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.
Much of Baldur's Gate II takes place in and around Athkatla, a city in the country of Amn. Opening shortly after the events of Baldur's Gate, the game continues the story of the protagonist, Gorion's Ward, whose unique heritage has now drawn the attention of Jon Irenicus, a powerful and sinister mage. The storyline revolves around the machinations of Irenicus and the player's encounters with him.
Development began in January 1999. BioWare set out to improve upon the first Baldur's Gate in every way possible. From a list of constructive criticism—compiled from the suggestions of fans, reviews, and internal suggestions—a list of features to be added to the game was distilled: some of these were 800×600 resolution, 3D support, and character kits. For Baldur's Gate, the game's engine and content were being developed at the same time, whereas with Baldur's Gate II, the engine was working from the start. Having a completed engine meant they could direct their efforts towards making content, instead of focusing on basic functionality.
Shadows of Amn received critical acclaim, being praised for its gameplay, artwork, and voice acting, and is widely regarded as one of the best video games ever made. GameSpy, GameSpot, and IGN awarded it their "Role-Playing Game of the Year" awards for 2000, and the game has sold more than two million units. An expansion pack, Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, was released in 2001. This well-received expansion, besides adding a large dungeon and enhancements to the game, concluded the main storyline. Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal have been included together in various compilations. In 2013, an enhanced version of Baldur's Gate II was released, carrying the title Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and using an updated version of the Infinity Engine. A sequel, Baldur's Gate 3, developed by Larian Studios, was released in 2023.
Gameplay
thumb|left|An instance of dialogue in the game, illustrating the game's interface and isometric perspective
Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition computer role-playing game. The central quest of the game consists of about 50 to 60 hours of play, while the full game, including all side quests, is estimated to be between 200 and 300 hours. The player controls a party of up to six characters, one of whom is the protagonist; choosing such things as class, ability scores, appearance, and alignment. Alternatively, an existing character from Baldur's Gate or its expansion Tales of the Sword Coast can be imported.
Multiplayer
The game also has a multiplayer mode, in which up to six human players can adventure through the game, controlling player-made characters as well as recruited NPCs. The content of the game is otherwise the same, and one player controls the protagonist.
Plot
Setting
thumb|right|In the Government District, Athkatla, are the Council of Six building, the Prison, and the estates of the rich nobility.
The Forgotten Realms, the high fantasy campaign setting in which Baldur's Gate II is set, is a fictional world similar to a medieval Earth, but with its own peoples, geography, and history. In the Realms, as its inhabitants call it, fantastic creatures and magic are common.
Baldur's Gate II takes place mainly in Amn, a country on the subcontinent of Faerûn. This country, known commonly as the Merchant Kingdom, lies south of Baldur's Gate; wealth and trade are the chief concerns of the region. The capital city of Athkatla, around which a fair portion of the game revolves, is the most important city in Amn and is ruled by the anonymous Council of Six. The local thieves' guild, the Shadow Thieves, also has considerable power. The group, which operates all along the Sword Coast, is based in Athkatla. Another powerful organization in Amn are the Cowled Wizards, who regulate the use of magic in the region. The Shadow Thieves, the Cowled Wizards, and the Harpers, a semi-secret conglomeration of good organizations, the city of Suldanessellar; and the Astral Plane. Lord Ao, the Overdeity, forced the gods to become mortal until the Tablets were found; but Bhaal foresaw his destruction and walked the land before the other gods. He left behind him "a score of mortal progeny", whose later deaths, when they were slain by heroes, would fuel his rebirth. The game's protagonist is one of these offspring, Keldorn, an older paladin and a powerful and respected member of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart; Mazzy, an honorable halfling fighter and "the nearest thing to a paladin that a halfling can aspire to"; Nalia, who is of the upper class, but, though conscious of class distinction, tries to help those less fortunate than herself; Valygar, who is of a family noted for its talented magic-users, but hates the art; Anomen, a member of the Most Noble Order of the Radiant Heart, and whose wish is to become a full knight; Cernd, a druid; Haer'Dalis, a tiefling bard and one of the actors of an acting troupe; Jan, a gnome, of the Jansen family; Yoshimo, a thief from the land of Kara-Tur; and Korgan, an evil dwarven fighter. it is the player's choice whom to side with. Meanwhile, Imoen and Irenicus have been removed to an asylum called Spellhold, which is situated on an island. Irenicus soon breaks his bonds and prepares to experiment on Imoen.
Back in Athkatla, the party raises the money necessary and receives assistance from whichever organization it has decided to work with, and reaches the surface via the Underdark.
