Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 remakes reportedly in development

Wizards of the Coast is returning to Baldur’s Gate. PC Gamer reports that Wizards of the Coast is developing remakes of Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2, with Kevin Martens leading development. Martens was the co-lead designer of Baldur’s Gate 2 and most recently was assisting in the development of Exodus, Wizards’ upcoming AAA video game.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was a major success for Wizards of the Coast and a sequel game seems inevitable. However, Larian Studios opted to leave the franchise to pursue its own IP, and Wizards has yet to announce what studio, whether internal or external, would take over. A remake of the first two Baldur’s Gate games would likely be a stopgap of sorts to keep fans interested in the franchise while lining up Baldur’s Gate 4, although a lot of work would be needed to update the games for modern consoles and PCs. Remastered versions were already released for iOS and PC a decade ago.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Any BG1 and 2 REMAKE is going to be "Here's the plot lets expand and retract." That's it.

BG1 get expanded as the story is fairly short and straight. You'll get a core group like BG3, not 20 characters to choose from.

BG2 will be cut to the bone because there is so much of it. And again core group of a few characters.

Both games maps will be cut to the bone as well. Compare BG1 and 2 maps to 3.

Yeah, full on remakes. Like Res Evil 2 to RE2 Remake. Similar but very different.

Honestly Im all for it because I love the series. And it's not like OG BG1 and 2 are going anywhere and they are still very fun to play if you like that old school feel (and much deeper quests and having 400 of them).

 

[Distracted DM]

I LOVE BG1+2, I have replayed them many times. I'm not too invested in how this goes either way, because in this case I very much still have BG1+2. I'm not sure that a remake would improve on it at all, at best it'd provide another reason for a new "replay" but via the remake

I don't love turn-based, but again I'm not swayed too heavily in either direction since the original is there with so much replayability (especially with mods).

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I’m assuming that a remake of the games will keep the original gameplay, including older rulesets and RTwP because that is what those games were made with.

That's not a remake. That's a re-release, and it's already been done. More than once.

 

[ECMO3]

That's not a remake. That's a re-release, and it's already been done. More than once.

Yeah it is pretty hard to envision WOTC doing a rerelease that is going to be better than what Beamdog did.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah it is pretty hard to envision WOTC doing a rerelease that is going to be better than what Beamdog did.

Yeah, they pretty much have to try to do BG3, but with the plot, characters, and highlight quests from BG1 & 2.

 

[Distracted DM]

Yeah it is pretty hard to envision WOTC doing a rerelease that is going to be better than what Beamdog did.

Yeah, they pretty much have to try to do BG3, but with the plot, characters, and highlight quests from BG1 & 2.

The whole point behind a remake, I imagine, would be to capture the (much larger) modern (video or tabletop) gaming audience that wouldn't want to play the BG1/2's because of graphics, UI, and/or game system.
And because if they make it in-house they don't have to share the profits. But to quote that Beamdog chat shared recently:

"We actually had some great meetings with their creative team," Oster tells us. "We were down talking with Chris Perkins and Mike Mearls about it, and they were really into what we were doing. We were talking about how we could tie it in with a source book and everything. It was an exciting concept."

Despite the concept being well received, says Oster, Wizards wanted someone else to foot the bill and take on all of the risk.

"When we pitched it to Wizards, they were like, 'We don't have money for external development, we're not doing that right now.' Over time, Wizards has kind of gone through these cycles where they’re like, 'Oh, we'll do all the internal development.' And then, 'Oh my God, internal development's so expensive, we'll just licence it all out. We'll let partners take all the risk.' [And then] 'Hey, wait, these guys made a ton of money, let's bring it internal again.'"

So none of it really means anything, WotC has had great success with working with outside publishers but very little in-house. Maybe they can turn that around, but so far their track record for successful in-house video games is 0 for ... I don't know, 10? 20?

 

[Misanthrope Prime]

I think it's obvious this game is going to use the 5e ruleset, but I'm curious if it is going to include classes or races that straight up didn't exist in Faerun in the 14th century.

 

[Seramus]

I'm in favor. BG1 was famously silent as a mouse with hardly anyone speaking. It wasn't until BG2 that we got delicious piles of companion dialog. Beamdog did their best to add some dialog with their new companions, but I would salivate at a remade BG1 with tons of dialog like BG2 (or BG3).

 

[The Glen]

They would have to reuse some of the voice acting, especially for the villains. You're going to have a hard time replacing Kevin Michael Richardson or David Warner. And Jim Cummings Minsc can only be copied it can never be replicated

 

[ECMO3]

I think it's obvious this game is going to use the 5e ruleset, but I'm curious if it is going to include classes or races that straight up didn't exist in Faerun in the 14th century.

So I am not sure about "did not exist". I think the only 2 races you could really say that about are Dragonborn and Tieflings probably existed even though they were not talked about.

Tieflings were not talked about in 14th century Faerun fiction, but they probably existed since Alu-Demons, Draegloths and Cambions existed, unless we are to assume they were all sterile.

Dragonborn are a bit more difficult as I think they really only came to Faerun after the spellplague.

So Dragonborn are the only race I see an issue with.

As far as classes, I think they all did exist. Those are kind of divorced from the fiction anyway and the mechanics are jsut a way of interpreting the fiction. Like no Evil Paladins existed in 13th century, but evil kingts and clerics and cleric-knights certainly did, so it is not a stretch to have evil Paladins. Sorcerers and Warlocks too did not officially exist as a classes but Wizards that were called Sorcerers and Warlocks did exist.