Baldur's Gate 2 Remake Taps Its Original Co-Lead Designer

Kevin Martens co-led the design of Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn back in 2000. Now, according to a report first published by PC Gamer, he's back working on a full remake of the game at Wizards of the Coast. If true, this a nostalgia play; having one of the original architects steering the rebuild is exactly how you earn trust from a fanbase that's been burned by careless remakes before.

Martens spent years at BioWare before moving on to Blizzard, where he worked on Diablo 3. More recently, he's been contributing to Archetype Entertainment's upcoming sci-fi RPG Exodus, which Wizards of the Coast is publishing. According to PC Gamer's source, he's already shifted focus to the BG2 remake. The report also suggests a Baldur's Gate 1 remake is likely in development alongside it, which makes obvious sense given BG2 is a direct continuation of the first game's story. Hasbro has declined to comment on the rumour, and Martens didn't respond before publication.

What nobody knows yet is how far these remakes will go. Both games already received Enhanced Editions from Beamdog in 2012 and 2013, and those got a fresh patch as recently as February this year. A true remake implies something far more ambitious, but the scope is anyone's guess. Converting BG1 and BG2's pausable real-time combat into BG3's turn-based system would be a massive undertaking across thousands of hours of content. I'd be surprised if they went that route, but stranger things have happened. The original AD&D ruleset is also wildly different from what modern D&D players know, so the developers will have to make hard calls about what stays and what gets modernised.

With Larian Studios moving on to Divinity and Wizards of the Coast president John Hight having previously confirmed a Baldur's Gate 4 is coming eventually, these remakes look like a bridge between BG3's massive success and whatever comes next. Wizards also recently cancelled a single-player D&D action-adventure from Star Wars Jedi director Stig Asmussen, so the pressure to get the next Baldur's Gate projects right is real. Bringing back someone who helped build BG2 in the first place is a smart move, and I hope it signals that Wizards understands what made these games matter rather than just treating them as IP to be strip-mined.