Baldur's Gate Video Game Series

The series itself Baldur's Gate on the other hand, focuses on the adventures of a player-created character, who is forced to face his destiny and take up the fight against evil. As we traverse the fantasy world, we complete a variety of tasks and skirmish with encountered opponents. As we progress, we are joined by companions diversified in terms of statistics, skills and character, and the appropriate composition of the team and skillful use of the strengths of its members is the key to success on the battlefield. In the first two installments of the series, clashes take place in real time, with the option of active pause. The third part of the series introduced a significant change in the form of turn-based mode.

A big advantage of games under the banner of Baldur's Gate is the atmospheric soundtrack and professional dubbing for the first two installments of the series. The list of actors is led by Piotr Fronczewski, to whom we owe the cult issue: "Before setting out, you should gather a team."

First Baldur's Gate debuted in December 1998 on personal computers. It used the Infinity engine, which was later used to create such classics as Planescape: Torment or Icewind Dale. The game is still very popular today, and at the time broke the bad streak that the RPG genre had. A year after its release, the item lived to see an add-on entitled Baldur's Gate: Tales from the Coast of Swords.

In 2000, the second part of the series was released for personal computers, i.e. Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. It is a direct storyline continuation of the first installment, based not only on the experience gained from working on the first Baldur's Gate, but also on the suggestions of players. The game was a huge success, and its rating on Metacritic to this day is 95/100; the production is still ranked among the best titles ever and enjoys cult status. This part of the series also lived to see an add-on -. Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, released a year later. In 2003, Black Isle Studios began work on the third installment of the game with the working title Baldur's Gate III: Black Hound, but never had the opportunity to complete it. Work on the game was halted after the studio was unable to pay for the license of the Dungeons and Dragons.

For many years it seemed that the series would not continue, but in June 2019 Belgian Larian Studios announced work on the game Baldur's Gate III. It will use the fourth version of the proprietary 3D engine, on which two games in the series were created Divinity: Original Sin. Full version Baldur's Gate 3 made its debut on personal computers in August 2023; before that, you could check out the item as part of early access. The title was a spectacular artistic success; according to the Metacritic site, its average rating from industry media was 96/100 (which placed the production a "notch" higher than its grand predecessor), in turn, on the Steam platform it enjoyed "overwhelmingly positive" reviews. Hand in hand with the high ratings were also high sales posts; suffice it to say that while still in Early Access on the Steam platform, the title found 2.5 million buyers. In September 2023, the item in question was released on PlayStation 5, while in December it hit Xbox Series X/S.

Meanwhile, in 2012-2013, the first two installments of the series lived to see remastered versions. The studio responsible for them, Overhaul Games, adapted them to run at higher (and widescreen) resolutions and adapted them to new platforms (in addition to PC, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition came to consoles and mobile devices). In addition, a remaster of the first Baldur's Gate received a new add-on; the expansion was titled Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, and its storyline is a kind of bridge between the first and second parts of the series.

The series also lived to see a separate sub-cycle dedicated to consoles, which consists of the games Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance (2001) i Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II (2004). Polish studio CD Projekt had plans to release them on PC, but eventually that project was canceled. Sub-series Dark Alliance was based on rules from the third edition of the textbook Dungeons and Dragons and differed strongly in mechanics from the basic game series; instead of an isometric RPG, players received a full-fledged action RPG, which was closer to the brand's Diablo than to the classic "Baldur's". Interestingly, this miniseries was also initially to live to see a third installment, but it too was affected by financial problems related to the license.