandatory fights — I can’t think of another modern RPG that could make this claim.
It had deep themes, fantastic companions, and a truly spectacular and bizarre world, one that I wish would have gotten a followup instead of being relegated to the dusty shelves. Hopefully, this re-release might garner a new generation of fans for this terrific title.