Eye of the Beholder is a first-person AD&D role-playing game developed by Westwood Associates and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) for MS-DOS and Amiga in 1991. The Lords of Waterdeep hire a party of adventurers to investigate an evil beneath the city, and the trail leads through dwarf and drow clans to the lair of the beholder Xanathar. In 1991 SSI also ran the Beholder Bonus contest, with prizes for finding 12 hidden easter eggs.
The game travelled widely. In Japan Pony Canyon published a PC-98 version in 1992. Capcom released the Super NES version in April 1994, and the Sega CD version followed on 4 May 1994 with new music by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima. An Atari Lynx version developed by NuFX in 1993 was never released, and a separate Game Boy Advance adaptation by Pronto Games appeared in 2002.
In 1995 the Eye of the Beholder Trilogy collected all three games on one CD-ROM for MS-DOS.1
Names and releases
| Region | Title on the box | Platform | Date | Publisher | Src |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NA | Eye of the Beholder | Amiga | 1991 | Strategic Simulations, Inc. | 1 |
| NA | Eye of the Beholder | MS-DOS | 1991 | Strategic Simulations, Inc. | 1 |
| NA | Eye of the BeholderAlso released in Japan on Super Famicom by Capcom (date not given in the sources). | SNES | April 1994 | Capcom | 1 |
| NA | Eye of the BeholderJapanese Wikipedia names Pony Canyon as the Japanese publisher of the Mega-CD version (date not given). | Sega CD | May 4, 1994 | Sega | 1 |
| NA | Eye of the Beholder TrilogyCD-ROM compilation of all three games. | MS-DOS | 1995 | Strategic Simulations, Inc. | 1 |
| JP | アイ・オブ・ザ・ビホルダーAi obu za Bihorudā | PC-98 | 1992 | Pony Canyon | 1 |
| WW | Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection OneSteam compilation with all three Eye of the Beholder games. | Windows | Mar 29, 2022 | SNEG | 2 |
Also known as: アイ・オブ・ザ・ビホルダー JP3Ai obu za Bihorudā JP3
Box art by region
NA Eye of the Beholder
Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: Wikipedia.
Version differences
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ContentAmiga
The Amiga version replaced the original DOS ending, a small text window without graphics, with an animated sequence.1
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AudioSega CD / Mega-CD
The Sega CD version has a new soundtrack by Yuzo Koshiro and Motohiro Kawashima; Koshiro has said about two-thirds of it is Kawashima's work.1
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AudioSuper NES / Super Famicom
The Super NES version, published by Capcom, has music by Tatsuya Nishimura, with the intro and character-creation themes by Paul S. Mudra.3
Translations
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Spanish Official
—MS-DOSReleased
Steam lists English, German and Spanish (Spain) for Eye of the Beholder in Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One.4
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Japanese Official
Pony Canyon1992PC-98Released
In Japan Pony Canyon released the game for PC-98 in 1992 and on Mega-CD, while Capcom published the Super Famicom version.3
Where to play legally today
-
Steam Purchase
Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One
MS-DOS version with Eye of the Beholder II and III; Windows
Checked: 2026-10-132store.steampowered.com
How to run it today
The game is sold on Steam for Windows as part of Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One, together with Eye of the Beholder II and III.
- Forgotten Realms: The Archives - Collection One on Steam store.steampowered.com
Reception
Dragon gave the DOS version 5/5 and Computer and Video Games 96%, and it topped the Software Publishers Association's MS-DOS chart for April 1991. More than 150,000 copies had sold worldwide by mid-1991, and the series passed 350,000 units by 1996. The console ports were received less warmly: Famitsu gave the Super Famicom version 24/40 and the Mega-CD version 28/40.1
Sources
- 1en.wikipedia.org
- 2store.steampowered.com
- 3ja.wikipedia.org
- 4store.steampowered.com
- 5catalog.gog.com
Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13
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