Beside IP / Loyalty issues, what would be your interest in replaying the original story Baldur's Gate with BG3 game engine?

Some reasons I believe it's doable :

- Story/characters/dialogues are already done = much less work (but ofc, it is assuming that the remake will stick to old dialogue system, without being upgraded to BG3 level)

- Geographically, BG 1 is set in Sword Coast, covered by this BG3, I think many graphic assets already available can be reused. Especially if the city of Baldur's Gate 3 is as faithful to the source material as BG1 was...

- Rules/Engine : obviously same as BG3, (that could mean some changes in character stats, combat encounters might be necessary)

I have no doubt there are talented MOD community who would make wonderful job, but it's a delightful dream that someday, after BG3 release, Larian will remake it by themselves, or give their engine license to Beamdog.

thats a neat idea.
This has already been done in NWN2 but ive never tried it out if its any good.

Note however that, especialy BG1 s but also BG2s encounter desing would probably turn out realy tedious in BG3

A good remake would be very impressive, but I personally don't have any need for that - the original games are perfectly playable and fun. Also not a fan of how Beamdog went about the EEs.

Tbh I'd prefer Larian to direct resources to adventure module adaptations. I'm not a tabletop player and I'd love to be able to play the modules in the video game format.

When you say Remake, what do you mean? If you mean just take everything in BG and put it in the new engine, I highly doubt it would be better than the original. The painted backgrounds of BG still looks better great and will probably remain good looking while the 3d graphics of such remake would look very dated ten years from now.

I recently replayed BG1 EE and frankly, it could be better graphically.

- the original game was made when 640x400 was not uncommon and it shows on my QHD monitor... (too pixelized or too small to be enjoyable)
- BG3 is gorgeous, and has very similar "colors" as original BG. (because after all, they both take in the same place : Sword Coast)

A little off topic, but I saw some new AI tech, which draws 3D models out of 2D pictures. If they apply that tech with some handworks for details...

I think he was on about fan remakes.

I don't know... I saw the nwn2 remake of bg2 but I always prefer to play the original. Perhaps its just because every time I think of nwn2 my computer crashes but who knows.

I was referring to this part:



I likely wouldn't play fan remakes, but it would be fun to follow such projects.

I highly doubt Larian can make it any better than it already is. Perhaps the first game but it is really a long shot

No I wasn't. :p

I would love that, and I would pay for it.

Like I said, there is nothing Larian can do to make it better than it already is. Perhaps dubbing everything, but even that is doubtful.

I have played the BG1 and IWD remakes in the NWN2 engine and they were both enjoyable - in the case of the latter, downright excellent. I am sure I would enjoy a well-done adaptation of BG2 in BG3's engine as well.

For a lot of modern gamers, who didn't play the Infinity Engine games back when they were new, the graphics, interface, and archaic 2nd Edition mechanics are big turn-offs. The game has a great story, but a lot of people will never see that story because they don't want to play something that looks and feels ancient.

I've watched a fair number of streamers completely bounce off of Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition, because it's simply not modern enough.

So a remake in this engine could be very appealing to a lot of people.

Because most of the story would probably be the same, I would pass due to the turn-based combat.

BG1 and BG3 are such different games, that I don't really see a point for it. Pretty much all that makes BG3 would need to be cut to make BG1 world and quest design work.

I would be interessed but I don't think it's doable

I'd definitely buy it. Tried playing EE but had to confess gaming has come a long way since...

TBH I also consider NWN quite unplayable (adding to the fact I've never found it a worthy succesor to BG)

I get you guys are saying about gamers that are turned down by the og games. I'll say it like this - I have nothing against the idea of remake, but I think that I personally have nothing to gain from it. That's why I would prefer to see a new game

That makes sense.

for me, not especially. At least, not if the gameplay was like BG3 is now, OG gameplay felt less clunky. Maybe if they sort out the UI and tighten things up so it plays more smoothly, i'd be down for it. I do like fan remakes when done well, looking forward to Skywind for example.

Thing is, a remake of BG using this engine or even the solasta engine would need to make use of verticality and stuff, which would mean changing up the games anyway - so yeah if they got overhauls to the environments to make use of those features, i guess that would be a reason to play them.

I would rather see 5e modules adapted in this engine as the first set of official content post launch.

The originals look good and are functional.

BG3 engine is too limited to handle all the complexity of the originals.

A remake from Larian? No thanks, they still haven't proven themselves as the stewards of BG3. A remake of the original games with this engine's atrocious controls, camera, and UI sounds like a nightmare to me. Then there's tons of dialogue and I doubt they would pay for that all be voiced and have performance capture. I don't see this as even a remote possibility. Even if it does happen, I'd rather a company like Obsidian be responsible and see if they can drag the BioWare doctors out of retirement to help produce it.

to be honest, we dont need remakes of bg and bg2. they're perfect the way they are.

Of course. I would pay a FAT amount of money to play any barely competent remake of BG 1 and 2 (2 in particular) that could rid me of the low resolution and low framerate of the original.

And yes, I would love it made with the BG3 engine, character models and turn-based combat... As long as we don't borrow the control scheme too.

Actually, I really don't want a remake of BG 1+2. I'd rather they just make something new.

I'd certainly buy a copy, but I'm not going to hold my breath.

Persuasion success. The dice favours me this day

I really don't see the point of this type of argument.
People are making "something new" all the times. How someone else working on a remake would be a problem, exactly?

