Neverwinter Nights, the 2002 BioWare RPG that also produced Baldur's Gate, KOTOR, Mass Effect, and Dragon Age, never achieved the same cultural canonization as its siblings. It sold well. Critics liked it. Then history mostly moved on.
Except it didn't. More than two decades later, NWN maintains a player community that its more celebrated stablemates cannot match. The Ars Technica piece argues this survival is structural, not nostalgic: NWN was built differently from the ground up.
The full article is worth reading for exactly what that difference was and why it produced longevity instead of legend. The answer is not what most RPG fans will expect.
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