The original game came out at like the peak of ISO 2d sprites before everything transitioned to 3d. Even with the short timelines, it came out at like the fin de siecle of an era in video game art. I think early 3D games don't hold up as well. Like its way harder to hop back in on DOOM or even the best of the best in early 3D cause just hadn't had time to develop. Eventually there will probably be a Baldur's Gate in AR/VR and we'll look back on the end of the 3D era with nostalgic favorites, but I don't think its there yet. Someone still needs to come along and make "the portrait generator" for a 3D model or "sound studio" for voice next level first. To match up with the custom content of the day.
yeah, tell me about it, the shift from 2D drawn environments to 3D generated ones was one of the most jarring things i can remember (in respect to bideo games)
icewind dale looking like this now (EE):
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/2439cBS.jpg)
While nevewinter nights be looking like this now (also EE):
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/2kfSk03.jpg)
Even now I look at something like pathfinder:kingmaker and it still doesn't look as good as the IWD:EE, its far more detailed than NWN but its still got that plastic lego feel that seems to come with isometric 3D environments.
As far as the monetisation of mods re: the EEs; yeah, the EEs never would have happened if there hadn't ben a 15 year old modding community for those games, and as far as I recall there was quite a lot of work between modders and beamdog discussed on the forums at the time with beamdog really wanting to work with modders - understandably from both a community and a monetary point of view... i have no idea who got paid and who didn't though. As an example as far as I know "DavidW" transferred all his modding assets for "Icewind Dale in BG2" over to beamdog and i'm pretty sure that formed the backbone of IWD:EE
