Baldur's Gate III

[Gabez]

I needed a place to get excited about this game and post wild rumours, so I'm giving these forums a try.

There's two nuggets of information floating around that you may or may not know about concernign BG III.

First up there's additional information from (another?) PC Gamer. I'm very confused about this, because some sources say that PC Gamer simply says "more butt kicking for goodness is finnaly on its way. Atari has spent the last several monthsworking with an unnanounced developer on the high concept of Baldurs Gate 3.", whilst other sources say that PC Gamer says this, which has rather a lot of information

The two peices of information might come from different PC Gamers (US/UK is a likely explanation). Or maybe the two quotes are from the same article, but people have split them up for some reason. I dunno.

Secondly we have a possible sub-title for BG3, as seen in this magazine scan. It may be faked or it may be unreliable, but hey, any rumours are good rumours.

That's the two biggest peices of information about this game, although there's also a rumour that Bethesda is the unkown developer (who I believe are also working on Fallout III). That's a very dodgy rumour though, and is probably not true.

Incidentally, if anyone wants information on the *original* BG3, then look here.

[Jayel]

I'm pretty excited. How about youse?

[Gabez]

Yeah, I'm damn excited too.

I forgot to mention this extra bit of information from PC Gamer in my last post:

Quote: PC Gamer - BG3 story out

Atari has spent the last few months working with an unannounced developer on the high concept for BG3. It's an entirely new game with no connection to the cancelled BG sequel that was once covertly developed at the now-defunct BIS.

The plot will be set in the early days of Bg, but don't be surprised if you run into a hambster-totting ancestor of Minsc.

Developer TBD

Release Date TBD

Publisher Atari.

Expect a D&D game of broader scope than Troika's TOEE. BG3 gameplay won't be entirely hack-n-slash, as it will include non-combat-oriented skills and henchman that complement them. Niether Atari nor the developer of the first twoBG games Bio, would confirm whether Bio will be involved in BG3 or if Bio new DA engine would be used.

There's a little more info but not a lot

Atari's EX Prod John Hight plans to poll fans to ensure that fav characters, classes and places are included ... the sequel will not be a hybrid action/rpg like BG-DA. ... gameplay will be party-based, allowing players to team up or assemble thier own partyfrom a wide variety of unique and personable henchman.

using 3.5 d&d rules

It's about 3/4 of a page long.

The article doesn't come right out and say PC game or cross platform

Since this is important to ToEE players, the game is real time. Also when asked if it was an isometric view, atari said it would be more immersive than the traditional isometric view and wasn't afraid to move the camera for cinematic effect. What that means, I have no idea but sounds like NWN. I think we can forget about Troika's engine getting used again.

I think I would have prefered a game set *after* the events of TOB, though obviously not with te character (just with the plot related to the previous game's actions). The prequel idea could still be cool though - and the possibility of finding out more about character's backgrounds would be great. If the polls thing is true, then I hope Kivan from BG1 gets voted in to be included somewhere.

The only bad thing is that the henchen stuff sounds a bit too Neverwinter Nights for me. We'll see, though...

[Gabez]

this information about Neverwinter Nights 2 is also interesting, and may inferably tell us something about BG3 - firstly, that it's likely that it'll use the same modified engine (which sounds awesome), and secondly, that it'll use (hopefully) the same Stronghold system. This is just speculation though, and in truth we have no idea how far the two developers will co-operate, if indeed they co-operate at all.

[Ryam BaCo]

baldur's gate 3. the mind says yessssssss the body says nooooooooo. if it gets released someday it won't hopefully be as good (and long...) as baldur's gate 2, because i don't know if i can survive eight weeks with 4 hours sleep/day AGAIN.

[Gabez]

Not big news, but at least we can rule BioWare out from the possible list of developers: link.

Shame, I reckon they would have been good.