Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Editions & Sequel News

[Beelze]

Just thought I'd drop this here for those who care.

The plan is to release Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate 1 and 2 and their expansions this summer, and revenue from these products, as well as that of an eventual Kickstarter campaign, or the like, would then go to a Baldur's Gate 3, which is their longterm goal. For the time being, you can check out Trent Oster's Twitter for details about this and that. He has stated that they're to release the first screenshots of the Enhanced Editions this week.

Personally, I'd rather have a poor sequel that I can ignore than none at all.

[Beelze]

Other than the PC, of course, the Enhanced Editions will be available for the iPad. Amongst the new content is an extra adventure and another NPC that one can have join one's party.

[Malgon]

This is sounding pretty cool and it will be interesting to see if they can gain enough momentum and get funding for a third game. BG2 is right near the top of greatest games for me and will be a hard one to follow up, but I'd like to think these guys will have the drive and love for the BG series to deliver a worthy followup.

Originally Posted by Beelze

Personally, I'd rather have a poor sequel that I can ignore than none at all.

DNF?

[ZuljinRaynor]

I hope this does well so then Obsidian can get the go ahead from Atari to make an Icewind Dale 3.

[Beelze]

If the eventual sequel is decent at best, I imagine it'd be the nail in the coffin for the franchise. If it spawns further sequels, then, the first lacklustre one of those will probably be the nail in the coffin. Anyway, at worst, we get one bad sequel. No biggie.

Anyone care to speculate about the premise?

Spoiler:

show spoiler

I assume that the sequel would go with the assumption that the player's decision at the end of Throne of Bhaal was to assume godhood. (The career of a god might well last significantly longer than that of a mortal, so, theoretically, there could easily be many a sequel.) That would be a really high-level campaign then, including much more exotic and weird realms than previously seen in the BG series (perhaps similar to those in Planescape: Torment). Then it'd be a lot about inter-deity conflicts and strategies to increase the influence of one's faith, picking chosen ones, possibly amongst NPCs (of suitable alignment) that could join the PC before its assumption of godhood.

If that won't be the case, I imagine one might play as a chosen one of the god the Bhaalspawn PC then presumably chose to become at the end of ToB. Possibly one could also join up with the NPCs that might've been in the Bhaalspawn PC's party, whom might also have become/be able to become chosen ones (if their alignment matches that of one's new PC, which would "decide" the alignment of the now-deity Bhaalspawn PC - i.e. a Good PC "makes" a good god, a True Neutral PC "makes" a True Neutral god, an evil PC "makes" an evil god, and the NPCs of old with similar alignments would then make suitable NPCs to join up with, with the romance-able NPCs possibly playing special parts). One would then have god-given missions, to spread the faith, possibly building shrines and churches, performing various miracles and rituals, perhaps summoning the avatar of one's god at some point.

If neither of these will be the case, I still don't think they're going to have us go through the same basic plotlines as in the previous games, i.e. people trying to steal the Bhaalspawn PC's divinity, as all the other Bhaalspawn are dead, and Shadows of Amn already had a non-Bhaalspawn try to steal the main character's "divine spark". I think they'll want to go for something fresher than that...

What do you guys think?

Originally Posted by Malgon

DNF?

DN-what?