Skip to main content

Baldur’s Gate, other BioWare classics are coming to consoles later this year

BioWare’s most celebrated role-playing games from the late 1990s and early 2000s are headed to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch later this year. Baldur’s Gate, Baldur’s Gate 2, Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear, Icewind Dale, and Planescape: Torment are all slated for a North American release on September 24. Just in time for Christmas, Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition will hit stores on December 3.

BioWare plans to release both physical and digital copies of the beloved games, though a spokesperson for publisher Skybound Games said the physical version won’t come with the in-depth manuals or lovingly crafted world maps that were standard with RPGs of that era. The new editions were developed by Beamdog, which worked on PC rereleases of the RPGs.

Since most of these games were optimized for a mouse-and-keyboard input, the new console editions will have controller optimization and high-resolution graphics support that will help them look better on your widescreen TV. There are also some multiplayer options, along with additional content and character classes.

The six games are classics among BioWare fans and are a must-play for any diehard RPG fan.

Baldur’s Gate in particular helped establish the studio as an RPG powerhouse when it was released for PC in 1998. The original version sold 2.2 million copies between its release and 2003 and introduced many PC gamers to the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

We don’t yet know what the pricing will be for the console releases, but Beamdog’s Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition retails for $19.99 on Steam.

The games hark back to a time when BioWare’s slate of releases found near-universal praise with critics and audiences. Each game still has a high ranking on MetaCritic, unlike a number of the company’s latest releases such as Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem. Anthem’s rocky launch was attributed to a number of factors, including a crunch culture that subjected developers to miserable work conditions, according to reports. The company rolled out a 90-day road map for improving the game  in February, but delayed some features in April , stating that it has “a long way to go before Anthem becomes the game we all want it to be.”

Editors' Recommendations

Mathew Katz
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Mathew is a news editor at Digital Trends, specializing in covering all kinds of tech news — from video games to policy. He…
The best Dragon’s Dogma 2 mods
Dragon's Dogma 2 key art featuring a knight with a fiery hole in their chest.

Even before release, there were some red flags about how Dragon's Dogma 2 would perform on a technical level. While console players need to wait and hope for patches to fix things, those on PC can already improve their games through the hard work of modders. Of course, technical improvements are only one area where modders focus. With such a massive world and many systems in place, Dragon's Dogma 2 is brimming with potential for mods of all shapes and sizes. Aside from mods that just improve your performance, most are better saved for after you've reached the true ending, but no one is going to stop you if you'd rather start experimenting from the start. Here are a handful of the best mods you should try in Dragon's Dogma 2.
Dragon's Dogma 2 DLSS3 Enabler 01 - Puredark

For whatever reason, Dragon's Dogma 2 launched with its DLSS3 function disabled. While it is assumed it will be turned on at some point with a patch, modder Puredark went ahead and released the simple Dragon's Dogma 2 DLSS3 Enabler 01 to let you actually play the game with better visuals and framerates. If you have an Nvidia 4000 series GPU, there's no reason not to install this simple enabler.
Crazy's Shop

Read more
V Rising – Legacy of Castlevania crossover will let you fight Simon Belmont
Castlevania's Simon Belmont in V Rising.

Stunlock Studios and Konami have revealed that the survival crafting game V Rising will feature Castlevania crossover content when it leaves early access this May.

V Rising is a survival game where players control a vampire, and this crossover adds Simon Belmont as a hunter who's constantly trying to track down and kill players. If Simon Belmont is defeated, players will be able to equip and use his whip as a weapon. While that content is being added to V Rising free of charge as soon as it hits 1.0, a paid Legacy of Castlevania Premium Pack DLC will also be released. Purchasing it will net players Castlevania-themed decorations and music for their lair. These are all fitting crossover spots for a game that already heavily features vampires and pumps some life back into an unfortunately dormant game series.

Read more
What is dragonsplague in Dragon’s Dogma 2 and how is it cured?
A dragon roars in Dragon's Dogma 2.

Dragon's Dogma 2 likes to keep many of its mechanics and systems a secret until you discover them. You will learn quickly that you can't fast travel around the map freely, but there's one mechanic that is far more detrimental to your game. This is called dragonsplague and it is a disease that can't be cured with a simple tonic. In fact, you may not even realize if you have it in your game because it isn't something that affects your character at all; instead, it affects your Pawns. Failing to recognize you have dragonsplague and deal with it in a timely manner can ruin your entire playthrough if you're not careful. To avoid such a catastrophe, here are all the details about this cruel disease.
What is dragonsplague?

Dragonsplague is a special kind of disease that Pawns can contract seemingly by interacting with either Drakes or Dragons. That part isn't fully clear yet, however, we do know that Pawns with dragonsplague can spread the disease to other Pawns. Since Pawns are able to pass between worlds to join other players, you are never fully safe from being infected if you're playing online. Unlike a real sickness, though, dragonsplague actually transfers between Pawns rather than spreads, meaning it won't fully run rampant through the game.

Read more