Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition/Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition Interview
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(The project came about out of frustration and playing with an iPad for the first time,) he says. (We were frustrated with the lack of deep gameplay in many recent games. In my opinion, many games have gone too far simplifying gameplay to make it appealing to the casual gamer. We wanted to work on games that were deep and entertaining.)
And despite the success of pick-up-and play games like Angry Birds and Temple Run, Oster says the iPad is the perfect format for the game. (The first time I picked up and iPad I said, '˜You know what would be awesome on this? Baldur's Gate would be awesome on an iPad.' It is.)
Oster, who served as the original game's 3D Department Head and oversaw artwork for the game, as well as multiplayer QA (quality assurance - checking it's actually fun), has been hard at work on Enhanced Edition at Overhaul Games, a development studio based in Edmonton, Canada.
But perhaps the hardest task was actually snagging the rights to remake Baldur's Gate in the first place: Oster had to barter between five companies for more than a year to get the greenlight.
(We started digging into the ownership puzzle that is Baldur's Gate) he says. (During that period we were going back and forth almost daily with proposals and counter-proposals.)
(Fourteen months later we had an agreement for the Enhanced Edition and a code and asset drop from Bioware...the process was truly exhausting.)
With release just weeks away, it's nearly at it's end, but Oster plans to get stuck straight into revamping the sequel, Baldur's Gate II: Shadows Of Amn, which came out in 2000.
(We are committed to doing Baldur's Gate 2: Enhanced Edition,) he says. (The instant Baldur's Gate is completed most of our team is ready to start work on [it], with a couple holding back to continue to add features and support the fans...We're planning on shipping [it] in 2013, hopefully before the end of summer. I want to enjoy some sun this year - 2012 was a write off.)
