The first Baldur’s Gate game is 25 years old. Developed by the then-booming Bioware, it was released on December 21, 1998 in North America, forever changing the landscape of classic electronic role-playing games.
Baldur’s Gate’s birthday is certainly worth celebrating, partly because of the importance of the game, and partly because the worldwide success of Baldur’s Gate 3 showed that the formula still works in the world of video games, resonating in a market that many thought would have been unthinkable in 2023..
Baldur’s Gate is set on the Sword Coast, a region on the continent of Faerûn, and the player plays as an orphan raised in Candleclip, a stronghold south of the larger city that gives the game its name. Forced to flee Sarevok, he encounters other characters and dangers he never knew existed. In his travels, and in his encounter with what will turn out to be a key character in his life, he will have to uncover the machinations of some of the major factions of Baldur’s Gate, somehow connected to his past and the events that take place on the Sword Coast.
Keep in mind that Baldur’s Gate is still playable today (the hand-drawn 2D graphics hold up very well, unlike the graphics of some 3D games from the same era), thanks in part to the rejuvenation done by Beamdog in Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition. So if you liked Baldur’s Gate 3, why not try the entire series?
