Neverwinter Nights has a sternly devout following among PC RPG fans, thanks to the history of the Forgotten Realms series. Naturally, as with anything worth a zesty dose of fan love, more content is being made available for the last iteration of the franchise, Neverwinter Nights 2, including an all-new expansion pack called Storm of Zehir.

We caught a brief glimpse of Storm of Zehir, at the Leipzig Games Convention; with one of the developers from Obsidian kindly walking us through some of the major new features for your reading pleasure.

The big change has already been announced - the ability to create your entire party right from the beginning. You can craft up to four characters from the ground up to aid you in your quest, and there's the possibility of some NPC characters joining your party along the way.

There're three new classes you might want to check out as well, including: The Swashbuckler (a light armour-wearing, rapier-toting sort), the Doom guide (like a cleric, effective against undead) and the Hellfire Warlock (can summon demons, always helpful).

Another new feature is the addition of the overland map, a zoomed-out 3D map that gives you a high level overview of the world (kind of like an RTS theatre of war view), on which you can move around and see pretty much everything. When you kick into combat or go into a quest you'll obviously zoom into the more typical view.

Storm of Zehir also introduces the Yuan-Ti snake-like race - D&D types familiar with the Forgotten Realms lore will probably recognise the name. These guys are a significant part of the story, but there's a variety of other new enemies and in general plenty of new content to keep you occupied.

The expansion will, as expected, retain and expand upon Neverwinter Nights' legendary moddability. Multiplayer is again a big factor with four player co-op on offer, and no doubt once the modders sink their teeth into it there'll be oodles of new content spewing out for everyone to enjoy.

Storm of Zehir is due out later in the year. It's not a standalone title, so you'll need the original game to play, but it's a whole new game in its own right - although you can import old characters if you want. As with the rest of the titles in the NWN series, the extensibility of the game through mods is almost a good enough reason to buy it on its own, but don't forget it'll have its own unique story as well.

You can check out more for the title locally, right here on AusGamers from our Storm of Zehir game page.