I explained it, but Larian working on remake means Larian is not working on dos3/bg4/whatever crazy cool idea they might have in the future.

I didn't read anything in the OP asking specifically about LARIAN being the one making it.

But even if that was the case, Larian is currently a studio counting hundreds of employees. I'm sure they could part people between projects as they wanted and even make new hires, if needed.

I think anyone trying to remake any very old and very beloved games is treading in perilous waters. They almost certainly will not get it just right, to please the fans of the original. My favorite game is Planescape: Torment, and I do NOT want anyone to try to remake it. They will fuck it up and break my heart. I feel like a lot of Baldur's Gate fans would feel the same.

That's true. But why though? I think remaking Baldur's Gate needs a better reason than new graphics.

Better graphics and a newer version of D&D would sell me. AD&D was too restrictive for my usual character concepts. 5e is better, but I'd love to have BG remade using a different system. Same setting and companions, but not (A)D&D.

Heretical, I know, but the joys of BG for me were the setting and personalities rather than the game system.

Eh, that's literally all i want from it.
I never valued BG's writing too much. I think people who keep praising it as a masterclass in narrative are frankly delusional, nostalgic or have incredibly low standards.
There are tidbits of BG3 that are already better than most of what BG1 or 2 ever offered, in that sense.

But as a gameplay experience? I would still enjoy it immensely, especially going past its current technical limitations and with a superior turn-based battle system.

I agree. Look, I LOVED Baldur's Gate when it first came out. I bought it the first day it released, from a store shelf, and I was so thrilled to have it that I was practically shaking as I put the first CD in the drive. For the time, compared to all the D&D video games that came before, it was an absolute triumph, it was god-tier for a D&D fan and a computer RPG fan. It didn't even occur to me to see any flaws in it. It was simply better than everything else up to that point.

But a whole lot of RPGs have come out since then in the same subgenre. And honestly, I like MANY of them more than Baldur's Gate (1+2). There's a lot of silliness in BG. The companions, and some people will want to crucify me for saying this, but I think they're pretty garbage in the original BGs, compared to much less silly, much more realistic and well-developed companions in a great deal of newer RPGs. I don't really need to see Montaron and Xzar, or Tiax, or Xan, or Branwen, or honestly 90% of the others in beautiful new graphics, because those characters are still gonna be deeply un-compelling to me. The story of Baldur's Gate 1+2 was astounding for its time, it revolutionized computer RPGs, it created a whole new subgenre. I admire it deeply as a historical force, and for my memories of how much it thrilled me at the time. But looking at it now, through the lens of someone who has played a dozen or more evolutions from that game, it's just . . . okay. I could re-play the BGs, I guess. It would be . . . fine. But it wouldn't blow me away.

But everyone has that one thing that they love the most. BG fans love BG, to them it's the pinnacle. For me it's Planescape: Torment, and I can't even comprehend how anyone could think BG 1+2 is better than that game. But I understand that to them, the exact opposite is true. And that's perfectly valid. And those real die hard BG lovers would hate me for saying this, but I think that BG3, even in it's current state as a rough, unfinished, broken FRAGMENT of a game, is still vastly better than the originals. I know, it's blasphemy. But it's how I feel.

I'm not sure. I have the enhanced editions and have not tried them yet. But not sure what areas would really need to be brought up to speed with a new engine. Other than some possible graphical updates. I'm not sure what would really be worth the trouble of a remake. (older direct X games being compatible as an issue with older games aside) not sure what would be the impetus here.
BG series was my introduction to real computer gaming and D&D, so there is a certain fondness like many have already expressed. The old character portraits kinda look like the characters are airbrushed af, but that's an asthetic preference.

Loved the party controls on BG2. being able to change formation, click on minimaps and grab a clutch of characters only was nice. Would be nice to see that again.

@firesnakearies I hear what you mean, by it being great for its time. I don't know of any other games which had the level of character background and exploration at the time. But, I don't see too much wrong with the characters being somewhat silly. Planescape Torment was great. I ate up all the Black Isles games, even IWD though that was more combat than story.

I loved the IWD games more than the BG games. And people say they didn't have story, they were just about combat, but I disagree. I liked the stories in IWD.

Definitely not by Larian. I'm sure they would do to it what they are doing to 3

I'd be very interested. The old game exists and nothing can threaten that for those who prefer it. But a remake in this engine would be amazing.

Durlags Tower done by Larian? If you haven't considered this yet...
Nashkel mines in one map?
Maps with little on it but are still worth every pixel?
Edwin -> Edwina transformation in 3D?
Pathfinding....well...it sure is "authentic" already
comes on 7 external HD

Alone the combat we are getting now would be worth it, as unrefined and prone to cheese it may be right now.

BG1 maps translated into the BG3 engine would finally show the elevation in some maps and since there are fewer trees on fire and its always autumn, I'm sure it would look great during the day and night

It would also put resting back in order and add 3 times the companions.

Regardless of what anyone says here, we'd all play it, for science if not for fun.

BG3 still has lots of things to add to get the same wholeness Baldur's Gate has



Some maps should be printed and hung on a wall they are that beautiful, BG doesn't come close

You give the characters in BG1 not enough credit I think, maybe you have never had Branwen in your Party, Kivan isn't all too funny either and aside from Khalid (silly in BG1, resolved in 2) Jaheira isn't silly either. Kagain, Faldorn, Shar-teel and Quayle (ok, maybe silly for you)...

