Baldur's Gate is a series of role-playing video games set in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The series has been divided into two sub-series, known as the Bhaalspawn Saga and the Dark Alliance, both taking place mostly within the Western Heartlands, but the Bhaalspawn Saga extends to Amn and Tethyr. The Dark Alliance series was released for consoles and was critically and commercially successful. The Bhaalspawn Saga was critically acclaimed for using pausable realtime gameplay, which is credited with revitalizing the computer role-playing game (CRPG) genre.
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal is a 2001 expansion pack for the role-playing video game Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn. It adds a multi-level dungeon called Watcher's Keep to the game and completes the main plot. There are several new weapons, a higher level cap, a further refined Infinity graphics engine, and new class-related features and magical skills. The novelization of the game was written by Drew Karpyshyn and released in September 2001.
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is a role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Interplay Entertainment. It is the sequel to 1998's Baldur's Gate and was released for Windows in September 2000. Following its predecessor, the game takes place in the Forgotten Realms, a fantasy campaign setting, and is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition rules. Powered by BioWare's Infinity Engine, Baldur's Gate II uses an isometric perspective and pausable real-time gameplay. The player controls a party of up to six characters, one of whom is the player-created protagonist; the others are certain characters recruited from the game world.
Neil Roberts is an English actor, known for portraying Rex Buckland in Charmed, Gavin Arnold in Family Affairs, Richard in Disney's Life Bites, DS Jason Wise in Emmerdale, Glenn Donovan in Hollyoaks and the default voice of The Dark Urge in Baldur's Gate 3
Ashly Burch is an American actress, writer, director, and singer. She is known for her roles as Aloy in Horizon Zero Dawn and Horizon Forbidden West, Chloe Price in the Life Is Strange series, Ray in Fortnite, Mel in The Last of Us Part II, Miss Pauling in Team Fortress 2, Tiny Tina in the Borderlands series, the web series Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin'?, Enid from OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, Molly from The Ghost and Molly McGee, Ash Graven from Final Space, Cassie Rose from Minecraft: Story Mode and the Rutile Twins from Steven Universe.
Melanie Liburd is a British actress known for her roles in This Is Us and Power Book II: Ghost.
Ben Starr is an English actor, known for his acting roles in Survivor, Dickensian and Final Fantasy XVI.
Snapshot Games is a Bulgarian video game developer headquartered in Sofia. Snapshot Games was founded in 2013 by Julian Gollop and David Kaye. Gollop is recognized for creating the X-COM video game franchise in the 1990s with X-COM: UFO Defense and X-COM: Apocalypse. Gollop also is the CEO of Snapshot Games. In addition to Gollop, the company includes about eight developers who are industry veterans with years of previous experience working for Ubisoft Sofia, Crytek Black Sea, and other Bulgaria studios.
The New York Game Awards is an annual award show honoring video games by nonprofit New York Videogame Critics Circle (NYVGCC). The first awards were held in 2012, honoring previous year's contributions to the video game industry and showcases the group's education work with underserved communities. New York Videogame Critics Circle's stated goals are to promote awareness of, and education for, video games writing and journalism in the New York City area.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a 2023 role-playing video game developed and published by Larian Studios. It is the third main installment to the Baldur's Gate series, based on the tabletop fantasy role-playing system of Dungeons & Dragons. A partial version of the game was released in early access format for macOS and Windows in October 2020. It remained in early access until its full release for Windows in August 2023, with versions for PlayStation 5, macOS, and Xbox Series X/S releasing later that year.
Horizon Call of the Mountain is a 2023 action-adventure video game developed by Guerrilla Games and Firesprite, and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5. Part of the Horizon series, the game was released as a launch title for the PlayStation VR2 virtual reality headset on 22 February 2023.
The D.I.C.E. Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character is an award presented annually by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences during the D.I.C.E. Awards. This award is "presented to the individual or team whose work has furthered the interactive experience through the creation of a memorable character within an interactive title. Outstanding character takes into consideration the marriage of voice acting and performance, character design and execution, and writing". All creative/technical members of the Academy are qualified to vote in this category, regardless of their field of expertise. There were originally separate awards for female and male characters, but eventually merged into one category at the 11th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards in 2008.
Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty is a 2023 expansion pack for the 2020 video game Cyberpunk 2077 developed by CD Projekt RED. The expansion introduces a new district to the game's open world, as well as a new quest line. Set in a dystopian cyberpunk universe, the player assumes the role of V, a mercenary who must rescue the President of the New United States whose aircraft has crashed in the lawless district of Dogtown. It was released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Windows in September 2023. The expansion received critical acclaim and has sold more than 5 million copies since release.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is a 2023 platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch. It is the first traditional side-scrolling Super Mario game since New Super Mario Bros. U (2012). The player controls Mario, Luigi, and their friends as they attempt to stop Bowser, who plots to take over a new land known as the Flower Kingdom after using the magical Wonder Flower to fuse himself with the kingdom's castle.
El Paso, Elsewhere is a 2023 third-person shooter game developed and published by Strange Scaffold. Players control a vampire hunter who tries to stop his ex-girlfriend, a vampire, from destroying the world. It is inspired by Max Payne and has retro 2000s-era graphics.
The Game Awards 2023 was an award show that honored the best video games of 2023. It was the tenth show hosted by Geoff Keighley, creator and producer of The Game Awards, held with a live audience at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, California, on December 7, 2023. The preshow ceremony was hosted by Sydnee Goodman. The event was live streamed across online platforms globally. It featured musical performances from Loren Allred, Heilung, and Old Gods of Asgard, and presentations from celebrity guests, including Timothée Chalamet, Christopher Judge, and Matthew McConaughey.
Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is a virtual reality action-adventure game developed by Ubisoft and published by Ubisoft for virtual reality (VR) headsets Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest Pro, and Meta Quest 3. Played from a first-person perspective, the game stars Ezio Auditore da Firenze, Connor, and Kassandra as its protagonists. It is the first VR game in the Assassin's Creed series and was released on November 16, 2023.
Asgard's Wrath 2 is an action role-playing game developed by Sanzaru Games and published by Oculus Studios for the Meta Quest series of virtual reality headsets. It is the sequel to Asgard's Wrath (2019). The game was released worldwide in December 2023 and was included for free as a launch game for the Meta Quest 3.
Astarion Ancunín is a fictional character from Larian Studios' Baldur's Gate video game series, which is based on the tabletop fantasy role-playing system of Dungeons & Dragons and set in the Forgotten Realms. Making his first appearance in 2023's Baldur's Gate 3, Astarion is available as a major playable character, either as the primary protagonist, or as a recruitable party member. He is a rogue, specializing in stealth, lockpicking, and sneak attacks. In the game, Astarion is kidnapped alongside several other party members and infected with an Illithid parasite and must search for a way to cure himself. Early in the story, he is revealed to be a vampire spawn, and his personal quest focuses on evading and hunting down his former master, Cazador Szarr.
