It details the story of Jack, a young man from Earth who is pulled into a high fantasy parallel universe and has to defeat the evil sorceress Hecubah and her army of necromancers to return home.

The line of sight is limited by an innovative[2] and well-received[3] fog of war system named "TrueSight", which dynamically blacks out portions of the screen which Jack cannot see from his current position.

The wizard characters are very limited in equippable weapons and armor and have very few hit points but can learn the largest array of magical spells, which they can use not only to kill enemies, but also to teleport themselves, to become invisible, and to heal themselves and their allies.

The expansion pack NoxQuest introduced an eponymous cooperative multiplayer mode, wherein a player team must navigate through various locations, killing monsters and looting items.

Some decades before Jack's arrival to the Land of Nox (the eponymous fictional setting of the game), a group of Necromancers attempted to seize control over the world but was stopped by the legendary hero Jandor wielding an artifact weapon named "the Staff of Oblivion".

Following the Necromancers' defeat, Jandor trapped their souls within the magical Orb, which the Arch-Wizard Horvath then transported to another dimension later revealed to be modern Earth.

He then disassembled the Staff and gave each piece to one of the three powerful factions in the game: the Fire Knights of the fortress Dün Mir (the Halberd of Horrendous), the wizards of Castle Galava (the Heart of Nox), and the conjurers' Temple of Ix (the Weirdling Beast).

An avid gamer, Booth began programming his own games on Apple II and VIC-20 computers while still at school, and started working on Nox "in a spare bedroom of [his] house" in college.

[2] It wasn't until Westwood started working on the game that it began to lean towards the RPG genre and two more classes (warrior and conjurer) and a single-player campaign were added.

[4] The game was originally intended to be played with a gamepad, with spells cast by quickly pressing several buttons, inspired by Mortal Kombat's combos, but it was eventually deemed to be "a large barrier for new and less dexterous players" and replaced with numeric hotkeys and mouse-controlled movement.

[9] In October 1999, Westwood began "Meet Nox Tour" in San Francisco Bay Area as part of a marketing campaign to raise awareness of the game and receive beta-testing feedback.

[2] To promote Nox in post-launch, another event was organized in June 2000 in Las Vegas by Westwood; the LAN party was a mass tournament, ended with a final head-to-head clash between two highest-score gamers to win a new computer system worth US$2,500.

Trent C. Ward of IGN praised the game as a successful clone of Diablo and highly recommended the former, citing its graphics and gameplay quality, but criticizing some of its sound effects.

[31] Michael Lafferty of GameZone gave it nine out of ten, saying, "With the great graphics, interactive game board and challenge, this is bound to be one of the most successful titles Westwood has ever produced.

"[32] However, Eric Bratcher of NextGen said, "Nox will have a difficult time avoiding the dismissal, 'Diablo wannabe' (especially with Diablo II looming on the horizon), but those who try it will find a solid game that can stand on its own merits.