The History and Return of Second-Generation CRPGs

While the article drops a selection of iconic CRPG title names from the 1980s and 1990s within its paragraphs, this “The History and Return of Second-Generation CRPGs” editorial on GameCola primarily focuses on the resurrection of the Baldur’s Gate franchise by the team at Beamdog. The author goes a bit too far by suggesting that they’re working on Baldur’s Gate III without any actual evidence, and they also seem to think that BioWare (not Obsidian) crafted Neverwinter Nights 2, but it’s still worth a read, I suppose:

Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and series outside of BioWare all borrowed from Baldur’s Gate’s success. Neverwinter Nights 2 would never have produced two expansions, BioWare owes its entirety to the Baldur’s Gate series—Bethesda even borrowed from the success of Black Isle and BioWare’s influential series. Black Isle went under, unfortunately. Some members went to Obsidian Entertainment and others seemed to vanish into other projects. Baldur’s Gate 3 now seems to be dead in the water. However sleeping gods seldom lie, and in 2012 “baldursgate.com” was registered and a placeholder website was made with the iconic logo and the words “SOON”.

Baldur’s Gate was fourteen years old, the title lost to licensing hell. BioWare owned the Infinity Engine which the game was made on, Wizards of the Coast owned the license upon which the game was based, and Atari owned the interactive media rights to that license. But in the year 201x, strange things are known to happen, and a company named Beamdog somehow managed to negotiate the rights to all three of these essential components. Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition was released, with extra content, and the same applied to the sequel as well. Both featured their iconic expansions, and both were well received. Beamdog has announced Baldur’s Gate 3 as their lofty goal—a conclusion to the series. But, there’s more.