Baldur’s Gate Inducted into Video Game Hall of Fame!

Published by: Interplay
Developed by: BioWare, Black Isle
Platform: PC

Year Released: 1998
Genre: RPG

Engine: Infinity Engine

Original Source: IGN

BioWare’s 1998’s RPG title Baldur’s Gate was the first game that truly had me sucked in from 9am to midnight everyday i could! With this one title, BioWare successfully revitalized the role-playing genre, popularized the Forgotten Realms setting, and cleverly adapted the latest edition of the D&D rules for the expanding PC gaming market. The consequences of this success can be seen not only in the roster of brilliant BioWare RPGs which followed — Neverwinter Nights, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect — but also in the vitality and overall direction of the entire genre.

Baldur’s Gate set a standard that other role-playing games are still following. It cast off the shackles of round-based combat with a thrilling and tactical real-time combat system. It included a wide-open world that the player could explore according to his or her own desires. It offered a deep and rewarding advancement system that allowed weak characters to develop into champions of super-heroic abilities. Finally, it presented all these elements in a gripping story, unfolding over more than a hundred hours, in which the player’s choices and actions genuinely mattered. Better still, the story also introduced and answered several mysteries about the player’s own character. That’s no mean feat when you consider all the potential character builds and alternate storylines.

Gamers used to more contemporary RPGs may find the isometric presentation in Baldur’s Gate to be a bit old fashioned, but the level of detail and mood was simply unheard of in 1998 and is still impressive by the standard of today’s 2D games. The game’s visuals are full of small touches that still make it easy to lose yourself in the reality of the world.

As if all that wasn’t enough to earn Baldur’s Gate a place in our ultimate Hall of Fame, it even included a cooperative multiplayer element that laid the foundation for the company’s multiplayer emphasis in Neverwinter Nights.

Our original review of the game suggested that Baldur’s Gate has “set the standard for what role-playing games should be.” Though BioWare has advanced the genre significantly over the last ten years, it was this ambitious and awesome RPG that established the model they’ve been refining ever since.  This trip down memory lane begs the question, What happened to Black Isle?”

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