Baldur’s Gate fans have been buzzing lately over the idea that the franchise’s original games could see a remake updated for modern audiences, but remaking Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 may not be the great and wonderful thing that some might assume it to be.
Here we’ll explore the argument in favor of a remake, what issues such a remake would have, and why a remade pair of BG games likely makes sense for franchise owner Wizards of the Coast regardless.
Do Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate 2 actually need a remake?
We’ll start by answering the simplest question of all: What would be the practical benefit of remaking Baldur’s Gate and its sequel, two of the most acclaimed titles in PC gaming’s long history?
While the original BG games still hold up as outstanding role-playing games and narrative experiences, there’s no doubt that these titles have aged. Even with the capable “Enhanced Edition” remasters built by Beamdog Studios in 2012 and 2013, the games can be difficult to penetrate for modern audiences.
The BG style of isometric role-playing games that was once among the dominant genres in PC gaming is a much rarer sight today. There have been a few notable games to more recently utilize this perspective and style, including such successes as Pillars of Eternity and Tyranny. But even those games used gameplay systems that are more intuitive than what’s found in the original Baldur’s Gate games.
BG1 and BG2 are both built on a modified version of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition. While the system works well enough and makes good sense once it’s fully understood, there’s no denying that a concept like THAC0, or the desire to push some numbers higher while keeping others so low that they dip down into the negatives, aren’t necessarily intuitive for unfamiliar players.
Combine that unfamiliar and potentially complex gameplay system with a perspective and interface that feels aged to newer players even in its remastered form, as well as a new character’s vulnerability to being eaten by the first wolf they can encounter, and it’s easy to understand why some new series fans brought on board by the wild success of Baldur’s Gate 3 might have bounced off of these older titles.
And I say that as someone who counts the original Baldur’s Gate games among my favorites in all of gaming (no, really, it’s right there in my bio on this very website). I love both BG1 and BG2 and wouldn’t change much about either title, but I can still look at both objectively today and admit that they’d be a challenge for many modern players to tackle.
So why might remaking BG1 and BG2 be a bad idea?
While newer versions of BG1 and BG2 might make sense in theory, the reality of bringing these massive games to a modern engine is a whole other consideration.
First, it should be noted that Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios used its own game engine in building BG3. This means that rights-holder Wizards of the Coast can’t just make use of BG3’s engine in creating remakes of the first two games.
A full remake of Baldur’s Gate and its sequel would almost certainly require a more modern approach to its graphics and gameplay systems. The former would mean building out new environments to represent most, if not all, of those featured in the original games. And that’s a huge undertaking.
Baldur’s Gate 2 is a particularly massive game. There are side quests almost fully separated from the main narrative structure that could themselves support a full, independent game. Bringing all of that to life in a modern AAA context would almost certainly take years of hard work to even attempt.
That’s before looking to the first Baldur’s Gate game. While there are technically fewer different environments that would need to be rendered and filled with activity in the first BG, the game’s very structure could prove challenging to remake. The title has a much looser narrative, emphasizing open exploration by the player across a massive map filled with surprises waiting to be encountered naturally.
Would a new development team aim to maintain that sense of wide-open adventuring, or would they try to fit it into a more traditional linear progression? That’s a big question for any such remake to have to answer.
And then there’s the extremely high bar against which any such remakes would be measured. The first two Baldur’s Gate games are beloved classics, with cherished stories and characters. Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the best-received and most-awarded games in modern gaming. Our own BG3 review scored the game a perfect 10 out of 10, and we were far from the only publication to do so.
Those are some extremely big shoes to fill. And the pressure to live up to the originals might actually be even greater than it was for Larian in creating BG3. After all, one of the few common criticisms leveled at the long-awaited third game in the franchise was in the way it handled some of its returning characters. In a remake of Baldur’s Gate or of its sequel, most of the characters and story beats would likely be returning, creating that many more opportunities for fans to sour on them over any perceived differences.
If that wasn’t pressure enough, we know from the words spoken by Larian developers after the release of BG3 that there was also pressure applied to the develop by rights-holders who wanted to see both the Dungeons & Dragons property, and Baldur’s Gate more specifically, represented in a certain way. That pressure would certainly be extended to any developers responsible for these remakes.
Why a BG remake will likely happen anyway
For all of the theoretical difficulty in making a BG remake happen, and all of the pressure that would assuredly come with it, fans should probably expect it to happen anyway. And the reason for that is quite simple.
Wizards of the Coast knows that it’s sitting on an extremely valuable property. While the BG franchise was dormant for over two decades, it still proved more than popular enough to support the wild success of a major new release, and as a result that popularity is likely even greater now than ever before.
With all of that potential in mind, it’s no surprise at all that executives at Wizards of the Coast would want to dip back into the well. And with Larian now busy working on its own intellectual property again, remaking proven material must feel like an attractive options, even as Wizards has confirmed that a fourth game in the franchise is also in the works.
Fans of these classic games will just have to hope that Wizards’ interest leads to the creation of some great new games if these remakes do indeed come to fruition, and not a critical disappointment or an unending cycle of rumors and delays.