I mean, some of them basically don't speak so you can't go much wrong

You mean make it awesome?

Too soon to tell. If BG3 will be the awesome game it could be perhaps a remake is not such a bad idea. but, once again, we'll have to wait and see

Honestly, if you wanted to "remake" the BG 1 and 2 games, you'd be better off using Obsidians Pillars of Eternity approach.

It's far closer to matching the mechanics and art style and those guys tried to model their game off the original BG games as closely as possible.

I don't think BG3's engine would be a great match for those games TBH

I tried Pillars of Eternity. And I didn't like it much, at all :
1. Rules hablve evolved too far from DnD, it took me quite some time to readjust...
2. What's weird is that, in fact their system makes more sense, and is more adapted to real time combat too, but yet ultimately I hated it...
3. Finally, real time combat? No thx, the turn based combat with radial movement (no hexagon/square) FTW.

Totally, they were awesome.

I especially loved when my paladin could see through the disguise of the villains by using detect evil ability as dialogue option!!!

Yeah that's cool.

Irrelavent and should be removed from forum. They will not make an entirely new game engine. This is the engine they are working with. Keep your feedback to how they can fix the game within the possibilities of the engine in use.

Mh? You sound confused.

1. This is not the "Suggestions and feedback" subforum. This is the "general" section dedicated to BG3. Which means anything vaguely related to the game goes.
2. No one was asking for a "new engine". On the contrary, the question was specifically if people could have any interest in a remake of the previous games using this engine.
3. This thread doesn't violate a single rule nor it's particularly out of place here, so not sure why it should be "removed from this forum".

I would no sooner play a remake of BG1/BG2 than I would watch a remake of Casablanca or Wizard of Oz (note I said remake, not reinterpretation). There is absolutely NO reason to tamper with perfection.

Why? The old games haven't aged well and you can't even run the originals on newer machines - your eyes will bleed out. Plus, you already have one remake which is the Enhanced Edition by Beamdog.

I'd love the remake, but it will probably be a modded one, similar to all those attempts to recreate Baldur's Gate over the years first as Neverwinter Nights modules, then then Neverwinter Nights 2, and then Dragon Age Origins.

Games like Pillars of Eternity basically an updated version of the infinity engine, which was the engine used for the orginal BG games. So to answer your question, there are games made exactly the way the old BG games were.

Actually, a Poe engine remake sounds great, provided they'll make this engine more stable. Right now this engine has terrible performance

The second game more closely follows Bioware's modern "blockbuster formula", therefore a "modernized" remake likely wouldn't butcher that much. The first game however would be stripped off its wilderness and downtimes as the majority finds that "boring". Perhaps unless it were remade by Warhorse Studios, who risked "boring" audiences with their landscape / encounter design in Kingdom COme Deliverance just the same, and in turn created one of the most authentic game worlds of this generation rather than a theme park.

Another question is whether Larian's engine supports map design like the originals'. BG3's EA is a pretty compressed affair. There are no open fields as such, you're lead along paths from druid groves to goblin camps to ruins to the Underdark -- with all of those being pretty much right next to one another. I'm curious how Larian's version of the titular city will look like in comparison to the original anyway once we get there.

Why/ Because it would no longer be BG1/2. It would be BG 1 & 2 played on a BG 3 engine, or an NWN engine or a DoS. And enhanced edition is NOT a remake. It is still the same BG plot, characters, U/I, gear, classes and so on - and still essentially the same engine, just tweaked to run on modern machines with some additional content tosses in - prequel and sequel material, offered up in the same format. As for them not aging well, they look fine to me. I'll take a '54 vette any day of the week.


Why/ Because it would no longer be BG1/2. It would be BG 1 & 2 played on a BG 3 engine, or an NWN engine or a DoS engine. And enhanced edition is NOT a remake. It is still the same BG plot, characters, U/I, gear, classes and so on - and still essentially the same engine, just tweaked to run on modern machines with some additional content tosses in - prequel and sequel material, offered up in the same format. As for them not aging well, they look fine to me. I'll take a '54 vette any day of the week.

That "you're lead along paths from xxxxx to xxxxx to xxxxx to xxxxx" is better to be put in a spoiler tag.

I strongly disagree. They have aged very well. (BG1 a bit less than BG2, but I think it was wonky back in the day too, given how BG2 promptly got rid of the wonkiness.) It's perfectly playable on modern systems and looks very nice with the widescreen mod. My eyes are yet to bleed out - 2D graphics have little problem with aging.



That's not a remake, that's a remaster. Huge difference. It's basically the classic version with widescreen mod, some rule changes, some bugfixes, some new bugs and Beamdog's fanfiction.

People who played bg1-2 when it came out shouldn't have a say in the question "do you think the game aged well". I mean they can say whatever they want, but they should acknowledge their bias

Aged badly? Really?
To my eyes they still look amazing. The UI is top notch. It controls fast. Story is still engaging.
In general it is usually 3D games, especially their cinematic dialogues that age badly.

This is absolutely true, i mean, the actual originals havent aged so well, but the enhanced editions which allow for better resolutions have. Because the actual area art was good for its time and a well drawn location is a well drawn location. Unlike 3d games where the polycount changes and things dramatically improve visually.


