A Return to the Forgotten Realms
Luke Rideout on updating Dungeons & Dragons classics for modern consoles
With Bioware’s Infinity engine games representing the pinnacle of RPG gaming for many fans, the recent news that developer Beamdog, in league with Skybound Games, will be releasing its enhanced editions on the Playstation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch has been met with much excitement. Having already brought its updates to a variety of platforms (including PC and IOS), these new versions will bring famous names such as Baldur’s Gate and Planescape
Torment to an even wider audience. “For a long time we assumed these classic computer games just wouldn’t work on console at all,” reveals
Luke Rideout, producer and project director at Beamdog. “But we started to explore the possibility, we built a prototype and we realised it was not only possible, but it was also fun to play!” There are three packs planned: Baldur’s Gate plus its sequel,
Shadows Of Amn, plus their respective expansions; the original Neverwinter
Nights plus expansions, and a double pack of the brilliant Planescape
Torment, together with the snowy dungeon-crawler, Icewind Dale.
While the games will not be specifically enhanced for 4K play on PS4 and Xbox One, all of the updates, fixes and additions from the current enhanced editions will be included, along with some pathfinding and user experience fixes, plus a fully redesigned interface, optimised for controller gameplay. “We have implemented an analogue control mode that allows you to directly control the movement of your party in formation,” continues Luke. “To compliment this, we have improved highlighting of interactive objects and have a system that snaps the cursor to important objects, characters and transition points.” With an interchangeable virtual mouse mode to assist in precise targeting and a consolidation of HUD shortcuts into radial menus, Beamdog is confident that control of the games will be as intuitive to console gamers as they are to PC and mobile phone users.
“It was an enormous task to overhaul the classic point-and-click in favour of a new scheme that is conducive to controller play,” notes Luke. “So it is satisfying to see such great results – but it was a journey.” With Baldur’s
Gate, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment sharing a common engine code, development changes across one project generally paid dividends across the others. The exception has been
Neverwinter Nights, originally built using the Aurora engine, therefore a project developed entirely on its own, given its sequel is not included. “Unfortunately
Neverwinter Nights 2 isn’t part of the library of games that Beamdog has access to,” says Luke. “It wouldn’t be completely out of the question in the future, but with the others, we had already laid the groundwork enabling us to build these new console games.” Both the Baldur’s Gate and Icewind
Dale/planescape Torment packs will be released entirely on game disc, with a