NOX wins GOG's preservation poll and is on sale for $1.39

Westwood's overlooked 2000 ARPG NOX has won GOG's latest patron poll to enter its Preservation Program — the same initiative that recently gave Thief a thorough, high-quality restoration. The vote wasn't particularly close: out of nearly 10,000 total votes, NOX pulled 3,068, with Might and Magic 7: For Blood and Honor coming in second at 2,239. The other candidates were Lands of Lore 1 + 2, Silver, and Albion.

GOG hasn't spelled out exactly what the preservation work will involve. Some games in the program get little more than a compatibility check, but given that NOX is only the second game — after Thief — to enter via the patron poll route, and given how much effort GOG put into that Thief release, it's reasonable to expect something more substantial. If you already own NOX on GOG, any improvements will be free.

NOX is a game that tends to come up whenever people talk about classics that got buried by bad timing. Westwood released it in early 2000, just months before Diablo 2 launched and effectively defined the ARPG genre for a generation. The game offered three distinct character classes — Warrior, Conjurer, and Wizard — each with a meaningfully different playstyle, and it held up well enough that PC Gamer listed it among eight classics still worth playing, noting it might have been everyone's favourite ARPG under different circumstances.

Conveniently, NOX is currently on sale on GOG for $1.39 — a price that makes it an easy impulse buy before the deal expires. Picking it up now means you'll automatically receive whatever GOG's preservation work produces down the line.