'The winds of adventure, bequeathed by the early pioneers, had seemingly ceased to stir the hearts of the people. But times are changing, and a new cycle is dawning, heralded by celestial upheavals, as if the world were being born afresh.'
– 'Paorn : Le renouveau des Terres très anciennes', in Casus Belli, Hors Série 23, 1998, p. 8 (personal translation).
The release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition marked a change in the reception of titles powered by the Infinity Engine. The project is motivated by the desire to make Baldur's Gate (1998) accessible on modern machines, thanks to ergonomic and gameplay improvements. The debate as to which version is better – the original title with or without mods, or the Enhanced Edition – is a long-running controversy that is unlikely ever to be settled: perhaps most interestingly, the Enhanced Edition is a new way of approaching the game, with greater guidance and new characters that reflect modern sensibilities in companion writing.
Weight and probability: the benefits of memorising the game
Despite the gameplay tweaks that add class kits to the first Baldur's Gate, the game remains particularly challenging. There is a huge amount of information to remember, and beginners can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options available to them. From character creation onwards, the game does not bother to explain how leveling works or the subtleties of dual and multi-classing. This hermetic approach is the foundation of the title's heaviness, embedded in its gameplay philosophy. The lack of an Ironman mode comes as no surprise: Baldur's Gate emphasises memorisation and the ability to act creatively, armed with knowledge of the obstacles ahead. Enemy positioning often puts the player at a disadvantage, as does the discreet trap detection, which is only activated once per round.
The essence of the title is the abuse of saves and long rests to become extremely flexible: a fight against mages can easily be settled by preemptively using a zone of Silence, while a skirmish against fighters can be trivialised by a well-placed Web. The effort required to counteract a negative RNG often leads to the use of such rogue tactics. Steam achievements indicate that only a small number of players – around ten percent – have completed the main campaign, no doubt illustrating the difficulty of the title. The first two chapters act as a very harsh filter, leaving the player feeling disempowered in the face of most encounters, despite technically having access to the entire southern part of Sword Coast.
For the first few hours, it may seem that characters are barely hitting their targets. Baldur's Gate is in fact based on the rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (1989), notorious for the way that Armor Class (AC) works. Early wargames used a matrix of values to determine the number of points needed to hit an enemy, as a function of their attack and defence. To avoid having to consult the table for every attack, AD&D2 introduced the concept of THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0). While this may simplify calculations for veterans of the system, the mechanics remain nebulous to beginners, requiring constant subtraction to resolve attacks and calculate probabilities [1]. While such a system is more or less justifiable when playing around a table and with a game master, it simply seems abstruse for a CRPG. Similar problems plague the rules, and Baldur's Gate struggles to make its concepts really explicit beyond a well-informed, veteran audience.
Narrative tones and dissonances
Baldur's Gate also suffers from a rather disjointed pacing, awkwardly oscillating between heavy-handed command and excessive freedom. Placing the player in the role of a young adventurer, the game can boast a genuine sense of wonder in the face of a hostile world that the protagonist slowly conquers over the course of their quest, reaching significant proportions quite late in the story. In order to create this feeling, Baldur's Gate relies on a methodical exploration of the various locations, from time to time beckoning the player for a bit of information – new or already known. This approach is commendable and works quite well in the final chapters, but the price is a very low density of content in the early zones, which are inevitably very empty or disjointed from the Iron Crisis experienced by Sword Coast.
A side effect of this design choice is an atmosphere that can change too radically for no apparent reason. The slow contemplation introduced by Baldur's Gate can be interrupted to give the player information about the situation between Baldur's Gate and Amn, but it can also be disrupted by almost incongruous comic scenes. More specifically, the choice of answers can clash with the tonality of the game. The player is often given a limited choice of personalities – occasionally laced with rather effective comic responses: apathetic, selfish or chivalrous. The problem is that they all seem rather unnatural. Although traumatised by the events of the prologue, but full of good faith – as the game thematically encourages the player to serve the common good – there is no real justification for the paranoid suspicion of certain replies, or the blind trust given to strangers. Even the altruistic reactions seem unreasonable, given that they are written for a man, and ooze with a passively paternalistic and misogynistic tone.
