A new patch has been released for Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, Baldur's Gate: II Enhanced Edition, Siege of Dragonspear, and Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, which has fixed over a hundred bugs that have plagued the remastered games since launch. These games were originally created by Black Isle Studios and BioWare in the late '90s and early '00s, and are considered to be some of the best Dungeons & Dragons video games among veteran circles.
The age of the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games meant that fan patches had to be created in order to make them run smoothly on modern machines. Those were no longer necessary in 2012 when developer Beamdog released Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition for the PC, remastering the original game to fix a lot of the compatibility issues with modern systems, as well as adding content and improving visuals. Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition was followed by similar remasters of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, Planescape Torment, and Icewind Dale. The studio also developed Siege of Dragonspear, which was an expansion set between the first two Baldur's Gate games. (These remasters were later ported to consoles by Skybound Games.)
The 2.6 update has been released for the Enhanced Editions of Baldur's Gate I & II, Siege of Dragonspear, and Icewind Dale. According to Beamdog in a post on Steam, the patch adds better compatibility with 64-bit systems. The update has also included over a hundred bug fixes, as well as adding localizations for different languages, and new content, such as character voices by Mass Effect's Mark Meer.
The patch has fixed a number of issues relating to the multiplayer mode, some of which prevent crashes. A number of spells have had their effects and visuals fixed, including the cloud spells (cloudkill, death fog, stinking cloud) having different colors, the shapeshifting spells (polymorph self, shapechange) have received several changes that fixed minor issues, and the spells that bypassed magic resistance (glitterdust, contagion, and Otiluke’s freezing sphere) no longer do so. The maps in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition have also received fixes, as well as some of the dialogue options.
Beamdog has done an incredible job reviving these classics and making them run on modern systems, and the fact that the studio is still putting out updates for the games is commendable. The series might be going in a new direction with Baldur's Gate 3, but fans of the original can still enjoy the games that make up the Bhaalspawn Saga in vastly improved forms.
Baldur's Gate I & II Enhanced Editions and Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition are available for PC, PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android.
Source: Beamdog
Editor's note: This story has been updated with the correct name of developer Beamdog.