Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition Interview
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GB: Beyond the content and engine scope, will you be doing anything with the game's music or sound effects? It might be difficult to add voiceovers for main characters (that already have existing voiced dialogue from 15 years ago), but would you consider adding voiceovers to some of the lesser known characters in the game? Trent: Due to a small wrinkle, we are limited to only adding new voice-over for new content we create. We'd love to add a ton of new Minsc content to the original game, but we are unable to. But, a new expansion with even more Minsc? well, if the planets align and Jim Cummings is available we'd love to see it happen. Music-wise, I managed to tackle Sam Hulick (of Mass Effect fame) while down at GDC and "convince" him to help us out on the music front. We've already increased the amount of music Sam was supposed to provide twice as his work has been so amazing.
GB: With BG:EE hitting the iPad, PC, and Mac, are there any other platforms that you'd like to bring the title to? Have you considered consoles?
Trent: We've done some hard thinking about console versions and we feel the user interface of Baldur's Gate would be a huge effort to re-target at a console control scheme. We think it is possible (we just had another request for a PS3 version today), but well outside our scope as an independent developer to deliver at the quality bar we hold ourselves to.
GB: How will you be distributing the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition at launch? Will it be exclusive to Beamdog, or might we see it on Steam and other digital download platforms on day one?
Trent: Day one Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition will be exclusive to Beamdog on the PC, the Mac App Store and iTunes for the iPad. We're working out a Beamdog player-free solution for the BG fans that really don't want another client, so the user experience should be great.
GB: If Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition sells well, would you consider giving the same overhaul to Icewind Dale, Icewind Dale II, and Planescape: Torment if the powers that be would greenlight it?
Trent: Yes. Icewind Dale and Torment were on our list of games that need some loving.
GB: Have you been in contact with BioWare at all since this project became a reality, if only to ask some questions about making modifications to the Infinity Engine?
Trent: We had a good amount of initial contact with Bioware as we searched high and low for all the BG assets and they have been very supportive. For modifications to the engine, there are not very many people left from the Infinity Engine days at Bioware, so we've been on our own a great deal. We've asked a few former Bioware employees the odd question, and we've hired a few as well, so our understanding is quite good. We also did a lot of work to update the core bits of the engine, so a great deal of the code has changed.
GB: How many people are actively working on the Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition at the moment? The Infinity Engine modding scene is still going strong - have you considered recruiting any long-time mod creators for the project?
Trent: We are a pretty dynamic team, with 18 people working on the game currently, some contractors, some employees. Of that 18, 9 have Bioware experience and 8 have Baldur's Gate experience. We're in the process of integrating ourselves with the modding community and I can say for certain, if BG:EE is successful, we will be recruiting from that talent pool.