For me I just don't know that Larians take on RPGs is necessarly a good fit for a remake of the old BGs. I think if Solasta had the budget to do prettier graphics, their engine would be a better fit. Why? because really Solastas "downsides" are its graphics and its story, if you can get a bit more budget for the former, remaking the BG series covers the latter, frankly. It's travel mechanics would also be excellent for the BG series, and it's approach to verticality would be more enriching for those games than BG3s approach to verticality.

It wouldn't really be the same.

I think I would play it if the story aspects was fully integrated. I'm not too fond of RTwP, which is generally what keeps me from playing BG1 and 2 again, evne though I want to play the story again.

I would be interested in a remake with 5e and TB combat. 5e because that's the only way WotC would license it. It would be a massive undertaking if they made all those maps in 3d, though.

If you ask me, there could be a sequel potential for Bhaal spawn saga, "timeline before" Murder at Baldur's Gate there's that 100-year gap. where Abdel Adrian kinda became a Duke of Baldur's Gate, lived a mortal life, and kinda was fateful end at the start of that particular module bringing the Bhaal Spawn saga into the end before Baldurs's Gate 3.

Personally I would love to see them do the old TSR Gold Box modules in this format.

I played and beat BG 1 and 2. So no, I prefer something new, like around the Battle of Bones area.

Not for me. No interest.

For me it would highlight what I liked about the Infinity Engine and what I dislike about the Divinity Engine. BG3 is sooo good looking but man those party controls suck. And just the opposite is true of the IE -- party controls are near perfect but the graphics are dated.

Now this type of remake I could go for - updating and modernizing the Gold Box games could potentially be a blast.

Interesting. Personally I'm totally against BG3 in 3D idea. Like if anyone does it i would totally play it. I'm playing bg2 right now lol. But what BG2 brought us was special back then but there's definitely more to be learned for 20 years of how the game industry changed. I don't see why we wouldn't profit from those changes.

Holy hell, yeah! That would be awesome, I loved those games so much as a kid.

Would rather see BG3 in the BG1/2 engine.

I think in order to do this they'd have to cut most of the content. I mean, there are 25 companions in just the first game. Nobody could do it justice.

I'm not sure how this would be a limiting factor.

All of the writing is already done, so the only thing that's missing is simply creating the new assets for models and voice acting (If a remake was to modernize the games rather than simply remaster them)


Would I like to play BG1/2 in BG3 engine? No. I'm not particularly fond of the BG3 engine.

Something like the Pillars engine? Maybe. Pillars 2 with TB would be interesting.

Though this would only be if we could magically poof such a remaster into existence.

The resources and effort that would be needed to properly remaster the games I'd honestly rather get spent on making new games instead. Like, sure the remaster means that the end product will be good (Again, if it's a proper remaster not TLoU or GTA garbage)

But I want to experience new things. New stories. New characters. New ideas. I want developers to move forward and create new classics that will be forever noteworthy, not just sit around making already good games shiny every 5 minutes when we get hardware upgrades...

Haha, exactly my thought. Or even better, the PoE/Deadfire engine.
Bg2 still looks great. Ageless art style with these pre-rendered graphics. The scale still looks amazing/massive. Its so freaking immersive with the day/night system...which BG3 DOS2 engine completely lacks.


uhuh, I see the Telltale style 3D romantic cinematic dialogues fans arriving with pitchforks...lol

People are talking about remaking BG1 as if it hasn't already been done. A team remade it in Neverwinter Nights 2's engine.
https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn2/module/baldurs-gate-reloaded-soar-version

The thing about remakes like this is they're not intended to "replace" the original they're essentially intended to reinterpret the original in a new context. Remaking it in BG3 with turn based combat would be incredibly interesting as it would likely require rebalancing some encounters around the idea.

As a fan of the old games, I think that the amount of adaptation and hammering necessary to shoehorn BG1 and 2 into BG3's engine would produce something quite inferior to the originals. BG3 sometimes cares too much about making players feel like they are playing a virtual tabletop game, with its dice rolling animations and turn-based only combat, which isn't a philosophy present in 1 and 2. In the old games the underlying rules system is more like a implementation detail than something you have to interface with during gameplay. The lack of day/night cycle would also be a big no for a remake, especially in BG2.

I bet BioWare would be totes cool with that. /s

"Hey guys, you know that game company that won the right to make Bg3 over us, and then won GoTY x 3, and made almost a billion dollars from sales of the game...well they are offering to come on over and just shit right in all our mouths...I said 'yes please' of course because we're already used to the taste."

Bioware doesn't own the rights to Baldur's Gate 1 or 2. The rights are owned by Wizards of the Coast. The recent remasters were made by Beamdog.

yes but it was a good joke.

Anyway, wouldn't it be great if WoTC green lit that and it made more than the originals?

- WotC green lights Larian re-making Bg1 and 2
- BioWare released DA 4 - everyone hates it and it's a total flop.
- Larian releases Bg1 and 2 with the Divinity Engine, it makes 100 x the money as the original games put together.
- EA shutters BioWare and they release no more titles. ME4 is finished by a 3rd party studio as a Mobile game with heavy P2win elements and loot boxes. It makes a lot of money.

Right. Because only you should get what you want, and others who like other games (Bioware's games) should get screwed. What a wonderful person you are.

These are all just jokes Kinisatha, I know you may not be familiar with the concept, because self-awareness is not your strong suit...

