Baldur's Gate

aka: Battleground Infinity, Bode zhi Men, Forgotten Realms: Iron Throne, Puerta de Baldur, Wrota Baldura
Moby ID: 712
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Candlekeep is an ancient fortress situated on the rural Sword Coast. Recently, inexplicable events have been plaguing this quiet place, which has long become a large library where men of wisdom and knowledge can study in peace. Unknown mercenaries try to enter the walls of Candlekeep, interested in a seemingly ordinary and unimportant young person - an orphan who was taken in by the mage Gorion and treated by him as his own child. One night, Gorion decides to leave Candlekeep and take his adopted child to a safe place. However, as they leave the fortress, they are ambushed by a group of assassins. The orphan manages to escape, but Gorion dies in battle.

The gates of Candlekeep are locked, because its inhabitants are afraid to attract to themselves the wrath of the mysterious attackers. Only Imoen, another child who was brought up by Gorion and has been like a sister to the protagonist, is willing to share the uncertain future. The two have nothing, no place to call their home, only a wide hostile world in front of them. A long and perilous journey begins there.

Baldur's Gate is a role-playing game that uses the rule set of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D). Set in the universe of Forgotten Realms, the game is the first part of the saga that lets the player explore various towns, wilderness areas and dungeons, undertake many side quests, and find companions for the long journey. The player creates the hero(ine) by selecting his or her class, choosing between fighter, thief, mage, priest, ranger, and druid (including sub-classes, dual- and multi-class characters); alignment (Good-Evil and Lawful-Chaotic axis), and weapon proficiencies. The 2nd edition AD&D rules are applied in the game during combat, character leveling, class restrictions, etc.

Up to six player-controlled characters can participate in combat. Battles occur in the same environment as exploration, and flow in real time, though the player is able to pause combat at any time to issue precise commands to any of the characters. Once the game is unpaused, the characters repeat the last action selected by the player until it is changed or becomes impossible to execute. Characters can freely move during battles; party formation and positioning in combat play a significant role.

Spellings

  • Ворота Бальдура - Russian spelling
  • バルダーズ・ゲート - Japanese spelling
  • 博德之门 - Simplified Chinese spelling
  • 柏德之門 - Traditional Chinese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

375 People (324 developers, 51 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 90% (based on 56 ratings)

Players

Average score: 4.1 out of 5 (based on 295 ratings with 17 reviews)

Excellent game based on 2nd edition rules

The Good
It had a fantastic story, and it kept away from the hack-and-slash reputation that D&D games always seem to fall into. A lot of attention was put into the D&D rules.

Graphics and sound were well thought-out and they seemed to make sense (in BG2 the graphics were a little more distracting, although technically better - very odd). Overall they added to the game.

Very well balanced, and fairly easy to use. Keyboard shortcuts were customizable (by default they were actually confusing).

It was nice to pick up part members along the way - each with their own story and goals.

You could technically play evil characters, though it was difficult.

The Bad
Technically speaking, the game is only 640x480. It's sub-par for the era of game, but the details were done so well, you won't notice too much.

Every time you came to the end of a section, you KNEW there was a mage there. And he always had spells that were going to make life difficult. I actually grew to hate this.

While the story was fairly linear, it wasn't inherently obvious what was the next step, and sometimes you'd get off on a side quest, only to get off on another side quest, only to find another, only to find... .

The Bottom Line
Overall this is a fantastic game. It's well worth the going-price (I picked it up for $20) for any D&D fans out there. For non-D&D fans, if you want to see what D&D is all about, pick up this game. It's the best representation I know if in recent times.

Windows · by Cyric (50) · 2001

A dense, masterful fantasy world, but not for everybody

The Good
Quite simply, Baldur's Gate is one of the greatest electronic role-playing games ever crafted. Set in the Tolkien-esque high fantasy world of the Forgotten Realms, BG provides an open world with open-ended possibilities.

The game allows you to create an alter-ego and fine-hone every detail down to the hair color, armor, and even the voice of the on-screen avatar. You lead your character and up to five other NPCs up and down a beautiful isometric interpretation of the Sword Coast as you investigate a story filled with political intrigue and divine prophecy. The non-linear structure of the game allows you to take the story at your own pace, and the developers rarely nudge you one way or the other.

