Baldur's Gate EE Pushed Back to November
The enhanced version of Baldur's Gate won't arrive on the PC until November.
Trent Oster, president of Overhaul Games, announced on Thursday that the release date for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition has been pushed back to November 30, 2012. The delay is to ensure that the studio releases the "best possible product," and doesn't indicate that the team has stumbled across any problems in development.
"After recently reviewing the game and then consulting with our partners, we've decided to ensure that Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is the best possible product on launch," he writes. "To all who have pre-ordered, we ask for your patience as we move toward our final release date -- and we will be working on something a little extra for you. To all who have volunteered, we thank you for your dedication and support."
The revamp of Bioware's classic Dungeons & Dragons-themed RPG for the PC was originally slated for a September 18, 2012 release for $19.99 USD. This enhanced version will include the original Baldur's Gate adventure, the Tales of the Sword Coast expansion pack, and never before seen content running on an upgraded and improved version of the Infinity Engine.
The entire list of "enhancements" include a new adventure (The Black Pits), three new characters (Dorn Il-Khan, Neera the Wild Mage, Rasaad yn Bashir), a new collection of player character voice sets, and native support for high resolution widescreen displays. The updated RPG will also feature over 400 improvements to the original game, and improved multiplayer support, with connectivity between all platforms.
The updated PC game will be made available as a direct download from Beamdog, and won't require an installed client like Steam. PC gamers will merely need 512 MB of RAM, a 1 GHz CPU and a GeForce 2 or equivalent GPU at the very least -- a super old-school list of hardware requirements – to revisit this PC gaming classic.
"When we first announced Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, you set fire to our servers and we were overwhelmed by the huge wave of support from the fans of the original game," Oster writes. "Once the fires had subsided, thousands of you posted suggestions and requests on our forums. Dozens of volunteers from all over the world helped us improve game play, squash bugs, and generally fine-tune the game. Even more came to help work on translations from English to more than 16 other languages."
Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is also scheduled for a November release on Apple's iPad and Mac OS X. An Android version is also in the works, but its release schedule is slated as "to be announced."
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Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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vir_cotto I'm totally fine to wait, means the game will be better! I have bought so many games that could have used a few more months of polish.Reply -
jhansonxi killerclickYeah, Baldur's Gate, great, now do Planescape Torment!Should be relatively easy after they get the engine updates working (the same for Icewind Dale).Reply
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sicom Translation: we realized we durp'd in giving this the same release date as Borderlands 2.Reply -
zolton33 I second the request for planescape torment. Updated graphics and twice the content of the original would also be nice................Reply -
alextheblue nforce4maxSweet, I can now run this on some of my retro rigs as well my current boxesMore importantly, it should run well on non-PC devices that lack a lot of raw CPU horsepower. Like the iPad and Android versions, and maybe eventually Windows RT.Reply -
jono009 I third the request for Planescape - Torment.Reply
However, very excited for the return to this part of the Forgotten realms...
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southernshark Anyone else remember the game M.U.L.E.?Reply
It was probably the only EA title I enjoyed (of course this was when EA was what today would be called an "Indie" studio, if you can imagine such a thing.
I'd like to see a remake of M.U.L.E.
Fun times.