The writing in Baldur's Gate lacks overall coherence and seems to struggle to find the right tone despite the simplicity of the story, especially in the first few dozen hours. Once the player gets to Baldur's Gate, however, the script becomes more confident and really helps to create a coherent and believable setting, even if it does repeat the same information too often. Yet again, Baldur's Gate suffers from AD&D2 and the lack of subtlety around the alignment system. Trying to create a party outside the canonical companions is a real challenge, as the player is then forced to manage their reputation. The central flaw is that some characters are given an Evil alignment when their story is much more subtle: Viconia has a very harrowing and narratively interesting inner conflict, but her alignment clashes with the various mechanics of the title and the dynamics of the group [2].
The various content additions do little to help the title. The Tales of the Sword Coast expansion takes the player on three separate adventures that have no connection to the main storyline, adding to the sense of wandering around with no real purpose. The additions to the Enhanced Edition are particularly disappointing. Conceptually, the companions written by Beamdog are quite interesting and carry on the idea that a companion should be outstanding in some distinct personality trait. Unfortunately, in keeping with BioWare's more modern philosophy, these characters tend to force the player into their dull quests, often openly berating them – this is particularly the case with Neera, who is very possessive, while the player already has to juggle between the multitude of companions in a limited group. Perhaps most disturbingly, Beamdog seems to portray the only character with a gay romance, Dorn, as a Chaotic Evil monster [3].
A cenacle for veterans
With Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate is targeting the most dedicated players, offering them content of the highest difficulty. Some of the quests are sluggish, or rather superfluous – Shandalar's quest has the merit of being very short, but Mendas' is too long for mediocre and thematically unfocused writing. Durlag's Tower is the biggest undertaking of the expansion. The dungeon recalls the very slow and meticulous progression of the TTRPG modules, in response to player complaints about the lack of a traditional dungeon crawl in the base game. Unfortunately, the experience is again hampered by the gameplay of Baldur's Gate. The narrow corridors are frustrating to navigate, especially during combat, and the traps are particularly irritating to detect, crippling groups using guerrilla tactics.
The dungeon also attempts to revolve around environmental puzzles, but is rather clumsy in its execution, forcing too many round trips or relying too heavily on teleportation, thus weakening the coherence of Durlag's Tower. A few battles seek to add new complexity to the encounters, but struggle to rise above the gruelling anecdote – the Chess puzzle never works in practice, simply inviting the player to end the fight as quickly as possible before dying from Lightning Bolts. Because all of Tales of the Sword Coast's content is divorced from the main story, the various bosses feel almost gratuitous and lack depth. The expansion effectively emulates the module-based aspect of the first editions of D&D, but at the cost of alienating some players.
Baldur's Gate represents a different experience from recent expectations, offering a narrative and gameplay formula that BioWare, Larian Studios and other developers have slowly abandoned over the years. The result is a sandbox that encourages exploration and contemplation, but constantly struggles with its writing and game engine, forcing players to be extremely meticulous and slow in their progress. Beamdog's new features in the Enhanced Edition, while not universally accepted and introducing their fair share of bugs, are far from unwelcome and offer newcomers additional options to simplify their adventure; The Black Pits is also a curiosity for players craving combat, but is largely dispensable. In the end, should one version be preferred over the other? Honestly, it makes little difference.
__________
[1] More accurately, the Armor Class concept is a borrowing from the tradition of naval wargames such as The Ironclads (1979), although the idea had already been introduced in a different way in Chainmail (1971). Because a first-rank ship is more important than a second-rank vessel, the idea is that AC becomes better the lower the score. However, because AD&D2 chose to keep descending AC, THAC0 was simply introduced as an abstract stopgap solution, and was necessarily counter-intuitive. The third edition of D&D (2000) solves the problem by fundamentally transforming THAC0 into an attack bonus and establishing ascending AC, thereby transforming the system into a pure roll-over-a-value system.
[2] Baldur's Gate II (2000) is more interesting in this respect, as the player is able to help Viconia change her alignment and face her insecurities, as opposed to the lack of character development and agency in the first opus.
