Baldur's Gate is a series of role-playing video games set in the Forgotten Realms Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting. The game has spawned two 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.
BioWare is a Canadian video game developer based in Edmonton, Alberta. It was founded in 1995 by newly graduated medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, alongside Trent Oster, Brent Oster, and Marcel Zeschuk. Since 2007, the company has been owned by American publisher Electronic Arts.
Fallout is a media franchise of post-apocalyptic role-playing video games—and later action role-playing games—created by Tim Cain, at Interplay Entertainment. The series is set during the 21st, 22nd and 23rd centuries, and its atompunk retrofuturistic setting and art work are influenced by the post-war culture of 1950s United States, with its combination of hope for the promises of technology and the lurking fear of nuclear annihilation. A forerunner of Fallout is Wasteland, a 1988 game developed by Interplay Productions to which the series is regarded as a spiritual successor.
Interplay Entertainment Corp. is an American video game developer and publisher based in Los Angeles. The company was founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by developers Brian Fargo, Jay Patel, Troy Worrell, and Rebecca Heineman, as well as investor Chris Wells. As a developer, Interplay is best known as the creator of the Fallout series and as a publisher for the Baldur's Gate and Descent series.
Frank Brian Fargo is an American video game designer, producer, programmer and executive, and founder of Interplay Entertainment, inXile Entertainment and Robot Cache.
Black Isle Studios is a division of the developer and publisher Interplay Entertainment that develops role-playing video games. It has published several games from other developers.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II is a 2004 hack and slash action role-playing game for PlayStation 2 and Xbox developed by Black Isle Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment, with distribution handled by Vivendi Universal Games in North America and Avalon Interactive/Acclaim Entertainment in Europe. It is the sequel to the 2001 game Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.
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 Baldur's Gate (1998) and was released for Microsoft Windows in September 2000. Like Baldur's Gate, 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, while the others are certain characters recruited from the game world.
Surreal Software was an American video game developer based in Kirkland, Washington, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, known for The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Suffering and Drakan series. Surreal Software employed over 130 designers, artists, and programmers. Surreal was acquired by Warner Bros. Games during the bankruptcy of Midway Games in July 2009. After a significant layoff in January 2011, the remaining employees were integrated into WBG's Kirkland offices, along with developers Monolith and Snowblind.
MDK2 is a 2000 third-person shooter, action-adventure video game developed by BioWare and published by Interplay Entertainment for the Dreamcast, Windows and PlayStation 2. It is a sequel to the 1997 game MDK. First released for the Dreamcast in March 2000, it was later released for Windows in May, with newly selectable difficulty levels and the ability to manually save. In March 2001, a slightly reworked version, featuring level design modifications and gameplay tweaks, was released for the PlayStation 2 as MDK 2: Armageddon. The PC version was released on GOG.com in September 2008, and on Steam in September 2009. A port of the PlayStation 2 version was released for Wii via WiiWare in 2011. Also in 2011, a HD remastered version was released for Windows. Called MDK2 HD, this version features new 3D models, textures, improved lighting, and remastered music, and was released on Beamdog in October, and on Steam in July 2012.
Warner Bros. Games is an American video game publisher based in Burbank, California, and part of the Global Streaming and Interactive Entertainment unit of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). The publisher was founded as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment on January 14, 2004, under Warner Bros. Entertainment and transferred to its Home Entertainment division when that company was formed in October 2005. Warner Bros. Games manages the wholly owned game development studios TT Games, Rocksteady Studios, NetherRealm Studios, Monolith Productions, WB Games Boston, Avalanche Software, and WB Games Montréal, among others.
Van Buren was the codename given to what would have been Fallout 3, a role-playing video game that was being developed by Black Isle Studios before the parent company, Interplay Entertainment, went bankrupt. This resulted in the company shutting down Black Isle, which in turn laid off the PC development team on December 8, 2003, effectively cancelling the game.
Baldur's Gate is a fantasy role-playing video game that was developed by BioWare and published in 1998 by Interplay Entertainment. It is the first game in the Baldur's Gate series and takes place in the Forgotten Realms, a high fantasy campaign setting, using a modified version of the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) 2nd edition rules. It was the first game to use the Infinity Engine for its graphics, with Interplay using the engine for other Forgotten Realms-licensed games, including the Icewind Dale series and Planescape: Torment. The game's story focuses on a player-made character who travels across the Sword Coast alongside a party of companions.
Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel is an action role-playing game developed and published by Interplay Entertainment, and distributed in Europe by Avalon Interactive for the Xbox and PlayStation 2. Released on January 13, 2004, Fallout: Brotherhood of Steel was the fourth video game to be set in the Fallout universe. It was also the first to be made for consoles, and the last to be made during Interplay's initial run on the series, before the rights passed to Bethesda Softworks. The game chronicles the adventures of an initiate in the fictional Brotherhood of Steel, a militant quasi-religious organization that has come to power in a post-apocalyptic world.
Combat Elite: WWII Paratroopers is a single player based top down action role-playing video game set in World War II. The game was released on November 21, 2005 in the US. It was published by SouthPeak Games and was developed by American studio BattleBorne Entertainment. The game was originally going to be published by Acclaim Entertainment, but the company went bankrupt and the games release got delayed.
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a 2001 action role-playing video game developed by Snowblind Studios and published by Interplay Entertainment subsidiary Black Rock Studios for the PlayStation 2 and the Xbox consoles, with High Voltage Software handling the GameCube port, and Magic Pockets developing the Game Boy Advance version. CD Projekt was developing a version for Microsoft Windows, but was ultimately cancelled. In 2021, a 4K port of the game was released for the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch and PC.
The year 2009 saw many sequels and prequels in video games. New intellectual properties include Batman: Arkham Asylum, Bayonetta, Borderlands, Demon's Souls, Dragon Age: Origins, Infamous, Just Dance, Minecraft, Madden NFL 10, NBA Live 10, NBA 2K10, WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2010 and Prototype.
Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound was a cancelled role-playing video game developed by Black Isle Studios for the Microsoft Windows platform. Announced in 2002 under the codenames FR6 and Project Jefferson, it was planned to be the third main entry in the Baldur's Gate series, utilizing the Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition ruleset. The game was set to use a 3D graphics engine developed for the game, rather than the Infinity Engine used for the developer's previous games.
Western role-playing video games are role-playing video games developed in the Western world, including The Americas and Europe. They originated on mainframe university computer systems in the 1970s, were later popularized by titles such as Ultima and Wizardry in the early- to mid-1980s, and continue to be produced for modern home computer and video game console systems. The genre's "Golden Age" occurred in the mid- to late-1980s, and its popularity suffered a downturn in the mid-1990s as developers struggled to keep up with changing fashion, hardware evolution and increasing development costs. A later series of isometric role-playing games, published by Interplay Productions and Blizzard Entertainment, was developed over a longer time period and set new standards of production quality.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a role-playing video game developed and published by Larian Studios. It is the third main installment in the Baldur's Gate series, based on the tabletop role-playing system of Dungeons & Dragons. A partial version of the game was released in early access format for macOS, Windows, and Stadia on 6 October 2020. The game remained in early access until its full release on Windows on 3 August 2023. The PlayStation 5 version was released on 6 September 2023, with the macOS version released shortly thereafter on 22 September. The Xbox Series X/S version is planned for release in late 2023. The game received critical acclaim for its narrative, gameplay, and player choice.