BG's endless character arrangements and vast array of equipment and spells add unparalleled depth to the real-time strategic combat system, which transitions seamlessly from normal gameplay.

One playthrough of the game can't possibly provide the full experience. The game virtually endlessly replayable. Ethical choices are made in conversation ranging from goody-goody to horrifically evil and everything in between, and these choices have drastic impacts on the gameplay. It's possible to play through with a vast combination of interacting party-members, each with their own dynamic and relationship with one another.

The interface and graphics were gorgeous for the time, and are still wildly appreciable today. The epic soundtrack is reminiscent of a Hans Zimmer score in its scope and beauty.

The Bad
The open-endedness comes with a huge price. The game has an overly-steep learning curve, especially if you wish to get the full experience. While the basics of gameplay are inherently simple, it can take literally years to fully grasp the intricacies of successful approaches to battles, certain dialogs, and party mechanics.

Although events can by-and-large be experienced in any order, the game is optimized and designed to be played one particular way. Straying outside of the very specific sequence of scripting triggers, including talking to people in the wrong order or picking up quest items before being given a quest, can lead to incredibly confusing snafus with story chronology. Novice players can expect to be very confused at certain points in the game.

Combat can be insanely hard, even on the least difficult setting (which actually just rebalances the monster difficulty/experience reward ratio). Players can expect to be frustrated at many key points, and those who don't save very often may find themselves too frustrated to continue.

Creating your own character means that the story never truly centers on your alter-ego. Rather than experiencing the story first-hand, things more-or-less happen around the main character while others interact with one another. Because your party is so customizable, interpersonal banter is more of a gimmick. Each character's background is never really expounded upon apart from a blurb on their rap sheet, which remains a springboard for a sidequest at best and superfluous at worst.

The Bottom Line
An epic and gorgeous role-playing adventure, Baldur's Gate is one of the most rewarding experiences for the seasoned gaming veteran. With unparalleled depth and abundant customizability and choice, this strategic RPG provides not just hours, but potentially years of gameplay, and remains a perennial favorite for classic gaming enthusiasts. It's biggest flaws are inherent side-effects of its greatest attribute -- it's open-endedness. One of the greatest computer games ever made, if you make the easy choice to submit your full attention to it.

Windows · by jTrippy (58) · 2008

Excellent standard setting RPG game for years and years to follow!

The Good
I loved EVERYTHING about this game. The musical compositions rate up there with Carl Orff, sounds like music from something like a Braveheart battle. The music written for this game is classic in itself. I have the intro theme on CD and listen to it as though I would other music. The game was an instant jaw-dropper for me and my AD&D buddies... for once, it felt as though we were instantly submerged in a real-life forgotten realms campaign. The rules and modifiers follow the paper N' pen game to a T. Extremely accurate.

Nothing was cheesy about this game, just a serious hardcore RPG for hardcore gamers. The path is somewhat linear but enough freedom to allow you to explore areas that you would get horribly reamed if you weren't strong enough (Something most RPGs today don't let you do). The atmosphere of the realm is such a beautiful recreation of the Paper N Pen game, some recognizable characters appear such as the almighty human form of Paladine AKA Fizban... the infamous and deadly drow elf, Drizzt.

This game was so addicting to me and my friends, we literally cut the outside world off for a month after buying this classic. I believe it was the first gamed developed using the old engine and its a shame they quit using it because these games blow the new NeverWinter Night style games out of the water. No polygon 3d engine will every produce colors and the hand drawn background art like in this game. The game is huge, many many hours of exploring, fighting and town wandering.

The game has a full day cycle where you can tell if its getting close to sunset or morning. The great thing about this is like the Ultima series, different events happen during the day and night. The town of Baldur's Gate is almost like 2 different towns depending on whether or not you go in at night or day.

I loved everything about this game... timeless. A perfect recreation of how the paper n pen game WOULD look if you could actually see it.

The Bad
Setting up the pause features can get a bit annoying, sometimes you want it to pause after certain events, others not. You have to go back in and change it every time you want to adjust it.

If you didn't do the full install, prepare for some disc swapping. 5 to be exact. Why was it on 5 discs?? The whole game can be compressed and fit on 2.

Much too difficult to play without using the pause features. Especially when you're trying to control 6 guys, 3 of which are spell casters, trying to fumble through your spells, cast them, aim them... it would be much too hard fighting in real time.