[3] This is also the case with Hexxat in Baldur's Gate II, the only lesbian romance available.
– 'Paorn : Le renouveau des Terres très anciennes', in Casus Belli, Hors Série 23, 1998, p. 8 (personal translation).
The release of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition marked a change in the reception of titles powered by the Infinity Engine. The project is motivated by the desire to make Baldur's Gate (1998) accessible on modern machines, thanks to ergonomic and gameplay improvements. The debate as to which version is better – the original title with or without mods, or the Enhanced Edition – is a long-running controversy that is unlikely ever to be settled: perhaps most interestingly, the Enhanced Edition is a new way of approaching the game, with greater guidance and new characters that reflect modern sensibilities in companion writing.
Weight and probability: the benefits of memorising the game
Despite the gameplay tweaks that add class kits to the first Baldur's Gate, the game remains particularly challenging. There is a huge amount of information to remember, and beginners can easily be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of options available to them. From character creation onwards, the game does not bother to explain how leveling works or the subtleties of dual and multi-classing. This hermetic approach is the foundation of the title's heaviness, embedded in its gameplay philosophy. The lack of an Ironman mode comes as no surprise: Baldur's Gate emphasises memorisation and the ability to act creatively, armed with knowledge of the obstacles ahead. Enemy positioning often puts the player at a disadvantage, as does the discreet trap detection, which is only activated once per round.
The essence of the title is the abuse of saves and long rests to become extremely flexible: a fight against mages can easily be settled by preemptively using a zone of Silence, while a skirmish against fighters can be trivialised by a well-placed Web. The effort required to counteract a negative RNG often leads to the use of such rogue tactics. Steam achievements indicate that only a small number of players – around ten percent – have completed the main campaign, no doubt illustrating the difficulty of the title. The first two chapters act as a very harsh filter, leaving the player feeling disempowered in the face of most encounters, despite technically having access to the entire southern part of Sword Coast.
For the first few hours, it may seem that characters are barely hitting their targets. Baldur's Gate is in fact based on the rules of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd Edition (1989), notorious for the way that Armor Class (AC) works. Early wargames used a matrix of values to determine the number of points needed to hit an enemy, as a function of their attack and defence. To avoid having to consult the table for every attack, AD&D2 introduced the concept of THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0). While this may simplify calculations for veterans of the system, the mechanics remain nebulous to beginners, requiring constant subtraction to resolve attacks and calculate probabilities [1]. While such a system is more or less justifiable when playing around a table and with a game master, it simply seems abstruse for a CRPG. Similar problems plague the rules, and Baldur's Gate struggles to make its concepts really explicit beyond a well-informed, veteran audience.
Narrative tones and dissonances
Baldur's Gate also suffers from a rather disjointed pacing, awkwardly oscillating between heavy-handed command and excessive freedom. Placing the player in the role of a young adventurer, the game can boast a genuine sense of wonder in the face of a hostile world that the protagonist slowly conquers over the course of their quest, reaching significant proportions quite late in the story. In order to create this feeling, Baldur's Gate relies on a methodical exploration of the various locations, from time to time beckoning the player for a bit of information – new or already known. This approach is commendable and works quite well in the final chapters, but the price is a very low density of content in the early zones, which are inevitably very empty or disjointed from the Iron Crisis experienced by Sword Coast.
A side effect of this design choice is an atmosphere that can change too radically for no apparent reason. The slow contemplation introduced by Baldur's Gate can be interrupted to give the player information about the situation between Baldur's Gate and Amn, but it can also be disrupted by almost incongruous comic scenes. More specifically, the choice of answers can clash with the tonality of the game. The player is often given a limited choice of personalities – occasionally laced with rather effective comic responses: apathetic, selfish or chivalrous. The problem is that they all seem rather unnatural. Although traumatised by the events of the prologue, but full of good faith – as the game thematically encourages the player to serve the common good – there is no real justification for the paranoid suspicion of certain replies, or the blind trust given to strangers. Even the altruistic reactions seem unreasonable, given that they are written for a man, and ooze with a passively paternalistic and misogynistic tone.
