D&D General PC Gamer - Baldur's Gate 2 remake allegedly in development, BG1 remake might be as well. Co-lead designer returning

[CommodoreKong]

From the following article:

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/a-baldurs-gate-2-remake-is-apparently-in-development-with-the-original-co-lead-designer-returning/

Wizards of the Coast is returning to the Sword Coast, PC Gamer has learned. While Baldur's Gate 4 is inevitable, ahead of that it looks like we'll see the resurrection of BioWare's original games—specifically Baldur's Gate 2, though from what we've heard it's likely both games are getting the ol' remake treatment.
Former BioWare developer and Baldur's Gate 2 co-lead designer Kevin Martens has also returned for the project. Martens has an impressive CV, which includes lead design roles on Jade Empire and Throne of Bhaal, as well as BG2. He also worked on Neverwinter Nights and Mass Effect, before leaving BioWare to join Blizzard in 2009, where he served as lead content designer on Diablo 3

More in the article.

 

[DEFCON 1]

After Beamdog's remaster, the only real worthwhile "remake" would be to make BG1 & 2 (plus all the expansions and Beamdog's Siege of Dragonspear Castle BG 1.5) into a full 3D and fully-voiced game, plus upping the ruleset from 2E to 5E. Anything less than that seems rather pointless. Just re-upping BG's isometric graphics to a more detailed quality but keeping the formatting and the outdated 2E ruleset exactly the same is not going to do much for anyone, not after Beamdog increased the graphical quality a bit already themselves.

 

[bedir than]

After Beamdog's remaster, the only real worthwhile "remake" would be to make BG1 & 2 (plus all the expansions and Beamdog's Siege of Dragonspear Castle BG 1.5) into a full 3D and fully-voiced game, plus upping the ruleset from 2E to 5E. Anything less than that seems rather pointless. Just re-upping BG's isometric graphics to a more detailed quality but keeping the formatting and the outdated 2E ruleset exactly the same is not going to do much for anyone, not after Beamdog increased the graphical quality a bit already themselves.

Those re-releases are older than 5e, which means a re-re-release rather than a rebuild would merely have 10s of millions of new-to-D&D fans. It would be a safe business move.
But I hope you're right. Going big with a BG3-esque rebuild would be wonderful.

Notably this is an in-house project. Martens is the Creative Lead on Exodus at Archetype Entertainment. Looks like we know his next project since Exodus is less than a year out.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

After Beamdog's remaster, the only real worthwhile "remake" would be to make BG1 & 2 (plus all the expansions and Beamdog's Siege of Dragonspear Castle BG 1.5) into a full 3D and fully-voiced game, plus upping the ruleset from 2E to 5E. Anything less than that seems rather pointless. Just re-upping BG's isometric graphics to a more detailed quality but keeping the formatting and the outdated 2E ruleset exactly the same is not going to do much for anyone, not after Beamdog increased the graphical quality a bit already themselves.

The article falsely assumes that Larian wouldn't let WotC use BG3's game engine, but that shows a lack of understanding of Larian.

If WotC offered to pay a license fee to do so, I have ZERO doubt Larian would let them do not only BG1&2 remakes (I'm assuming including Throne of Bhaal), but even BG4 with with their game engine, if for no other reason then so Swen himself could play it.

Plus Larian has let other companies use their game engine before. There was supposed to be a Divinity game done by the Vikings developer, called Divinity: Fallen Heroes, but it got put on indefinite hold sadly.

 

[Reynard]

I am not sure what the point of a BG2 remake would be NOT given the 5E treatment. And that is a whole new game, really.

 

[MockingBird]

My knee jerk reaction, not sure how Bg1 & 2 would be in a 3d world. The isometric view and prerendered backgrounds makes the games what they are. Not sure about updating the rules either. Those two things are the very characteristics that make me love those games. Plus someone either did or attempted to make BG2 in Neverwinter Nights and it just felt, I dunno, off. Either way I hope the remakes see the light of day.

 

[Scribe]

BG2 is a fundamental classic. There is approximately zero chance it could be remade or rebooted, and be improved.

Pass.

 

[J-H]

I played BG2 a ton and enough to run a 5e campaign version of it. I don't see this being a good idea and adapting everything to the 5e paradigm would be tough in a computerized format.

 

[wicked cool]

Interesting. Does BioWare have any say in this?if they really put effort into it and added 5e rules etc I’ll check under the hood but if it’s a lazy remake with just some updated graphics and better controls than no thanks

 

[DEFCON 1]

Those re-releases are older than 5e, which means a re-re-release rather than a rebuild would merely have 10s of millions of new-to-D&D fans. It would be a safe business move.
But I hope you're right. Going big with a BG3-esque rebuild would be wonderful.

Notably this is an in-house project. Martens is the Creative Lead on Exodus at Archetype Entertainment. Looks like we know his next project since Exodus is less than a year out.

Assuming the re-re-release does bring the rules up to 5E standards of course.

If a remake keeps it still using 2E like the original games, then there's really no point in doing it because it wouldn't activate any of the new-to-D&D fans.

I do think @Henadic Theologian had a good call that if you could license the BG3 engine, then using that to remake the originals would work well (perhaps). Although that being said... the number of locations in BG1 alone seem very much larger than BG3, with the 40+ different "screens" you can travel to (not even including Baldur's Gate and its tunnels itself). So I dunno if trying to build all of those places in 3D would end up being too much?

I guess we will see.