so that a wide variety of parties can be playable. Characters may change their class as they advance, allowing a variety of combinations. The game itself is played from a first-person perspective. Movement is fluid, whereas in previous Wizardry games it was grid-based. For the first time in the Wizardry series, players can see enemies approaching instead of having them pop up from chance. Combat is turn-based, although a continuous-phase mode can be toggled. Monsters are scaled to the party level; higher level parties will face different sets of monsters than a lower-level party in the same area. The scaling is limited to allow variation in difficulty. Wizardry 8 uses different statistics from the previous games, necessitating conversions from the upper limit of 18 to the new upper limit of 100. For players seeking a more difficult challenge, Sir-Tech brought back an option to play using rules from the early Wizardry games – the "Iron Man Mode". In this "permadeath" mode, players are not allowed to save the game manually; instead, the game is automatically saved when the player quits. There are many secret areas, including "retro dungeons", which hearken to the dungeons of (Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord). Instead of vast, open views, players are greeted with a solid, traditional grid-based dungeon. Spinners, traps and teleporters are used. Development Wizardry 8 was published nine years after the previous title, Wizardry VII: Crusaders of the Dark Savant in 1992, and five years after the completion of Wizardry VII's Windows 95 version, titled Wizardry Gold in 1996. David W. Bradley had been the chief designer of Wizardry VI and VII, but he was not involved in the design of this game. After Bradley's departure, Sir-Tech outsourced the development of Wizardry 8: Stones of Arnhem to DirectSoft, their distributor in Australia. This team consisted of programmer Cleveland Blakemore (Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar) and Actor Max Phipps. However, this attempt failed and Directsoft disbanded, so they relaunched the project entirely with Sir-Tech Canada. Linda Currie is credited as producer of Wizardry 8. Brenda Romero was the game's lead designer. In spite of a 'final save' after the final battle, Sir-Tech announced that they had no plans to make a sequel. The company later went out of business in 2003. Despite the closing of the development studio, Sir-Tech continued to provide support and created several patches or upgrades for the game