Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear

Siege of Dragonspear fills a gap that had existed in the saga for seventeen years: what happened between the end of the first Baldur's Gate and the start of the second installment. Beamdog built it on the same Infinity Engine, so it looks and plays like a game from the late nineties—an isometric perspective, hand-drawn backgrounds, pausable combat under Dungeons & Dragons rules. At the same time, the studio did more than a simple port: the engine underwent changes that enabled higher resolutions, widescreen display, and stable performance on modern systems, without losing the feel of the original nineties game. Beamdog built its reputation on fixes like this to old classics, and Dragonspear was their most ambitious effort in this regard, since it wasn't just a technical fix but entirely new, full-fledged content.

The story begins shortly after Sarevok's defeat. Your character is a hero in Baldur's Gate, but an army led by the Shining Lady appears in the north, and you set out at the head of an army against it. The campaign therefore looks different from the map-based wandering of the first game: you move with an army, deal with the camp, supplies, and allies, and the decisions you make are reflected in how the world around you treats you. New companions have their own storylines. Anyone who imports their character from the first game arrives in the second with a ready-made history, because Dragonspear takes place exactly at the junction between the two games and connects to them mechanically as well.

Reception was somewhat more mixed than for other Beamdog projects—some longtime fans of the series criticized the new characters for tonally drifting a bit from the original game's terse style, while others appreciated that Dragonspear existed at all and filled a gap that had previously only been discussed on forums.

It's an expansion that doesn't pretend to be a full third installment, and it's about as long as one would expect—around twenty-five hours. It sits exactly where it belongs: between two games that, without it, skipped over a large chunk of the story, and today it will appeal mainly to those who want to play through the entire saga without a jump in the story and without losing a character they cared about.

Why play it: The missing link between the first and second Baldur's Gate, built on the original engine—for anyone who finished the series and wondered what happened in between.