Overview
Commissioned by the mysterious Lords of Waterdeep, a party of four adventurers is sent into the sprawling, labyrinthine sewers beneath the city to investigate a rising evil. Shortly after entering, a massive cave-in traps the party underground. With no way back to the surface, the only option is to press deeper into the darkness.
As the party descends through 12 massive levels of dungeons, dwarven ruins, and drow encampments, they must manage their hunger, decipher ancient runes, and fight hordes of classic D&D monsters. The descent eventually culminates in a showdown with Xanathar, a brilliant and paranoid Beholder who runs the city's criminal underworld from his subterranean lair.
Visual Archive
Behind The Scenes
Bringing AD&D into Real Time
Before 1991, most PC role-playing games based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons license (like SSI's famous "Gold Box" series) featured slow, turn-based, tactical combat on a separate screen. Eye of the Beholder completely shattered that mold. Influenced heavily by Dungeon Master, the game took place entirely in a first-person perspective, with combat happening in real-time. Players had to frantically click on character portraits to swing swords and cast spells while simultaneously side-stepping incoming enemy attacks on the grid.
The Rise of Westwood
The game was developed by Westwood Associates, a studio that would later become a household name (as Westwood Studios) for creating the Command & Conquer franchise. Their mastery of VGA pixel art gave Eye of the Beholder an incredibly immersive, atmospheric quality that felt grim and dangerous. The detailed portraits, the animated monster sprites, and the intricately drawn brickwork of the dungeons set a visual high-water mark for the RPG genre in 1991.