BioWare is incredibly busy lately, what with working on
Mass Effect 2 and
Dragon Age: Origins. Still, there are some out there who would like to see the RPG darling work harder, and wonder why there's no word of a
Baldur's Gate 3. Well, BioWare
has explained why this won't happen and, as usual, it's the lawyers who are to blame.
"The Baldur's Gate and Dungeons & Dragons property is of course controlled by Atari, and owned originally by Hasbro, so it's a complicated, convoluted way of getting there," explains BioWare's Greg Zeschuk. "For us it's more a function of ... because we weren't in a position to do Baldur's Gate ... hey well let's create our own! That's effectively what [Dragon Age: Origins] is."
Those disappointed by the lack of Baldur's Gate should hopefully be comforted by the fact that Dragon Age essentially picks up where it left off, and so far that game is looking incredibly hot. Zeschuk admits that there are parts of Baldur's Gate that the team misses, like the original characters they created for the series, but ultimately the team has "no regrets" about their current situation.
I always prefer my videogames to be set in their own original worlds as opposed to somebody else's, so I'm glad that Dragon Age is coming to me without the Dungeons & Dragons flavor. We'll get the same sense of cool RPG gameplay mixed with a more unique setting, and that sounds pretty good to me.
I loved that game. I am excited that this is the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate. A shame we can't sneak through the alleys of a 3-D render Baldur's Gate or Athkatla. Or clear out the mines of Nashkel of fucking kohbolds. Or make another run on Watcher's Keep.
Guess I should install it again and see if I can get it running on Vista. Probably not.
And I'm excited for Bioware's freedom in Dragon Age but I love familiar settings for games as well.