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Announcing Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™
March 15, 2012

Atari, Wizards of the Coast, and Overhaul Games are pleased to announce work has begun on the Enhanced Edition of Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II.

Since its initial release in 1998, Baldur’s Gate has entertained millions of fans around the globe, and has received countless awards. This classic saga of mystery, intrigue, and adventure has set the standard for Dungeons & Dragons® computer roleplaying games ever since.
Re-forged by Overhaul Games

Overhaul Games has assembled a talented team of artists, programmers and designers to enhance this timeless classic. To remain true to the spirit of the game, the team includes original Baldur’s Gate developers.
Relive the most epic story ever told

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ and Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition™ will feature a re-forged version of the Infinity Engine with a variety of modern improvements.

This could turn out really good. The game mechanics and story are sound, if they fix the engine limitations....

Well, i wouldn't mind if the game mechanics got a little bit of an update. Other than that, hooray, great news indeed

I meant game mechanics in the sense of "fight design, dialogue mechanics" etc.

Thanas wrote:I meant game mechanics in the sense of "fight design, dialogue mechanics" etc.

Ah, yes, those should be kept. What i was referring to was options on how to build your characters statistics and such, which could IMO profit quite a bit from changes.

Well, it depends. I don't think they should chuck out D&D. They might be more optimizing with regards to inventory management, not having a stack limit of 20 items etc.

Thanas wrote:Well, it depends. I don't think they should chuck out D&D. They might be more optimizing with regards to inventory management, not having a stack limit of 20 items etc.

Oh, no, of course not. More like including more options D&D offered, either from 2nd edition Baldurs Gate was based upon, or upgrading it to 3rd Edition and taking options from there. Either way would work, and it's not like D&D is short on ideas.

D&D will never be short on ideas. Just players.

I don't really mind Baldur's Gate staying with 2nd Edition Rules, albeit admittedly the 3rd Ed-based Icewind Dale 2 was a bit easier to understand when making builds.

On the other hand.,.. 3rd Ed is officially no longer supported anyway. And people should be shot if they try to conver it to 4E or 5E...

The lead developer has been very active on Twitter fielding all kind of questions. Some highlights:

-Rules will NOT change. 2E D&D. Their motto is "don't break the fun."
-They are starting with the Throne of Bhaal code and working from there. So for instance, all kits from SoA and ToB will be available from the start, plus any they may or may not add.
-There will be two releases, BG:EE and BG2:EE. Each will contain the respective expansions.
-They are trying to avoid changing the save game format. So existing games will be fine to import! It follows that Gatekeeper and Shadowkeeper will work too.
-They have been checking out the modding community with great interest and have been inspired by them. They also hope to create a fresh wave of modding, rather than shut anyone down.
-There will be new NPCs and voice acting for them. All original voice acting in place. I asked if old voice actors would be returning but he wouldn't confirm this.
-There will be lots of new content to justify the purchase, and the graphics are getting spiffier but will stay the same basic nature.
-Digital distribution only, NOT on Steam.
-On the "trivia" side of things, he revealed that a lot of the BG characters are from developers' home D&D games. One of the other developers currently on this project created and played the character Minsc!

Oh, and he said that their "master plan" is to create Baldur's Gate 3...this is just the start. He also said they may start a Kickstarter for that particular project.

Anguirus wrote:-Rules will NOT change. 2E D&D. Their motto is "don't break the fun."
-They are starting with the Throne of Bhaal code and working from there. So for instance, all kits from SoA and ToB will be available from the start, plus any they may or may not add.

Cool. THAC0 gets one last hurrah .

BTW, any word on supporting higher resolution? That was a major issue with the last Baldur's Gate Collection release.

I really like the announced changes, but I love that they will use the same savegame format. THat means I can still tweak stuff.

I am however not convinced a BGIII is a good idea. The story is over and told.

Anguirus wrote:The lead developer has been very active on Twitter fielding all kind of questions. Some highlights:

-Rules will NOT change. 2E D&D. Their motto is "don't break the fun.".

I suspect more like "Don't have to rebalance every area of the whole game for a ruleset that works completely differently"/

^ Indeed! It is elegant when one can be self-serving and respectful.

I am however not convinced a BGIII is a good idea. The story is over and told.

I kind of think that a story about CHARNAME's son or daughter could work. Going by one path through the game, a child is born before the Bhaal essence is absorbed by you/dissipated. One could easily imagine a conception occurring on one of the other paths. So that individual might be a reservoir of some sort of power.

Someone else suggested to be a story about Bhaal, Bane, and Myrkul's quest for godhood. Not sure how that would work though.

No, it won't, because the endings spell out what happens in the two canon paths you can have children (Aerie and Viconia).

Yeah, I'm not overly excited about a BG3 either. I currently have an allergy against trilogies :p.

Enhance Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment instead. The latter really need more love.

I heard under someone's blog (Yes Pratchett II is doing some of the work on it)

The Yosemite Bear wrote:I heard under someone's blog (Yes Pratchett II is doing some of the work on it)

What? Make sense.

Terry Pratchett's daughter Rhianna, has recently admitted in fer blog to being involved with the remake. she calls herself a script paramedic for videogames.

I'm not sure how they could extend the story of the main protagonist beyond ToB. Perhaps a prequel featuring Gorion and his crew would work?

I'm not too excited about this. There are already mods that fix a lot of the little annoyances as well as importing the first game into the second one. I don't really see the point of just tweaking such an obsolete engine. I love BG, and it's the only game I've come back to several times, but I just don't see anything here that would justify buying it again.

Fuck. In. Chocolate?

Baldur's Gate wrote:Overhaul Games is pleased to announce Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ for iPad.


Since its initial release in 1998, Baldur’s Gate has entertained millions of fans around the globe, and has received countless awards. This classic saga of mystery, intrigue, and adventure has set the standard for Dungeons & Dragons™ computer role-playing games ever since.

THE GREATEST STORY EVER TOLD, BETTER THAN YOU IMAGINED
Running on an upgraded and improved version of the Infinity Engine, Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ will include the entire Baldur’s Gate adventure, the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack, and never before seen content including a new adventure and new party member.


YOUR ULTIMATE DESTINY, NOW IN YOUR GRASP
Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ will be available on the Apple App Store in summer 2012. For all information visit http://www.baldursgate.com.

Overhaul Games is pleased to announce Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ for iPad.

Son. Of. A. Bitch.

I for one am not opposed to the rereleasing of classic games on Ipad. Master of Orion would be glorious.

I've already got BGT and one of these days I will even finish playing it. I don't have an iPad so I suppose this news doesn't affect me.

https://twitter.com/#!/TrentOster/statu ... 8152918016

"If you don't have an iPad, you could still pick up #bgee on PC or some other unannounced platform."

https://twitter.com/#!/TrentOster/statu ... 9349508096
https://twitter.com/#!/TrentOster/statu ... 6007711744

"iOS is not the only platform for #bgee #baldursgate So far we've committed to PC and #iPad 1,2 and 3"

A bit of a PR faux pas on their front page, there.