Wizard! Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition Out 18th Sept

Lots of news on that remake of Baldur's Gate. First of all, a release date - the 18th September. Second, a price - a surprisingly high $20 when it's released, and a teeny pre-order reduction at $18. There are new adventures, characters, and improvements. Details below.

So you've three new characters to meet and join your party. There's Rasaad yn Bashir, and Calishite Monk of Nashkel, who'll take you to the Cloud Peaks, missus. Neera, a half-elf wild mage, who offers rrrrrrromance in a secluded hideaway near Durlag's Tower. And Dorn Il-Khan, a half-orc Blackguard who seems awfully cross. Each will apparently add another four hours of game, featuring new areas and quests. There's also a whole new adventure called The Black Pits, fifteen battles in the Underdark, that sound like an elaborate MMO-style dungeon, lasting six hours.

And of course there are all the other enhancements, including a new interface, matchmaking for multiplayer, improved coding and obviously enhanced for modern systems, everything that Baldur's Gate 2 added in terms of classes and equipment, and new cinematics that have been made for this release. They also promise to keep fixing and improving the game after release, including aiding modding.

I'm surprised at the price. With the original version already seemingly overpriced on GOG.com at $10 (for a thirteen year-old game), able to receive rather a lot of the technical enhancements already for free (using things like the widescreen mod, Baldur's Gate 2 engine features, etc), it strikes me that $20 might mean they miss a huge chunk of potential buyers. Yes - the game is clearly massive, and this enhanced version sounds wonderful. $20 for 100+ hours of gaming doesn't seem too bad. But at $10 it's hard not to think they'd see an awful lot more people willing to give it a go.

It's also coming out for Mac (but no mention of Linux yet), as well as iPad. But as usual the poor Android has a "TBA" instead of a release date, which seems a massive shame with the Tegra 3-enhanced Google Nexus selling a billion copies a second. There's still no sign of a screenshot showing off the new interface, which is a bit odd. Hopefully that's something we'll be seeing very soon.