We’ve already featured this mod before, but it’s worth bringing it up again for two reasons: First, the base game – The Temple of Elemental Evil – is currently $3 over at GOG.com, and will be until the start of January. Secondly, because this enormous hybrid of (much-needed) fan-patch and unofficial expansion has updated again after another full year of development. More locations, more quests, more characters and more loot. If you’re looking for tactical RPG combat, this is ridiculously good value, and a truly essential mod.

The Castle Of The Lords, one of the many new locations in this mod.

The Temple Of Elemental Evil was a troubled game. Rushed out unpolished, crippled by last-minute censorious publisher decisions and abandoned shortly after release due to under-funding and the rapidly approaching closure of the studio. It was buggy, unbalanced and generally unfinished. It quite deservedly got low review scores from a great many sites, although some could see that there was a shining gem of a game under all that muck. The Circle Of Eight modding team have been polishing that gem for years, and the effort really does show.

A dramatic encounter with the Scarlet Brotherhood in one of the new quest arcs.

Now the game is almost without peer. The only real competition at the moment is Knights of The Chalice (which I reviewed previously). Both this and KoTC share the same formula; build a party of your own design, and go on a relatively simple quest to beat up evildoers and save kingdoms. What ToEE lacks in conversational depth and nuance it makes up for in having one of the most detailed and complex combat engines ever seen in an RPG, making the sometimes-incomprehensible D&D 3.5 rule-set much more palatable by automating the countless dice-rolls and laborious arithmetic.

Open conflict abounds in 'War Of The Golden Skull', a major new quest.

Grappling spellcasters, disarmament, meta-magic, rushing tackles, monsters that can swallow heroes whole and intensely detailed character creation steal the show here. It’s ‘kick in the door, disarm the traps, stab the monsters and grab the treasure’ dungeoneering in classic D&D style. In addition to fixing the litany of bugs, correcting countless misapplied rules and restoring some of the content cut at the last minute, the Co8 pack has branched out into becoming a full-fledged expansion. An entire city – originally referenced to, but never fleshed out in the original game – is now available to explore and set out on new adventures from, and the latest update adds yet more to this region to see, as well as a high-level scenario where you must save the starting town of Hommlet from a massive evil horde.

You conquered the Temple, but are your heroes ready to fight an army?

If you get the ‘NC’ (‘New Content’) version of the mod (which I highly recommend you do) you’ll be given the option later on to travel to the city of Verbobonc, which acts as a quest hub from which a whole range of new quests which range from stuff as straightforward as gladiatorial arena battles to investigating mysterious cults and tracking down new and unique monsters. Even if you have no interest in the additional content, there’s no harm in installing the NC version anyway. If you’re not interested in anything beyond the original quest, you can just ignore Verbobonc on the map. Everyone wins. Either way, if you want to play the Temple of Elemental Evil, you NEED this mod. It’s just not worth it otherwise.

[The Temple Of Elemental Evil, Circle Of Eight Modpack]

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