What I actually want is them to focus on Multplayer and modding tools so that we all get what we want, including you, and then you can play the game you've been whinging about for the last 3 years.

Hey, hey, hey, let’s avoid the personal digs, folks!

No.

The originals can still be played just fine with patches such as widescreen, and running the monitor at most at 1280x720. They look still awesome this way, absolutely no problem.

The NWN "port" of BG1 and BG2 was already silly, dont need another such project.


I want Larian Studios and any other developer studio with talent to create new games, not remake old classics that at their core cant really be improved.

Second rate studios like Overhaul Games and Beamdog can create their ports of these old classics, but it would be nice if they didnt try to "improve" them.


Honestly all I want for old classic games is:

- Higher graphics quality

- Better stability

- Careful, incremental improvements in regards to UI etc, but nothing that changes fundamentals about the game

- Better modding support so people can change the game however they fancy, if they feel like it


Finally, about BG1 and BG2 on BG3 specifically, no I absolutely dont want to play BG1 and BG2 with D&D5 limited to maxlevel 12.

More importantly, Bioware is gone and only exists in name anymore, and has been for a very long time now.

Bioware was sold to EA because the owners felt they really needed to make a MMORPG and they wouldnt have the necessary funding.

The original owners of Bioware are gone and Bioware is really just a label EA puts on everything they like to put the label on.

Also it turns out MMORPGs have been a fashion of sorts and its basically over. Some old dinos like WoW or Eve Online struggle on, but most gamers, especially younger ones, arent going for them.

And Biowares Star Wars: The Old Republic, the MMORPG they lost the company over, AFAIK still exists, but never was much of a success.

It's not a question of "need". Nothing "needs" to be made. It's going to happen regardless assuming Larian releases tools for it. The real question is "would it provide a different experience or justify it's existence". In the case of a BG1/2 remake presenting its gameplay in 3D in a turn based nature would allow it to be recontextualized in a more cinematic way. Similar to BG3. Which would likely be more appealing to a wide audience.
I don't see Larian studios working on a BG1/2 remake primarily because it'd be an enormous amount of work. I'd rather see it done by modders similar to the NWN2 project.
That wouldn't be a concern for modders. Modders can already extend the level cap in BG3. It's not a hard coded limitation of the engine.
According to Bioware's employees they claimed the company was going to go out of business unless they were acquired.

I think people are really over estimating the value of the Divinity Engine.

Remember EA where it was possible to die in that fire surface near Gale's intro point? Remember failing to make the jump before meeting Lae'zel?

I'm not a programmer but to me it looks like the devs simply eliminated the problematic barriers and left the terrible pathfinding in place. The didn't improve the pathing, they altered the maps. Which means the toons are not going to like any map not specially designed for them to navigate. Anyone who tries to make a dungeon with this engine going to experience the same frustration EA players did.

Moving toons around in BG3 is a chore and the chain system simply sucks. If you ignore the superb graphics, companion interactions and voice acting and soley focus on the fundamentals of the BG3 engine we left with something inferior to any of unity engine games and indeed the infinity engine games.

This why no one played the NWN version of BG2. Why make the same game with an inferior engine? If people want to take another swing at that I'm not going to interfere but you don't need to be a diviner wizard to accurately predict the results.

"Hey dev, why does my toon keep walking into lava? What gives"

This. I've played the BG1 module for NWN for about an hour and really didn't see the point of it. While I appreciate the effort and passion put in those projects, I fail to see who is the target audience. Maybe people who never played those games and want to experience the story without having to buy another game, or something like that. But for those who already played, there's nothing fresh, nothing new, no surprises, nothing to look forward to. You're basically playing an arguably worse version of the game. And the same would probably happen in a port to BG3 engine. It would be "cool", but ultimately a futile endeavor.

These just sound like bugs that were fixed. RPGs are notorious examples of games that often have bugs. See: Skyrim. I remember Dragon Age Origins had a memory leak for about a year or two post launch that was only fixed in its final patch. Which caused loading screens to take 10+ mins to complete.
This is an assumption which you have no evidence for and are extrapolating a conclusion based upon it.

The Divinity engine operates on an AI grid. Most party based rpgs like this operate on a similar system.

What's notable about DOS1/2 is you could actually tweak where these squares were very easily. But that's besides the point as because all of BG1/2's maps were just static bitmaps and you'd need to reinterpret every space differently to make them in 3D. So building maps around the AI grid would happen regardless. This also assumes that pathfinding would suddenly be easier in other engines. Pathfinding is a notoriously difficult thing in any engine and a lot of developers do indeed modify the map as opposed to redesigning the pathfinding code especially if the game is already mostly finished.
The tools haven't released yet. It's entirely possible that Larian has made this system better in their official tools.
I don't really see this. You'd have to list some examples. As I can find potentially hundreds of examples of Unity shovelware games with awful pathfinding for example.
The Infinity engine games operated entirely on an XY plane and even then npcs would get stuck in doors or in hallways quite often.

