Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition just got a 1.6gb update?!...what?

It's suppose to fill the gap between 1 and 2, and apparently is 35 hours long and has new characters and all sorts of stuff...but that's cool to see an 18 year old game have that much work put into it, I'm gonna have to roll a new dude and go check it out

Thanks for the heads up! Gonna re-download now and check it out this weekend.

There are 2 components to this update:

1. Free update to all owners of BGEE. This adds achievements, a bunch of bugfixes, and many quality-of-life improvements to the game engine and interface. It also adds a new playable class (the shaman) and a new selectable cleric kit (Priest of Tyr).
2. Paid DLC called The Siege of Dragonspear. This is a full-fledged expansion pack in the vein of Throne of Bhaal. It adds a new campaign that bridges the story from the end of BG1 to the beginning of BG2. This campaign includes new locations, enemies, items, and NPCs that can join your party. It also features new voice acting for some classic returning characters, including fan favorites Minsc and Irenicus, whose original voice actors have returned to reprise their roles.

I've been paying attention to Siege of Dragonspear for a while and I'm very interested to see what the hell a new Infinity Engine game looks like in 2016. Sadly, it's not on GOG at the moment and that's where I own BG Enhanced Edition, so I'll have to wait and see what other people think of it first.

I have a lot of respect for Beamdog's obvious love for the infinity engine games, but I dunno about this. For one thing, the quality of their other additions to the original games have been pretty lackluster - although I appreciated the effort to use Dorn to add a bit more evil focused content.

The other issue is how does the expansion fit into the actual progression of what was already there. Starting SOA with a few more levels under your belt would have a pretty serious negative impact on that game, and indeed ToB.

@arbitrarywater: Beamdog just surprise-launched the GOG version of Siege of Dragonspear, so you can get it now if you want.

For the record, it's also available on Steam and Beamdog's own store right now, supporting Windows, Mac, and Linux. The iOS and Android versions will be released in the near future.

Not so sure I want to play a newly made expansion for the game, but I'll gladly mess around with new class options in BG2.

@savage: Can't get it yet. The store page is launched, but purchasing is not available.

I'm curious as HELL what this is going to be like.

Guys, I don't want to freak everyone out...but THERE IS NEW INFINITY ENGINE BALDUR'S GATE THING RELEASED IN 2016! THIS IS EVERYTHING I EVER HOPED FOR!

Where is @snide when we need it to comment on this great thing?!

@jakob187: Oh yeah, my mistake. I see now they've said that the GOG version is supposed to become purchasable within the next couple days. They were apparently working on making it happen right up to the very last minute.

@savage: Yeah, it sounds like it's coming to GOG within the next few days, if not tomorrow.

The real problem is that I kinda want to replay Baldur's Gate 1 again, see whatever the new stuff in the Enhanced Edition is, and then import that character into Siege of Dragonspear. Baldur's Gate 1 is not a short game, and Dark Souls III comes out in a week and a half. So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm super excited to see Siege of Dragonspear for myself... in like 4 months.

Hmmmm, color me suuuuuper skeptical as to the quality of the new content.

TBH I'd rather the classics are left to be, this feels a bit too much of like riding on their coattails. Sure I might be wrong. But I just can't summon up any hype or excitement for it. BG2 is one of my most favorite games of all time. As they say, tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

I've really liked all the stuff that Beamdog has done with the Enhanced Editions, so I'll be checking Dragonspear out when I have the time. I look forward to the QL!

Do you have to play through the main game to play the dlc, or do they let you create a lvl appropriate character to immediately go into the dlc? I really want to play this, but just don't have the inclination to replay the whole game again to get to it.

@orexis97: You can make a new character to start at the expansion.

Man, it is just getting slammed in Steam reviews for various reasons ranging from technical to structural to writing.

Which, now that we are at this point I'm kind of sad about on one hand, would have rather it was knocked out of the park and legitimately added to a great series. On the other hand (being honest with myself) I am a little relieved, as it kind of also means I can just put it out of my mind and ignore it safely without much second guessing of "maybe I should give it a go" type.

I can't speak to any technical issues (as I haven't played it), but I have heard that the average score has been brought down a decent amount by some kind of shitty reviews.

http://www.craveonline.com/entertainment/972903-gamers-flood-baldurs-gate-expansion-negative-reviews-introduces-transsexual-character

Again, maybe it's also a technical mess with other narrative problems, I don't know. But keep in mind that at least some of the reviews are just angry about a transgender character being represented in the game.

@bbalpert: Hm, I was looking at the highest (and hence most heavily weighted) reviews you see on the first page, and none of them at the time even brought up that topic as far as I recall. Plus from what I gathered the reviews were mixed before any of that shitty controversy blew up (which I wasn't even aware of up to this point), which is the most telling part.

But ye I'm sure some fraction is angry just because of that particular thing. Tho again the more level headed criticism out there seems to be how they are written, not the inclusion itself.

@bbalpert, @tennmuerti: Ye, until the review-bombing is over then we basically have no idea about actually substantive issues in the DLC players may be experiencing.

Which is why transphobic trash flooding the web with this garbage does no one any good, because it drowns out any actual issues that might be something people should hear before deciding to get this DLC.

As some above have mentioned, I generally haven't had great hopes for the EE rebuilds as it seemed like the fan-mod and fan-patch community actually built better widescreen, HD capable versions of the original games than the initial releases of the BG EE that came out - and I own both original disc copies and GOG modern-Windows patched (which is compatible with fan-patches) editions of the BG games already. But a new campaign sounds like something that could tempt me to buy another copy of the game to grab the new stuff to play through.

I can't stand Steam reviews. Stopped looking at them. If there's any sort of technical issue or something of the like it just becomes completely ruined to look at to get a feel of how the actual game is.

@artisanbreads:

I mean if you're going to release DLC for a pretty beloved game that is nearly 20 years old and is full of bugs and questionable writing you should expect some bad Steam reviews. Especially when the writing in BG 1&2 is still praised today.

I don't care if people say a bad game is bad. I just can tell you for example there's been online game that comes out and has server issues for a bit and then I come to later and the reviews are totally jacked. Or DLC some group of the fanbase freaks about (when I don't care) and then the reviews are all about that. That kind of stuff happens a lot on Steam and it's made me just not care about the built in reviews at all.

For what it's worth, I've heard a few people who aren't obsessed about "them darn SJWs ruining our video games" say it's totally okay despite some bugginess and occasionally clumsy writing. I bought it, but I probably won't get to it for a couple of weeks.

From what I've read Beamdog also changed characters from the original games, empowering female characters.