Canadian studio Beamdog who made the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate I & II, Icewind Dale and others are currently testing a huge upgrade for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.
While still using the classic Infinity Engine, Beamdog went through it and upgraded a great many parts for the original release of the Enhanced Editions and it's clearly a labour of love as they continue to fix and tweak them many years after release. They recently announced a huge 2.6 game engine upgrade which will affect all three named titles, and now they're looking for more people to jump in and test.
To be clear, they confirmed that currently only Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition is ready for testing but since the update notes fixes for all of them it's likely the other two mentioned above will follow along after.
You can see the rather long list of updates and fixes over here. To participate you need a copy of Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition on Steam, and then right click -> go to Properties and find the "road_to_2.6" option. Here's some highlights of what you can expect:
- Changed to 64 bit executables; 32 bit operating systems are no longer supported
- Hundreds of bug fixes including many spell fixes
- Improved pathfinding
- Improved multiplayer stability
- Added Adventurers of Neverwinter content to all games
The list of improvements just for BG:EE is quite long too, with over 60 items just for this game being either bug fixes or general game improvements. Plenty more when counting updates that affect all three titles too it's a really impressive amount of work that's gone into the 2.6 upgrade.
If you do test it, they want your feedback to ensure it works including launching it and saving plus loading without any blocking issues. You can either leave a comment on their official forum post or on this Steam announcement post. Once ready, it will be up on the GOG store as usual too.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
QuoteChanged to 64 bit executables; 32 bit operating systems are no longer supported
Very welcome change. It was not a trivial thing from what they said, due to the need to rewrite the engine which actually was dependent on some 32-bit logic.
Last edited by Shmerl on 11 November 2020 at 5:34 pm UTC
But the prospect of starting anew is somewhat discouraging. I had finished Planescape: Torment back in the day, so it was less of an issue to revisit that in form of the EE, and I loved it! But with Baldur's Gate I really don't see this happening any time soon.
Quoting: ShmerlThey can make some tool for importing older saves for that.Yeah, some kind of converter, official or otherwise would be neat. Though I guess there isn't really much of a demand for something like that :-).
Avehicle7887 Nov 11, 2020
Quoting: kaimanI'd buy those games on the spot if only they were compatible with the original save games. Even though I've spent countless hours on BG1 and BG2, I never actually finished either of them. But I still have save data from some old backups dating back to 1999 and 2003 respectively. If I could pop those into the new edition instead of having to dig out the old CDs and fiddle around to get the games installed and running eventually I would have done so for quite a while now.
But the prospect of starting anew is somewhat discouraging. I had finished Planescape: Torment back in the day, so it was less of an issue to revisit that in form of the EE, and I loved it! But with Baldur's Gate I really don't see this happening any time soon.
You can play the original game with GemRB. I have done that myself to finish my run before doing a new run in EE.
hardpenguin Nov 12, 2020
MisterPaytwick 
Nov 12, 2020
Well, guess it's time to roll again, lemme check what I don't have yet rolled. I mean anything with more than d4 HP level 1. Fuck wizards. Let's just do my part of testing.
Quoting: amataiYou can play the original game with GemRBAnd probably get yourself a vastly inferior experience (judging by lately trying IWD2 with gemrb; yes I do know, but still).
Having to bother with installing widescreen and other weidu stuff and generally tinker with a 20 yo release and still not to make it work remotely as smooth as EEs is somewhat.. discouraging.
Quoting: kaimanthe prospect of starting anew is somewhat discouragingI'd say way more discouraging than having to start anew, especially if you've played long ago. Not sure why just not start a new game with EE.
Quoting: kaimanI've spent countless hours on BG1 and BG2, I never actually finished either of them.Sounds strange, but can't think of a better occasion to beat those at last.
Quoting: kaimanThere's just too much stuff changed and fixed and moved around. Not gonna happen.Quoting: ShmerlThey can make some tool for importing older saves for that.Yeah, some kind of converter, official or otherwise would be neat. Though I guess there isn't really much of a demand for something like that :-).
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