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NWN Explorer is a Windows tool used to load game BIF files, extract files from them and in some cases display some information about them.

It is an older tool so don't expect the world from it, see the Usage tips below.

Download

The latest versions are now on Github here: https://github.com/virusman/nwnexplorer/releases

Usage

The tool does attempt to find your installation. If it can't then direct it to the root install folder, eg it could be D:\Steam\steamapps\common\Neverwinter Nights\

The interface is generally mouse and keyboard driven, you can drill down into individual BIF (which essentially are like hakpacks but used for default game data), HAK, and override/development individual files in folders. The tool will categorise files it finds.

Export

You can export an entire BIF or Hakpack to a folder, or an individual file out, with the right click menu. There are some issues with this:

  • Newer file formats the game can use may not be recognised and may not properly export

Search is done, bizarrely, with CTRL + S as a little popup box in the bottom left. Press it again to search again. It doesn't support star search, but does do partial matches (eg; "_h.tga" finds everything ending in _h.tga, but "*.tga" won't find anything).

It can commonly crash when searching larger hakpacks (it goes through them last) or sometimes just in general - since it opens quickly it is recommended to just force close it if it hangs.

Viewer

You can open several game files in the viewer - these include:

  • General text - 2da, nwscript scripts (NSS), ini, txt, SET,
  • NWN resources:
    • DLG - Dialogue files
    • GUI - GUI definition files
    • MDL / WOK - only the older NWN 1.69 or earlier models. NWN:EE includes new information that crashes the viewer. It has a basic 3d viewer that is also buggy, but can do in a pinch.
    • NCS / NDB - Compiled NWscript - although newer NWN:EE scripts may not load and be viewed properly
  • General formats:
    • TGA - Graphics file
    • NWN DDS - specifically the weird old DDS files that are weird, modern DDS is not loaded
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