The writing in Baldur's Gate lacks overall coherence and seems to struggle to find the right tone despite the simplicity of the story, especially in the first few dozen hours. Once the player gets to Baldur's Gate, however, the script becomes more confident and really helps to create a coherent and believable setting, even if it does repeat the same information too often. Yet again, Baldur's Gate suffers from AD&D2 and the lack of subtlety around the alignment system. Trying to create a party outside the canonical companions is a real challenge, as the player is then forced to manage their reputation. The central flaw is that some characters are given an Evil alignment when their story is much more subtle: Viconia has a very harrowing and narratively interesting inner conflict, but her alignment clashes with the various mechanics of the title and the dynamics of the group [2].
The various content additions do little to help the title. The Tales of the Sword Coast expansion takes the player on three separate adventures that have no connection to the main storyline, adding to the sense of wandering around with no real purpose. The additions to the Enhanced Edition are particularly disappointing. Conceptually, the companions written by Beamdog are quite interesting and carry on the idea that a companion should be outstanding in some distinct personality trait. Unfortunately, in keeping with BioWare's more modern philosophy, these characters tend to force the player into their dull quests, often openly berating them – this is particularly the case with Neera, who is very possessive, while the player already has to juggle between the multitude of companions in a limited group. Perhaps most disturbingly, Beamdog seems to portray the only character with a gay romance, Dorn, as a Chaotic Evil monster [3].
A cenacle for veterans
With Tales of the Sword Coast, Baldur's Gate is targeting the most dedicated players, offering them content of the highest difficulty. Some of the quests are sluggish, or rather superfluous – Shandalar's quest has the merit of being very short, but Mendas' is too long for mediocre and thematically unfocused writing. Durlag's Tower is the biggest undertaking of the expansion. The dungeon recalls the very slow and meticulous progression of the TTRPG modules, in response to player complaints about the lack of a traditional dungeon crawl in the base game. Unfortunately, the experience is again hampered by the gameplay of Baldur's Gate. The narrow corridors are frustrating to navigate, especially during combat, and the traps are particularly irritating to detect, crippling groups using guerrilla tactics.
The dungeon also attempts to revolve around environmental puzzles, but is rather clumsy in its execution, forcing too many round trips or relying too heavily on teleportation, thus weakening the coherence of Durlag's Tower. A few battles seek to add new complexity to the encounters, but struggle to rise above the gruelling anecdote – the Chess puzzle never works in practice, simply inviting the player to end the fight as quickly as possible before dying from Lightning Bolts. Because all of Tales of the Sword Coast's content is divorced from the main story, the various bosses feel almost gratuitous and lack depth. The expansion effectively emulates the module-based aspect of the first editions of D&D, but at the cost of alienating some players.
Baldur's Gate represents a different experience from recent expectations, offering a narrative and gameplay formula that BioWare, Larian Studios and other developers have slowly abandoned over the years. The result is a sandbox that encourages exploration and contemplation, but constantly struggles with its writing and game engine, forcing players to be extremely meticulous and slow in their progress. Beamdog's new features in the Enhanced Edition, while not universally accepted and introducing their fair share of bugs, are far from unwelcome and offer newcomers additional options to simplify their adventure; The Black Pits is also a curiosity for players craving combat, but is largely dispensable. In the end, should one version be preferred over the other? Honestly, it makes little difference.
__________
[1] More accurately, the Armor Class concept is a borrowing from the tradition of naval wargames such as The Ironclads (1979), although the idea had already been introduced in a different way in Chainmail (1971). Because a first-rank ship is more important than a second-rank vessel, the idea is that AC becomes better the lower the score. However, because AD&D2 chose to keep descending AC, THAC0 was simply introduced as an abstract stopgap solution, and was necessarily counter-intuitive. The third edition of D&D (2000) solves the problem by fundamentally transforming THAC0 into an attack bonus and establishing ascending AC, thereby transforming the system into a pure roll-over-a-value system.
[2] Baldur's Gate II (2000) is more interesting in this respect, as the player is able to help Viconia change her alignment and face her insecurities, as opposed to the lack of character development and agency in the first opus.
[3] This is also the case with Hexxat in Baldur's Gate II, the only lesbian romance available.