Some poor AI path-finding code. I think they addressed this in a patch but there are still some problems even after the patch. If you click to walk too far ahead of the character, the characters will start walking very stupidly, running in to walls and each other. VERY VERY frustrating in combat!

Characters can block each other in tight quarters!! Very annoying. And some of the scenes and areas are too small for 6 people to fight in. One could argue that this is a realistic factor but the AI sometimes makes dumb choices in those events.

Mages you encounter and have to fight are extremely difficult in my opinion, especially towards the end of the game. As though a high level mage should be difficult, sometimes its ridiculous.

The Bottom Line
One of the best RPG's EVER EVER created... a faithful recreation of the Paper and Pen version of AD&D... a MUST PLAY for any RPG fan...a MUST MUST MUST play for fans of the paper n pen version of AD&D!

Windows · by OlSkool_Gamer (88) · 2004

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Remake Patrick Bregger (298416) Jun 6, 2013

Trivia

Cancelled Dreamcast and PlayStation ports

A Playstation 5-disc version was revealed to be in the works by Interplay on October 25, 1999. It was to be ported by UK developer Runecraft but on March 29, 2000 it was put "on hold" and never saw the light of day. Howewer, years later a nearly finished and working prototype was found and "leaked" to the net by an anonymous collector.

A Dreamcast port was also in the works during that time, but was dropped by SEGA for an unspecified reason in 2000.

Drizzt Do'Urden

Though he appears only once in the game, the legendary Drizzt Do'Urden makes a brief but sweet (and rewarding) guest appearance in a certain part of the game. Drizzt is a very famous D&D character that sprung from the Dark Elf Trilogy of forgotten realms-based novels by R.A. Salvatore.

German version

In the German version all blood and splatter animations were removed.

Graveyards

Visit the cemetery in one of the towns, and you'll be able to read many funny inscriptions on the graves. An example: "Here lies an atheist, all dressed up, and no place to go".

Narrator (Spoiler!)

The same person voices Sarevok (the hero's main adversary) and the narrator in the game. This might be a coincidence, but in Icewind Dale, another AD&D game by Black Isle, the ultimate evil and narrator are done by the same person again, and in that game it's a plot point.

Novel

Wizards of the Coast published a novelization of this game in 1999, written by Forgotten Realms series editor Philip Athans.

Remake

A fan-made remake called Baldur's Gate Reloaded was released as mod for Neverwinter Nights 2 in June 2013.

Sales

In 1999, Baldur's Gate has won the Gold-Award from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 (but less then 200,000) units in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • April 1999 (Issue #177) – Best RPG of the Year
  • GameSpy
    • 2001 – #36 Top Game of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #31 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • Origin
    • 1998 - Best Role-Playing Computer Game
  • PC Gamer
    • April 2000 - #9 in the "Magazine's Readers All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
    • April 2005 - #11 in the "50 Best Games of All Time" list
  • PC Player (Germany)
    • Issue 01/2000 - Best RPG in 1999
  • Power Play
    • Issue 02/1999 – Best Isometric RPG in 1998
  • Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland<
    • 1999 - Gold Award

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, Chris Martin, PCGamer77, Pseudo_Intellectual, Scaryfun, Unicorn Lynx and Xoleras

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Related Sites +

  • Baldurdash
    A site by Kevin Dorner of Bioware containing unofficial bug fixes for both Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast that weren't corrected by any of the official patches.
  • Baldurs Gate Trilogy
    A German Fansite - containing detailed item, spell, monster, and NPC descriptions (with stats), and others
  • Mike's Baldur's Gate pages
    A great Baldur's Gate resource site. Maps, weapons/armor, potions, spells, walkthroughs and much more.
  • Planet Baldur's Gate
    Everything about the Baldur's Gate serie, also including other games from the same publisher.
  • Pocket Plane Group
    Pocket Plane Group publishes a number of detailed mods for Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games. BG1 projects include the BG1Tutu engine converter and the Indira NPC for BG1Tutu.

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 712
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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by faceless.

Macintosh added by Kabushi.

Additional contributors: Zovni, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Rantanplan, a2136*tds354o12ng, JRK, Alaka, FloodSpectre, Xoleras, jean-louis, Jason Compton, Virgil, Ms. Tea, Paulus18950, Patrick Bregger, Dimi Morabito.

Game added January 9, 2000. Last modified March 18, 2024.