Upon reaching the surface, the party encounters the army of the elven city of Suldanessellar. The elves cannot return to the city, for Irenicus has magically hidden it. To gain access to it, the party secures the Rhynn Lanthorn from Bodhi, who has stolen the artifact; upon Bodhi's death, Imoen's soul is restored. The Rhynn Lanthorn lights the way to Suldanessellar, which has been invaded by Irenicus and his minions. The party proceeds through the city and, at the Tree of Life, learns that Irenicus is draining the power of the Tree, which will doom Suldanessellar. The heroes defeat him, but because Irenicus still has the protagonist's soul, the protagonist is dragged with the wizard into Hell, and the rest of the party are dragged along also. When they defeat Irenicus, they return to life and are honored by the elves of Suldanessellar. In Baldur's Gate II, it was determined that the designers should be allowed "adequate time" so that the game might "reach its full potential". From the suggestions of fans on message boards and newsgroups, reviews of Baldur's Gate, and internal suggestions, a list of constructive criticism was compiled; from this list, a slightly shorter one of features to be added to the game was made. Producer Ben Smedstad said that "the engine was up and running since day one, which is a huge morale booster. When a monster is complete, we put it into the 'override' directory and it appears in the game! This is a huge change from working on the original". Pathfinding had been improved in Tales of the Sword Coast (the Baldur's Gate expansion), and was improved further in Shadows of Amn through a feature called "bumping", which allowed a character to move another one out of the way if the path was blocked. Also, to aid pathfinding even more, paths in dungeons were widened, so that characters would get stuck less often. The interface was also refined a bit.
To avoid some of the design mistakes made in Baldur's Gate, guidelines were drawn up for each department; the level designers had the longest set of guidelines. These lists continually changed and evolved as the development progressed. The main design guidelines for the entire project were that the players should feel like their actions have an effect on the game world, and good versus evil options should be available depending on which path the player takes. Guidelines for the story were to keep the focus on the player's character, keep the player updated on the activities of the game's villain, add a significant plot twist, and make the ending of the game open enough so that there would be room for more sequels. Environment guidelines were to break the game into chapters, make some locations key to the central plot, keep areas interesting and easy to quickly navigate, and showcase areas before they were available to explore to capture player interest. For the game systems, guidelines focused on character customization and a well-crafted reward system. The writing guidelines were concerned mainly with dialogue: limiting the number of sentences NPCs spoke at a time, keeping the number of player response choices at three as often as possible, avoiding profanity and accents, and having a small set of random dialogue for unimportant NPCs. Many early design decisions did not follow the guidelines, and programming constraints were not always followed by other departments, such as design and art, leading to slowdowns in some parts of the game that were difficult or impossible to fix.
The process for creating levels was long and complicated. It began with the creation of a general layout of the area to be built by designers. They would pass this concept map to the artists, who added models to it, beginning with the largest objects and ending with small items such as individual pieces of furniture. After everything was put in place by the art team, designers took over again, inserting graphical enhancements, effects, and collision detection code. With a functional level, creatures, items, traps, and triggers were added last, then scripts were written for everything to control behavior. The team found it quite difficult to keep track of changes made to levels, and there were sometimes communication problems between different parts of the team, such as the artists and designers, resulting in inconsistencies between their work. Co-executive producer Ray Muzyka wrote that "they learned to make sure all elements of the team are talking to each other and working as a group, rather than as a bunch of individuals!" They did feel they had done a good job automating the level creation process, as levels were rapidly designed. Muzyka also said that "a designer might submit a level description and receive it, art complete, a month later ready for scripting, but missing some key features (almost always a door). We would then have to determine whether the omission was important enough to have the art piece redone, or whether we could simply tweak the design of the level to fit the finished art".
Marcia Tofer, art director for Shadows of Amn, worked with a team of 8 to 12 people to create the game's artwork, such as the backgrounds, monsters, etc. Tofer observed that the city of Baldur's Gate had been their first attempt at city building and what they learned there served to make Athkatla "far more diverse and interesting". City renders took from 18 to 24 hours, though they used hardware that was powerful for those days: multiple dual Pentium IIIs at 500 MHz, coupled with 512 MB of memory.
In traditional mediums like text or film and television, what is read or seen is effectively controlled by the creators. Games are a visual medium, according to Luke Kristjanson, one of the writers and designers on Shadows of Amn, but they are unlike the traditional ones of film and television. For Baldur's Gate, the developers knew what would be seen on the critical path, but not when players would see it, or whether the right amount of significance would be placed upon it.
In Shadows of Amn, several tools were used to remedy these shortcomings. One of these were in-game cutscenes, which were like small plays, "adding suspense and depth to the world and overall story". Cutscenes had been used in Baldur's Gate, but were employed "more effectively" in Shadows of Amn. Another technique was to increase, to a greater degree than Baldur's Gate, the interactivity of the characters that travel with the player. While the characters in Baldur's Gate possessed "banter", there was a very great increase of this in Shadows of Amn, but was not merely an increase in the amount of dialogue and text. NPCs interject, reinforcing "the importance of events [and] contributing their own motivations". They recognize critical junctures in the game, since those are of significance to them as well. Kristjanson noted that the character of Imoen was unexpectedly popular with players of the first game, in spite of the fact that she was a late addition during development and was undeveloped as a character. Kristjanson remarked that her lack of interactions with other characters in the first game projected an impression of closeness to the player character, although this was not intended by the developers; this led to her being revealed as the player character's half-sister in its sequel and an integral character to its plot.
