Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II Enhanced Editions Announced

[PsychoPere]

A few weeks ago, a mysterious new website went online with the Baldur's Gate logo. Fans of the games quickly started looking through the website's source code for more information, only to be greeted with cryptic phrases.

Today, Enhanced Editions of both the original Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate II were announced. The official website has been getting hit hard by a great deal of traffic. Trent Oster, formerly of BioWare but now with Beamdog, the digital distributor / developer behind this "enhanced edition," has been answering questions via Twitter in the meantime. You can also see some text from the official website at this PC Gamer article, and Joystiq also has some information from the companies involved.

I've never played either Baldur's Gate myself, though over the past few weeks I've found myself thinking about purchasing the first one and giving it a try. Maybe I'll finally do that when these editions are released this summer.

[Evil Twin]

Sa-WEEEET!

Makes me wonder if they're going to use a newer D&D ruleset. Wouldn't be surprised, but don't really care either way. Care more about the story than the mechanics.

And yeah, you definitely owe it to yourself to play them. The first one is decent but 2 is just pure awesomeness. Pained me when they moved away from the Infinity Engine's gorgeous 2D backgrounds to Neverwinter Nights' fugly, tile-y 3D environments.

[Josan]

Well, let's remember how creaky and cranky the Infinity Engine was. It was pretty obvious in the BG and IWD series and definitely due to be put out to pasture. As for NWN... yeah, it was fugly. And beyond the visuals it was crap. I never finished it.

As for this updated version or whatever it is... been there, done that over a decade ago so it means nothing to me. Still, for people who haven't played them, it should be good.

[PsychoPere]

Oster said on Twitter that they're using the 2nd Edition D&D rules. He also addressed the Infinity Engine: the version they are using "is based off the latest Throne of Bhall codebase".

Long-time fans will likely be interested to know that the team is trying to ensure they don't break existing mods, and to ensure that existing save files will work in this enhanced edition.

BG1 Enhanced will include Tales of the Sword Coast, and BG2 Enhanced will include Throne of Bhaal.

[clint g]

This has me interested. I recently picked up the Neverwinter Nights collection to see how some of BioWares earlier work stacks up. So far I'm enjoying it well enough.

[Owain Taggart]

About a year ago, I bought the first one on GOG, though for the life of me I couldn't get very far into it. There was something about it that wasn't grabbing me, plus most of the enhancements including one that made the interface better required BG2, so I gave up. I'm hoping these versions are better.

[Kelthaz]

I've always wanted to enjoy the Baldur's Gate series -- they seem almost perfect. Unfortunately the Infinity Engine just completely ruins the games for me. Is there something wrong with turn-based combat? Maybe I would have enjoyed the games more if I had played them when they first came out, but then again maybe not.

If these remakes overhaul the combat system I'll definitely check them out.

[Rincewiend]

So, more miniature giant space hamsters then...

[Owain Taggart]

Kelthaz wrote:

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I've always wanted to enjoy the Baldur's Gate series -- they seem almost perfect. Unfortunately the Infinity Engine just completely ruins the games for me. Is there something wrong with turn-based combat? Maybe I would have enjoyed the games more if I had played them when they first came out, but then again maybe not.

If these remakes overhaul the combat system I'll definitely check them out.

Yeah, the engine might have been good for what it was back then, but it feels terribly clunky now. When I tried playing it, I had a hard time getting the characters to do much, and I have to say, pathfinding has improved by loads since this was released, as it pretty much feels you have to babysit your characters. Ironically, my best time with the Infinity Engine was when I bought Arcanum on GOG years ago and patched it up with high-res graphics, a game that was considered to be so buggy that it was unplayable back when it was released, but all these years later it seems to be the one that has stood the test of time better, at least to me.

[TheBrew]

If they upgrade the artwork to a higher resolution, rebalance some of the early encounters (some stuff is tough at level 1) and redo the UI, I am down. Lots of greatness that is a big bogged down by old game design.

[Skywalker]

I'm sorry to say that I've never played either of the Baldur's Gate games (my first BioWare product was Neverwinter Nights). This looks like the perfect opportunity to rectify that mistake.

[Kelthaz]

TheBrew wrote:

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rebalance some of the early encounters (some stuff is tough at level 1).

Yeah, rebalancing the lower levels would be a nice addition. I love hard games, but getting a game over in a training battle is just wrong.

[Josan]

Owain Taggart wrote:

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Yeah, the engine might have been good for what it was back then, but it feels terribly clunky now. When I tried playing it, I had a hard time getting the characters to do much, and I have to say, pathfinding has improved by loads since this was released, as it pretty much feels you have to babysit your characters. Ironically, my best time with the Infinity Engine was when I bought Arcanum on GOG years ago and patched it up with high-res graphics, a game that was considered to be so buggy that it was unplayable back when it was released, but all these years later it seems to be the one that has stood the test of time better, at least to me.

Arcanum didn't used the Infinity Engine.

Bioware developed the engine and only Bioware and Black Isle used it. Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Icewind Dale, BG2 and IDW2 were the only titles that used the engine.

And I wouldn't mind if they'd release some more info. I'd initially heard it was an iOS port but I've also heard that there will be an updated PC version.

[Owain Taggart]

Josan wrote:

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Arcanum didn't used the Infinity Engine.

Bioware developed the engine and only Bioware and Black Isle used it. Baldur's Gate, Planescape, Icewind Dale, BG2 and IDW2 were the only titles that used the engine.

Oh, I could have sworn it used it. It looked very similar in terms of engines. I thought I had heard they used a heavily modded version of it somewhere. Maybe I'm thinking of the engine used in Fallout 1 and 2. In the end, I guess it doesn't really matter.

[PsychoPere]

Josan wrote:

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I'd initially heard it was an iOS port but I've also heard that there will be an updated PC version.

It will be both - the iOS version was announced yesterday.