GOG has named NOX, Westwood Studios' 2000 action RPG, as the winner of its latest patron poll, committing the storefront to keeping the game supported and easy to run under its Preservation Program.
The vote was not close. Patrons chose between Lands of Lore 1 and 2, Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor, Silver, Albion and NOX. Of almost 10,000 votes cast, NOX took 3,068. Might and Magic 7 finished second with 2,239.
What the program commits GOG to
GOG has not said what work NOX will receive. The scope varies: some Preservation Program entries, such as the storefront's recent Star Ocean releases, amount to little more than a compatibility check confirming the game still runs on modern systems. Others get substantially more attention.
NOX is the second game to enter the program through a patron vote. The first was Thief, and PC Gamer, which reported the result, expects NOX to receive treatment closer to that release, describing the work GOG did on Thief as producing an excellent version of the game.
Anyone who already owns NOX on GOG will receive whatever changes the storefront makes at no additional cost. The game was discounted to $1.39 on GOG at the time of the report, in a sale due to end within hours.
A game overshadowed at launch
NOX's obscurity is largely a matter of timing. Westwood shipped it in 2000, a few months before Diablo 2, and the comparison has followed it ever since. PC Gamer previously listed it among PC gaming classics still worth playing today, with writer Russell Adderson arguing that it might have been many players' favourite action RPG had it not landed in the shadow of Blizzard's release.
The Preservation Program is GOG's standing pledge to maintain selected older games against operating system changes, rather than a one-off patch. For NOX, that means a quarter-century-old release now has a route back onto current hardware.
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