Producer Ben Smedstad, speaking of "crunch time" during the latter stages of a game's development, noted that it was important to begin it at the right time, not too early, nor too late. By July 2000, Shadows of Amn had entered its second phase of crunch, where the hours ran from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Mondays to Fridays, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturdays. Their first crunch phase had been a normal working week, but hours of 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and 12 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays. "As long as it takes" would be the philosophy of the last phase, encompassing the last week of development. Smedstad said that the second phase, which they were working under in July 2000, is where the stress really begins, and that the third phase is actually not as bad as one might think, because by then people are used to the lengthy hours.
During the game's development, a quality assurance department was added to BioWare, and the game's publishers lent their assistance in testing. The game contained about 290 quests, each of which had to be tested in both single- and multi-player modes. When a quest was verified, its cross was removed. English actor David Warner provided the voice for Jon Irenicus; PC Gamer observed that "his commanding portrayal of the arrogant elven mage made Irenicus one of the most memorable villains in RPGs, and is one of the key reasons why Baldur's Gate 2 remains such an arresting experience today".
Michael Hoenig, a German composer who played with Tangerine Dream, composed the game's music. He also composed the music for the first Baldur's Gate.
Release
Baldur's Gate II was announced in November 1999. The game went gold on September 14, 2000, and shipped in North America on September 21, and in Europe and Australia on September 29. Also released was a Collector's Edition, which included the game, a cloth map, eight character-trading cards, a Black Isle Studios writing tablet, and an additional CD containing unique armor and weapons as well as music from the soundtrack. A Macintosh version was ported by MumboJumbo and released on October 15, 2001.
Expansion pack
Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal, an expansion pack for Shadows of Amn, was developed by BioWare and published by Black Isle Studios, and released in June 2001. Throne of Bhaal takes the protagonist's history further, and, being the final chapter, concludes the Baldur's Gate saga. It also added a variety of features to the base game: a new dungeon called Watcher's Keep, which can be accessed from both Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal; new features and enhancements, such as high-level class abilities, a higher experience point cap, and the Wild Mage character class; and new items and spells. Reviewers generally praised Throne of Bhaal and thought it a spectacular conclusion to the Baldur's Gate saga. It won the "PC Role-Playing" award at the 2002 Interactive Achievement Awards.
Re-releases
Shadows of Amn was re-released, along with its expansion, Throne of Bhaal, as Baldur's Gate II: The Collection in 2003. In 2004, they were bundled with the original Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale as Black Isle Compilation Part Two. In 2006, they were re-released with Baldur's Gate and Tales of the Sword Coast as Baldur's Gate: 4 in 1 Boxset. They were also included in The Forgotten Realms Deluxe Edition, Ultimate Dungeons & Dragons, and Dungeons & Dragons Anthology: The Master Collection. In 2010, Baldur's Gate II Complete was released in digital format on GOG.com, including both Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal. Bundled with it are the game manuals in PDF format, high-definition wallpapers, artwork, avatars, and the Shadows of Amn and Throne of Bhaal soundtracks.
Enhanced Edition
Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition was released in 2013. Developed by Overhaul Games, it is an enhanced version of Baldur's Gate II and uses an updated version of the Infinity Engine. The game was released for PC, iOS, Mac OS X, Linux, and Android. Skybound Games, a division of Skybound Entertainment, brought Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch in 2019.
Reception
Sales
In the United States, Baldur's Gate II entered PC Data's computer game sales charts at #5 during the September 17–23 period. It rose to second place the following week, behind The Sims: Livin' Large, while its Collector's Edition captured the seventh position. In its first 14 days, Baldur's Gate II drew in revenues of $4 million across all SKUs in North America, a sales record for an Interplay computer title. The game and its Collector's Edition were ranked 11th and 19th, respectively, on PC Data's monthly chart for September. Entering its third week, the game fell to fifth place on the weekly chart, but it remained in the top 10 throughout the October 5–28 period, and finished seventh for the month. Afterwards, it was absent from PC Data's weekly top 10 and monthly top 20. PC Data reported Baldur's Gate IIs sales at 199,914 copies and its revenues at $9.2 million in the United States by the end of 2000. The game's success in the country continued during 2001, when it finished 15th for January and sold another 103,144 units between February and the first week of November alone. It tallied 225,763 domestic sales for the full year, which drew $9.63 million in revenue.
On Media Control's computer game sales rankings for the German market, Baldur's Gate II debuted at #3 in October 2000. It climbed to second place the following month, before dropping to 12th in December. The Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland (VUD) presented it with a "Gold" award by the end of 2000, indicating sales of at least 100,000 units across Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Media Control proceeded to rank the game 10th, 17th and 23rd during the first three months of 2001, respectively. In the United Kingdom, Baldur's Gate II claimed #2 for its release month of November 2000, according to Chart-Track. It fell to tenth place in December, and exited the top 10 in January 2001.
The combined global sales of Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate: Tales of the Sword Coast, and Baldur's Gate II surpassed 3.5 million copies by March 2001. Baldur's Gate II alone reached almost 1.5 million sales by December 2002, and more than 2 million by November 2005. According to the NPD Group, the game totaled 480,000 sales ($19.6 million) in the United States by August 2006. At that time, Edge declared it the country's 31st-best-selling computer game released since January 2000.