RPGs Will Continue to Have a Loyal Following, Baldur’s Gate: EE Dev Says

Role-playing games, specifically isometric ones, will continue to have a loyal following for many years, at least according to Trent Oster, BioWare veteran and one of the main people behind Overhaul Games, the studio responsible for the upcoming Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition.

While shooters, whether they’re first- or third-person, as well as action games continue to rake in lots of money nowadays, in recent times we’ve seen a resurrection of old-school isometric role-playing games.

From blockbuster titles like Diablo 3 to independent games like Torchlight 2, to upcoming projects like Obsidian’s Project Eternity, plenty of RPGs have been released or are getting ready to arrive on the market.

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition Designer and BioWare veteran Trent Oster believes this is due in part to the passion developers have for such games and the love players have for such titles.

“I think the attention Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition received made a bunch of developers sit up and take notice. I think the attention Diablo 3 received reinforced the interest, showing a top down RPG can still be a massive draw,” he told PCGamesN.

“As developers, we all look for a place we want to work and we can do a high quality product. I think the other developers are seeing an underserved market and are going after the opportunity. I'm anxious to play the games they make and we're going to work our butts off to make great games, so it will be a great time to be an RPG fan.”

Overhaul Games’ previous title, MDK2 HD, allowed the studio to gain experience in remaking classic games and Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition will reflect how much Oster and his team care for such iconic RPGs.

“MDK2 HD was a trial project for us on the Overhaul concept. Cameron [Tofer, fellow early BioWare veteran] was intimate with the engine, so we felt it would be a straightforward project for us. It was more work than we expected and we overcommitted to the HD front, spending about double what we had budgeted,” he added.

“We had always talked about Baldur's Gate and the entire time MDK2 Wii and HD were in development we were attempting to secure the BG rights. As a company we know we can do great work in the isometric RPG space. We've built a great team for creating new content and we have an unparalleled technical understanding of the challenges in developing isometric RPGs. We're big fans of RPGs and we'd like to spend our days making the games we love.”

Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition is out today, November 28, for the PC and Mac.