Almost 400 thousand people is not "no one". I would love to see the reaction of the 12 people who painstakingly worked on this project for years that because they didn't break 1 million downloads their work is now retroactively considered meaningless and bad. The criticisms you're bringing up are largely nitpicks and to then insult the work done is frankly disrespectful. Exceptionally few projects like this get finished, and to call such a notable accomplishment not good enough because it didn't receive a subjective amount of downloads that you personally deem successful is ridiculous. What exactly is a "non inferior engine" and how do you expect a team of 12 people with 0 dollars in budget to make hundreds of thousands of assets on it?
"Make your own AAA quality rpg with thousands of assets, character creation, mocapped animations and game balance"
Gee I'll get right on that
You're speaking derogatorily about bugs as if they're not something to be fixed but mocked and ridiculed. Baldur's Gate 3 is an enormous game and as I mentioned earlier bugs are common in rpgs.
You can basically make this same argument about any remake. The purpose of a remake is to recontextualize the original in a new context.

I mean if this your passion, go for it. I'll admit that my experience with RPGs is largely related to DnD games and the spiritual successors to BG2 but I've never had the experience with "shovelware" games that you've had.

But from my limited experience of unity games with POE1+2, Solasta, Disco Elysium and WotR All the titles I mentioned have better party controls than BG3. * I just hate moving toons around in BG3 and DoS2. And these aren't nitpicks, they are reason I would stay away from game. BG3 is a game with truly stellar parts and some parts are complete trash. The chain mechanism is trash.

Not nitpicking part 2. I'm focusing on how they fixed those bugs. They fixed them by altering the maps, not improving the pathing. It's like covering your tracks. I mean we don't notice because it works -- so what's the problem, right? The problem I see - for you - is that you are going to lose hours and hours to making maps that work with the chain system. And that doesn't seem like time well spent. Ohh . . . need to alter where I allow people to make a fire surface.

I would be interested to see a comparison of downloads vs completion rates on the BG2 port . . . I downloaded, played for 15 minutes and stopped.

But, again, if you thought that was a worthwhile project and the devs time was well spent then you should follow suit. Good luck to you and have fun. Sincerely

* I do acknowledge that the Disco Elysium controls are nothing great. Not as bad as BG3 but not great.

You created an assumption based on no evidence "The developers at Larian were physically incapable of changing the pathfinding therefore they had to alter the map to fix it. Therefore a remake based on its engine = bad". This is a cascading number of assumptions. There's no evidence that they didn't just alter the map because it wasn't finished yet and it was always going to look like that, or because they had other concerns at the time and thought it would be faster to just move a model a few feet. In game development it's often easier to go for a simpler solution as opposed to a more complex solution because the more complex solution might invite another bug elsewhere. A good example being if they altered the navigational mesh in that level it could also break something elsewhere in the level.

Again these are not choices made specific to Larian or their development process this happens in every game's development. BG3 is unique in that we can observe how the game changed overtime as it was being made.
These feel like utterly subjective opinions and not ones worth trashing a potential mod project.
As I mentioned in my previous post editing the navmesh for AI isn't very difficult in the Divinity engine. Your entire argument is based on an assumption that the reason it was changed wasn't for any other reason.
So because you didn't finish a game = something doesn't deserve to exist. I'd recommend checking completion statistics of BG1/2 on Steam as the vast majority of players don't even leave Candlekeep or Jon Irenicus's dungeon.

I don't know who you are fighting with but it's not me. I never said that it doesn't deserve to exist, I said I wouldn't be interested and didn't think it would be a good expenditure of effort. I answered the the question the OP presented: would you be interested. Answer: No.

I also wouldn't be interested in seeing an angry birds port on the BG3 engine. Does that mean I don't think it should exist? No.

What the fuck does that even mean? Why are you being such a dick about this? I gave you an out an you decided to press on. My guess is that you wanted to fight someone and I just happened to show up.

Now it surprises me some since I've enjoyed most of your contributions to the forum but this is A big exception. Of course my opinions are subjective. Lol. And WTF?! and lol again.

I said go for it if you want. You could have left it there but you had to have the last word and you had to be dick about it, didn't you?

I should just leave it there but I'll comment on this:


I've read your words and seen that photo more than once. I think you believe you are saying something significant when you are saying something pretty trivial. Okay, it's a grid, okay it's easy to edit. Fine. But it still feels like a dog's breakfast when you are done. So what if it's easy to do? It's also easy to make a dog's breakfast. Moving toons in BG3 and DoS2 isn't much fun.

And it confuses me some that editing the map is soooo very easy and yet Larian had so much trouble with it. Are you really suggesting that they always wanted to remove parts of the map? I mean that would weird wouldn't it? Making something because you intended to remove it later? Yeah, we saw what they did. They made the gap narrower, they increased Tav's jump distance . . . And then they just gave up. And I don't blame them for spackling over the problem.

And come on! You don't have any information I don't. Perhaps they always intended to change the maps pfffft :p

So forgive me if I'm skeptical about how easy it will be if you include something like lava on your maps. We all saw how many times the fire surface near Gale was altered. Were it me I would just avoid gaps, surfaces etc but perhaps you won't experience the same trouble that the people who made the game did.

And don't believe me, just read some of the comments in the "BG3 Party Movement Mechanic" megathread. I'm not trashing the game AS A WHOLE. The game has some truly wonderful moments. Some of the writing is stellar. Some of the encounters are lots of fun. But the chain mechanism? It sucks. Moving toons around? That sucks.

The strange thing about BG3 is how much of this fantastic game is really awful. How the game succeed when so much of it is so bad?

