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)

A true gem, but it still has its detractors

The Good
Baldur's Gate nailed one thing perfectly: the atmosphere of the game world. There's just so much to see and do as you trek across the wilds of Faerun, and there are dozens of quaint little inns to visit across an assortment of villages and towns. Every NPC that will join your team has a neat little backstory, and they will complain if your virtuous behaviour or lack thereof conflicts with their morals.

Every yard of every zone you can travel in seems hand-painted, and some corners of the world are so cozy you almost wish you could crawl inside the game world. Many an inn had that effect on me, as the glow of the roaring fire lit the common room while a bard played a lively melody, and Dwarvish ale flowed liberally from the taps.

One of my favorite features in Baldur's Gate are the hand-drawn character portraits. Some of your female companions are just plain hot, and I find myself gravitating towards an all-girl party just for that reason. But, many of the male characters are stalwart foot soldiers, so there's still plenty of room for them too.

Plotting is done with a light touch, as you're never required to do anything in particular to advance the plot, until you are good and ready to do so. Which is nice, because open-world design has got the be the peak experience of gaming. You can travel the land wherever your heart desires, and you will come across all sorts of strange beasts and commoners in need of protection from such creatures.

Leveling is a slow affair, which makes it all the more rewarding when you finally do hit level two, which could take a few days. The assortment of classes you can choose from is excellent, and every character feels unique in the abilities and proficiencies.

The Bad
However, the bread and butter of gameplay, combat, can be rather tedious at times. Unless you spend a great deal of effort leveling up your characters well ahead of where you need to be, each battle spells potential ruin for your party.

A critical hit to a character may bring them under -9 hit points, causing them to explode in a shower of giblets. That character can never be restored. This is avoided by putting the game difficulty down a notch where death in this manner cannot occur.

If you try and sleep in the wild, half the time you will be ambushed, and as likely as not one of your mages will be targeted, killed in one hit, forcing your to re-load.

Re-loading wouldn't be such a chore but for a minor issue. Whenever you do so, the music restarts from the beginning, which may become wearying to your ears very quickly.

Essentially, all this forces you to be extremely careful, never letting your weaker characters get jumped, and healing anyone who takes so much as a scratch of damage. This really interrupts the flow of the game, and if you aren't completely won over by the good aspects of Baldur's Gate, you may be turned off entirely.

However, there is another approach that is slightly less harrowing. If you are willing to admit when you are outmatched, you can simply forgo exploring an area until you are really ready. There will always be an abundance of areas that are fairly straightforward for whatever level you happen to be.

The Bottom Line
Baldur's Gate stands as a landmark achievement in video gaming, and remains one of the strongest role-playing titles ever released on the PC. It made its mark just as 2D game environments were on their last legs, and as a result its hand-drawn style is as much an artistic achievement as a technical triumph, thanks to the quality of visual elements, as well as the lush orchestral score.

Windows · by Chris Wright (85) · 2015

Despite the hate from the hardcore community this is great rpg.

The Good
First of all this was the first good D&D based rpg we had in years and it's a tremendous comeback. It sports great graphics, great sound, an easy to use interface and an epic rpg world in which to interact. The storyline in the game is actually very good, sure you can complain that in the end it all comes down to "kill Gonzo" but it's one heck of a wild ride till you get there! The plot makes some great twists and bends and it includes remarkably well constructed political conspiracies (which c'mon, how many of us thought of seeing that in a D&D game?), sideplots, plus the usual quest for ultimate power.

The battle system is really love or hate. It makes the mistake of taking the middle road between action and strategy, it's part real-time, and it's part strategy turn-based. So essentially what you have here is something that the grognards will hate because it's too fast and simple, and the Diablo-lovers will hate because it gives them a headache (no offense guys! ;)). Personally I thought it was great, providing the right balance between action and strategy. Besides quite simply it makes the battles fun, which is a requirement in a game that has so many of them. There's also the issue of party members and their reactions which are incredibly realistic, they react both to you and your other companions in very life-like ways according to their alignment. You can have fights break out in your party, discussions or insults flying at any moment as poor Viconia had to endure, etc, etc. Every possible party member feels realistic and behaves in a very life-like manner instead of just being walking inventories.

