20 years ago, video game RPGs were either stagnating or going from strength to strength. How could it be both these things? The answer depends, as usual, on perspective. Fans of the genre had recently been enjoying the original Fallout, a turn-based apocalyptic world that would eventually morph into the much-loved series of today. Yet even with PC gaming enjoying a huge surge in popularity, the RPG remained a relatively niche type of game on a platform dominated by first-person shooters, flight simulators and real-time strategy titles before, in 1998, BioWare and Baldur’s Gate changed that forever. Founded in 1995 by medical doctors Ray Muzyka, Greg Zeschuk and Augustine Yip, the Canadian developer began life by publishing Shattered Steel, Brent and Trent Oster’s mech simulation, to moderate success. A series of events then conspired to realise what would become the most successful RPG of the decade, and for some time to come. Baldur’s Gate began life as Battlegrounds: Infinity, a tech demo of an engine devised by Scott Greig, one of BioWare’s first employees. Around the same time, the developer’s publisher, Interplay, secured the Dungeons & Dragons licence from TSR, and were keen to publish a video game that emulated the famous world. “My first week [at BioWare] was the Shattered Steel launch party,” says Luke Kristjanson, writer and narrative designer on BioWare’s breakthrough hit. “It had started as a pitch/demo for an original fantasy IP game. As I heard it, they took the pitch to Interplay and said, ‘we… [Read full story]
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