Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition, the attempted restoration of BioWare’s classic RPG, has been removed from sale by developer Overhaul Games in light of contractual issues with the game’s publishing partners. A statement by Beamdog/Overhaul president Trent Oster explains the situation – albeit in the vague manner of someone staring at a heavy pile of legal documents.
“We recently removed Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition from sale on Beamdog and the Apple App Store. We’ve taken this step at our publishing partner’s request as we attempt to resolve a number of contractual issues.”
Oster goes on to say that, until the “complex legal matters” have been resolved, the developer is unable to release the planned next patch to the game. It would have brought an updated user interface, “enormous performance improvements”, enhancements and a new font system.
Perhaps more troublingly, the issues are also blocking Baldur’s Gate II: Enhanced Edition. While BG:EE struck me as slightly less enhanced than a properly modded version of the original, BG2:EE was shaping up to be a more dramatic revision – already boasting 350,000 words of additional content.
Strangely, you can still pick BG:EE up from Steam. Whether it’s due to be taken down is unclear, but the Steam release was handled by Atari instead of Beamdog, and so received no direct support.
