Soo...You thought Baldurs Gate had been put out to pasture...

[Lissa]

Atari, with a little help from others, is working on enhancing the graphics of the original Baldurs Gate and Baldurs Gate II for modern systems. The story line is to stay the same, but graphics are to be updated in the games. Should be interesting to see what happens, and if they end up redoing other games using the infinity engine, *cough*Planescape Torment*cough*

[Nystul]

I don't think Atari has publishing rights for Torment. I broke CD1 before I ever really got into the game and people were selling used copies for $60-$80.

It will be interesting to see what they do with Baldur's Gate. The music and artwork of that game blew me away in 1998. To be honest a lot of more recent 3D titles look cartoonish in comparison. Having better tools doesn't always make a better artist.

[[wcip]Angel]

I never played the original BG-games, so this is a great opportunity. Anyone know if they'll include voiceovers? One of my initial gripes was the amount of text I had to sift through. Even though I never got into the games, I have many friends who consider this series one of their favourite childhood memories, so it'll be interesting to see what they'll be able to do with the remakes.

Oh, and when they're done, there's another game waiting to be remade.

[Taelas]

As far as I can tell, Atari isn't doing anything. Overhaul Games, aka Beamdog, are the ones doing the update. I think Atari had to give the OK, since they hold the cRPG D&D license, which is probably why they're included on the website.

They're adding new content, too, according to Trent Oster's twitter:

Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition is going to have new content for the game you love, made by some of the original team members

There are some other good tidbits in it, so it's worth trawling through the past couple days' worth. Among others, he said they're planning for a summer 2012 release, so it's gotta be soon! They're also hoping to do BG3, etc.

They won't do new voice overs for the original content, at least not for now. Oster's Twitter said, "If we do well, our plans can grow" in regards to that, though, and they're definitely doing new voice overs for new characters.

[Kevin]

I believe Atari's part in it was that they owned the source code, which is now in the hands of the new team. You can do a lot when you have the source. I know I still play FreeSpace and FreeSpace 2 thanks to the FreeSpace Open project and quite enjoy the enhancements to it. All that was made possible because Volition released the source code.

Another note on the BG stuff though is that it will not be available over Steam from what I've seen. I understand this since Beamdog has their own distro service, but well, once you accept Steam into your life, it's nice to just have everything in it.

They are also sticking with 2D isometric view for gameplay. They say the new content they are adding will be purely optional as well.

It should be neat. My little PCGamer feed told me about it on Friday so I've been poking at it off and on then. I never actually did play through it it single player, but it was great to go through the campaign with friends in multi player. Perhaps I'll actually go through it single player now.

[Nystul]

I don't think Atari has publishing rights for Torment. I broke CD1 before I ever really got into the game and people were selling used copies for $60-$80.

I guess times have changed. Looking at Atari's website, I see that they sell the whole lot of Infinity Engine games including Planescape: Torment in an anthology for $19.99. I might have to buy it just for Torment and IWD2. Glad I didn't pay 60 bucks a couple years ago. And I suppose that if the enhanced versions of the BG series do well there might be hope for the others.

This is one thing I like about the direct download age of computer games. Publishers can put the old classics online for five or ten bucks without a bunch of overhead. Maybe you can find that game that you always planned on playing but were too busy with Diablo II or whatever...

[-Magi]

I'm sleepy!

Go for the eyes Boo - Go for the eyes!

I never played Baulder's Gate - but Pete, playing right next to me, sure did enjoy it. I would tease him that there should be a beverage called the Baulder's Gate wine....named for how the characters all got cranky without rest.

Maybe I should check it out.

-Magi-

[Crusader]

I finished the entire series multiple times, loved those games. I wonder what this overhaul will bring.