Ultimately the game provides lots of engrossing roleplaying, with hundreds of npc's to interact with, lots of detailed and vivid locations to visit, killer production values, and a great storyline. Plus it has the option for those ultimate freaks to place your picture and voices to replace the ones that represent you in the game! How cool is that?

The Bad
Well first of all I completely agree with the previous reviewer that the D&D rules suck. At least on computer games. They are far too redundant and complicated at the same time for a platform where all the hassle of having a dungeon master is eliminated, plus I never liked the far too generic stats (strength is for fighters, intelligence for mages, dexterity for thieves, etc.) The racial distinctions don't work that well, plus there is no point in picking a human since the game imposes an experience cap on you, meaning there's a limit to how strong you can get.

The storyline, for as good as it is is left hanging in the end. You kill Sarevok, see him die and that's it, roll credits, everyone go home. What happened to you? What happened to everyone else? Sure, we learn that in Baldur's Gate 2 but would it have killed them to provide a proper closure to the plot? There's also the fact that there isn't that much variety as advertised in the game. As the popular saying around the net goes, you only need "4 fighters and a six-pack" to get through this game, and it's true. Most of the game is geared towards fighting and cracking heads, and you only need an assortment of potions to get you out of the eventual tight spots. Plus a lot of the subquests are of the 'Fed Ex" type which as you can tell, don't exactly require a lot of thinking.

Last but not least I REALLY hate when game designers take the patronizing posture of limiting your savegames and their usage. This has been forever an issue that the hardcore community has always defended with their "it makes the game more realistic" thing and the rest of us loathe since it's akin to telling us how we should play our games. Nobody tells me when or where I should save, ok? If I want to be able to save every 10 seconds I should be able to do so, just because I want to. And for those of you macho-types that defend this conception and do it so on the basis that is more "realistic" and "challenging", here's a tip: DON'T SAVE. But let whoever wants to do it!

Returning to BG (sorry for that) the game allows you to save anywhere you want, but actually makes the insult of penalizing you for using those saves. Whenever you load a game, all the creatures that were around you respawn, which would be nice if it were a controlled respawning (since you may want to return to do some hack & slash in order to gain experience), but as I said, this is done to penalize you for loading games, so the respawnings are usually ridiculous AND cumulative, which make it downright suicide to save and load on dungeons. On the worst of cases you may have fought 5 kobolds in a corridor on Nashkell but if you re-load for whatever reason you will have to face 10 kobolds and 3 commandos, re-load again and we are talking 17 kobolds, 8 commandos, etc. etc. Lovely, isn't it? Your only answer whenever some bad thing happens to you in a dungeon is to then quit the game and re-load, or re-load and get the hell out as quickly as you can.

The Bottom Line
In the end Baldur's Gate is a great game. Sure, it receives a fair amount of hate because it isn't perfect (but is hailed as such), but let's be serious here folks: Baldur's Gate is a great rpg, and probably the greatest D&D based for it's time. Sure it brought a lot of hoopla with it's "isometric-ness" that surely has all the Wizardry fans in the world screaming in horror, but it is still a great game. Besides where else can you play with a space hamster??? ;)

Windows · by Zovni (10504) · 2001

Great as an intro to AD&D

The Good
When I first played BG, I had never before played an Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Game. The going was tough at first, but after much labouring, I began to enjoy this amazing game. The graphics are as good as they'd ever need to be, and the music is amazing. Obviously though, the greatest attraction to playing BG is that your own character can progress through an entire trilogy. You can watch as they become a great Sorcerer or Wizard - and the later volumes only get better!

The Bad
I guess trawling through the large areas can get a little boring. Also, starting the game as a mage can create a lot of difficulties.

The Bottom Line
It's Dungeons and Dragons expertly translated to the PC. Play it!

Windows · by emmamomocat (29) · 2004

[ View all 17 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Remake Patrick Bregger (298879) 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 27, 2024.