But I get it, you want to build on the parts of game I dislike. You think it will easy and lots of people will appreciate it. I disagree but don't let me stop you. Have at it. Hope you prove me wrong

To this day I enjoy the classics. No EE remake, pure vanilla with a few mods. Still looks great, and most importantly plays like the end of 90s/2000s game. No hand holding and "quality of life" BS for everything.
Quite refreshing.
Hey look! Its dynamic night time in Baldurs Gate something BG3 engine cant even manage.

ThatDarnOwl and KillerRabbit, can we draw a line and move on? Or at least take the temperature down a few degrees if you want to continue discussing. Cheers!

And while I'm here, though I'd almost certainly try a BG remake in the BG3 engine if a decent one was created, personally I'm also in the camp that would much prefer new content and new stories, and I especially wouldn't want Larian to spend their time on this. Of course, if modders fancy doing it (or another studio without as much creative potential could be do it under licence), that's entirely their call!

I'm happy to move on. If ThatDarnOwl wants to recreate BG2 on the DoS engine I wish them the best of luck and I hope I will one discover that my skepticism is unwarranted.

Yeah it definitely feels like an old modder passion project.

The previous remakes of BG1 and Icewind Dale ( and as yet unfinished SoA/ToB ) were made for the NWN2 engine, which, like the NWN1 engine were explicitely designed to allow a community of modders and persistent world maintainers to create ( or in this case recreate ) their own stories and worlds.

There are thousands of game experiences made using these engines by creative individuals and groups, aimed largely at other creative people, along with those players who are prepared to enjoy non-professional, spare-time developed games, without being hyper-critical. These game engines are now 20 years old, so they are not that much newer than the original BG games. But they are also from a time before the widespread use of motion/performance capture, use much simpler assets ( fewer polygons, no layered models ), and are 32-bit programs which imposed limits to how sprawling you could make your stories.

The BG3 engine is not ( as far as I am aware ) designed with amateur game development in mind. There have never been any specific promises about how suitable BG3 tools will be to create a totally new story, or if this will even be supported. Without official tools, a great deal of BG3 added and changed content has still been possible, but the main thing that sets BG3 apart for many is the performance-captured dialog and cut-scenes, which are beyond the capacity of small amateur teams. Coupled with the need to create the many unique 3D assets that enable the previous stories in BG1/2, and the probability that some needed features cannot be added to the engine, I doubt that anyone is likely to try.

But if someone did succeed in remaking BG1/2 in the BG3 engine, and I am still alive ( BG1 took 7 years to remake in the NWN2 engine, in the BG3 engine it would probably be longer), then I would probably play them, if for no other reason than to acknowledge to effort put in.

I would be interested for sure but I’ve never played the other games so it would be new content for me so admittedly a bit biased.

Uh-hu.

Just for the record, the NWN1 editor was absolutely horrible, the worst game modding tool I've ever encountered. Literally EVERY dialogue was modal.

And if you wanted to have new models etc, you would still have to use the exact same external programs anyway. Personally I only dabbled in this and quickly found out that you need art training/talent for that part. So all I ever did in that regard was really taking other peoples stuff and changed the programming.



About new players wanting to play BG1 and BG2 with "newer" game engines: well if it was just the graphics, I could see your point. As pretty as these old handpainted backgrounds look, the routing of your party is a bit of a PITA, especially in narrow dungeons.

Other than that I dont see the argument that they would be ugly. Thats literally only happening if you zoom in.

And I think if you take away AD&D from BG1 and BG2, you will lose a lot. Newer systems just work too different. So you get the old game but without the charme, and it will just look bad in comparison to new games with all their newly invented features.

AD&D rules weren’t arbitrary; they were actually linked to the lore, so having the game run as 5E would not work.

Kind of like DC Comics’ “Crisis” events, the editions of D&D tend to have some kind of in-universe explanation.

On the face of it, my opinion is "Of course, sure, why not have a remake?" Even if it gets screwed up and isn't faithful to the original, it's not like it takes away my ability to play the originals. It's literally a no-lose situation: Either Larian will do a good job and introduce a bunch of people to these old games with updated graphics and 5e mechanics (which I don't care what anyone says, are vastly superior to 2e), or they'll do a bad job and I'll just play the originals.

If the question is "Could they DO a good job with a remake", well....

First, let's get the graphics question out of the way: I think the painted backgrounds of BG are many times gorgeous. I'd miss them if they were gone and replaced by the BG3 style, but it's not a dealbreaker for me.

Second, as to whether they could do a good job, well that depends on the BG in question. To me there is a HUMONGOUS difference between BG1 and BG2.

Like look, I loved BG1 when it came out, but it's rough. It's REALLY rough. To me, you can't really see the seeds being sewn that would influence WRPGs for decades until the second game. Companions are really quiet and for the most part non-interactive in BG1 (I have to assume because of the assumption that so many of the would be experiencing permadeath.) Combat is janky and cheesy as fuck, and especially early on so ridiculously unfriendly that you are basically outright encouraged to take advantage of the jank. Dungeon design is basic (until some of the expansion content) and sometimes notoriously bad (the final labyrinth come ON).

