Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition released with Day-1 Linux support, my review

Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition [Beamdog Store, GOG, Steam] is another revamp of an old classic given new life by Beamdog, a game where death is not the end. You will end up becoming friends with death and get to know it rather well.

Disclosure: Key provided to me by Beamdog directly.

Reviewing anything as big as a game like Planescape is tricky for three reasons.

Firstly: it’s absolutely huge and trying to condense your thoughts on a 50+ hour game like this is a big task itself.

Secondly: Taking the game's age into consideration, the vast majority of you interested in it have likely played it through before, or read one of the many existing reviews on it, so a full review of the entire game would likely be quite pointless. I will give it my usual thoughts on how it runs and feels based on spending a few hours inside the world.

Lastly: The more pressing issue is that I had never played the original so there’s no nostalgia here for me. However, I am no stranger to previous titles having played Baldur’s Gate to death, so I’m well accustomed to these types of games. For Linux gamers who also never had a chance to play it, this will also be really exciting, since the original wasn’t on Linux.


Note: This may contain some spoilers.

First of all, if you haven’t seen it already, I actually interviewed Beamdog, the developer and publisher behind the Enhanced Edition. It’s worth a quick read, as they think Linux gaming is worth it, which is fantastic to know.

Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition is another game set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe using the 2nd edition rules. It does require some serious time-investment to get anywhere, as expected, it’s a text-heavy RPG which could easily put less patient people off. Light readers may get bored and frustrated with it, but anyone into deep story-based RPGs will probably adore it.


This Enhanced Edition includes remastered music, a higher resolution interface, tab highlighting, area zooming, combat log, quickloot and plenty more. When initially starting a new game, you actually get the choice between the original game and the full Enhanced Edition. Each Enhanced Edition option can be tweaked individually too, look for options with an asterix next to them.

One important thing to know is that they haven’t added any extra characters or quests. It is very much the original game with quality of life improvements, additional bug fixes and support of other platforms. So essentially, it’s had a fresh coat of paint to make it appear nicer. This is good, since their previous additions to other titles did cause quite a stir.

One of the downsides of it being a revamp rather than a remake is that when zoomed in, the game becomes really quite ugly due to such low quality models. It’s best played with a good bit of zoom on it. Not a big issue though as I haven’t really needed to zoom in at all.

Another downside is that some issues I’ve read about that plagued the original are still present in the revamp. Character pathfinding for battles has repeatedly been an issue for me, where they spin around on the spot, or go the most ridiculous route, sometimes just doing absolutely nothing. It would have been nice to have the polished up, especially since it’s a known bug from the original and will annoy new players.

Now, about that story: You are The Nameless One, an immortal, but you start off knowing nothing of who you are to be told you’re covered in scars. Sound familiar to Torment: Tides of Numenera? It should, since Torment: Tides of Numenera is the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment.

You start off being awoken by a floating skull named Morte, who seems rather cheerful for not having a body. The writing is, as expected, really quite good. I found myself chuckling at various moments, the start especially when speaking to Morte was gold, with Morte comparing your location’s architectural charm to that of a pregnant spider.

It’s a pretty grim game, especially so considering you start off in a Mortuary filled with zombified-bodies. Not only that, but full on corpses turned inside-out fill the area too — gross. The Mortuary is essentially a training area, nothing is really strong enough to kill you and it allows you a slow pace to get to know the intricacies of the various gameplay elements.

Once the initial introductions are done, you’re greeted with a few info-boxes showing what the various UI elements do. Even that simple thing seems a little overwhelming at first, with 4 pages of details on the UI. Thankfully though, the UI tells you exactly what each button is when you hover over it.

Small tip: If you got stuck trying to find the stairs to the first floor of the Mortuary, look directly next to a small set of stairs going up. I got stuck for ages trying to find the damned thing!

Being an older game, one thing that did frustrate me was not having the ability to directly compare items. Weapons for example, nothing is more frustrating than having to remember numbers while clicking between items to see what I want to keep.


It’s a game where exploration and constant chatting plays a dominant role. Finding items, learning some lore and picking up extra side-quests can be essential to help you later in the game. I’ve often found quests from people I might have otherwise just ran past, so it pays to really take you time here. Often a conversation that first may seem fruitless, may actually give you a quest or something you needed to know if you pester them enough.

It’s also slightly odd, due to being immortal you don’t need to fear death. I’ve died plenty of times only to wake up again with everything intact. You wake up with all your items, full health and you know what — I like it.

Characters in your party dying is also nothing but a small nuisance, since early on in the game you gain the ability to raise the dead — handy!

It feels less punishing than many other RPGs I’ve played and allows you to get through the story without the hassles of death itself. I imagine for some though, that this will remove some of the fun of the game, since a large part of the challenge is swept from under your feet. Still, it makes it a different experience to others currently available on Linux.

I'm not saying this makes it easy though, far from it, you will die — a lot. Either way, death means nothing other than being a small nuisance.

I’ve had zero issues with the Linux version, not a single one. That makes me very happy with it overall! If you’re an RPG fan and you’ve been itching for more, you should definitely check it out. You can find it on the Beamdog Store (which gives you an AppImage client), GOG and Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.