So yeah, actually, I think Larian could VASTLY improve BG1, especially when it comes to combat and gameplay, and I say this as someone who is a humongous critic of how Larian handled 5e in BG3, lol. BG1 really is that basic; it was a very different time, when frankly the standards of gaming were much, much lower. (Though the games were also much much cheaper to produce.) I think even if Larian changed a LOT of things - combat, reduced number of companions, fleshed them out with their own writing, added adventures, etc - it would be good. The ONLY thing I'd worry about them changing, and the one thing I definitely would not WANT Larian to change, and would really WORRY about them changing, is the core plot. Larian has a flaw in writing (to be fair, I don't think it's unique to them, but they are particularly bad about it) where, at least to me, it comes across as horribly immature, the way they try to make everything SUPER EPIC right away. Like compare the beginnings of BG3 and BG1:

BG3: You're on a fantasy SPACE SHIP and then DRAGONS ATTACK and then YOU GO TO HELL WHOOOOAAA all within the introduction cinematic of the game.

BG1: The intrigue of seeing your foster father murdered, fleeing, dodging assassins, and slowly getting drawn into a mysterious iron crisis in the region.

BG1 is exciting, but it's much more grounded - and to me that makes it more interesting. In the original series, when you actually got to GO to Hell eventually, it felt more special. In BG3 it seems totally mundane because you went there in the first thirty seconds of your adventure and then even when you left you had your own personal archdemon teleporting to you personally to chat with you at level 2. Going through the initial series, from the start of 1 all the way to the end of ToB, gives to me something that I think BG3 could never achieve, because of Larian's storytelling: A sense of epic progression. Going all the way from fleeing from wolves and worrying about the mundanities of what's going on in an iron mine, to having demigod levels of power and standing on equal footing with liches and dragons. So Larian can write characters, they can write sidequests (indeed I think some of their sidequest adventures especially in act 1 in bG3 were great!), they can update the graphics, they can update the combat, and I think they could do a good job (because frankly if we're being honest, the bar in the original is really low for most of these things.) But I would NOT want them to touch the core plot.

BG2 is where it gets tricky. Because to me, at least, there was a humongous, massive jump in quality between BG1 and BG2 in almost every aspect of the game. Even updating the mechanics from 2e to 5e becomes tricky (because a lot of the plot elements of BG2 actually reference or rely on the idea that high-level wizards are nigh-unstoppable and insanely dangerous in a way other classes are not - and this reflects a second edition reality, not a fifth edition reality.) But setting quibbles like that aside, I consider character and plot writing in BG2 to be far superior to BG3 (and it's not like I think BG2 writing is perfect, either. I am open to the idea some people could improve on it. But from what I've seen, I really do not have a lot of faith Larian could do this.) BG2 is also where the combat starts getting better, though it's not because jank no longer exists, but rather because your characters are now powerful enough that they don't have to rely on it and so combat does not feel so ridiculous. Overall I think the 5e system would still be an improvement if implemented in BG2, but less so than it would be in BG1. So for BG2 there's less room for basic improvements, I'd miss the background paintings more, and I'd worry a lot more about Larian's "personal touch" on the character and plot writing.

So in the end, BG1? Go for it. BG2? ehhhhhhhh...

Any team with the talent to do BG1 and 2 justice in Larian's engine should probably just use that talent to make a new game. BG1 and 2 are just fine as they are.

I'd love it. Fallout 1 and 2 remakes would also be great.

Gold Box remakes would be very cool. Curse of the Azure Bonds would be epic with this game engine and 5E ruleset.

Ever since Tim made his Fallout remake video I have been holding hope. Fallouts 1&2 hold up so well, but could be made so much playable with better UI and some other smaller enhancements.

I would definitely check this out. BG 1 is good but there is a room for improvement for sure

I've been thinking, whilst playing Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance after recently noticing it has been ported to Steam (Thankfully, I can't play my original copies because my ex-GF has my PS2 and DA, DA2 and Champions of Norrath use an engine that doesn't jive with emulators, though ironically Champions: Return to Arms does work on emulator)

But a remake of the 2 original Dark Alliance games could be sick.

It could come with some interesting modern updates to boot such as:

- Character creation (As opposed to using the 3/5 set characters)
- More classes and subclasses
- More expansive and interesting areas (Without old hardware restrictions, there could be a more open world with exploration possibilities)
- Revamped Feat/Skills system (Take inspiration from modern ARPG's like Diablo or Last Epoch)
- More spells and skills (Possibly even a roll button a la Soulslikes)
- More quests, dialogue, interactions (Whilst still using the same core premise for the main story)
- Potential for companions to enhance single player gameplay (Also a way to implement characters and story elements. I.e. DA2 references that 3 heroes killed the BBEG)

Of course, I could see this as being a niche suggestion given that the ARPG games eschew much of the TT rules. But there could still be a market for a story driven ARPG (Especially with the barrage of modern Live Service MTX ridden loot farming simulator ARPG's)

I’d definitely be interested!

In my opinion, the best thing about BG3 is the engine. I think they did a great job of the character animations, graphics and how it interlaces with cut-scenes. That you can have an isometric tactical game flow so naturally into RPG is really impressive and for that alone I think BG3 is special.

Having said that, I actually dislike a lot of the other choices they made, including the way they handle combat rules. I quite like 5th edition D&D, but I dislike the liberties they take including surfaces, barrels, jumping etc. (Though to be fair it is much better than in the EA.) I also disliked their narrative, disliked the companions, and disliked Tav's lack of personality.

So, on balance, I would love to see this engine used to remake games that were mechanically or narratively better, but I wouldn't want Larian to do it. The Pathfinder games, for example, are much better games, mechanically and narratively, but have much poorer graphics and engine.