Baldur’s Gate II Review

Baldur’s Gate II is one of BioWare’s heralded classics. If you’re familiar with Dungeons & Dragons, you won’t have much of a learning curve for Baldur’s Gate II. It relies heavily on inspiration from Dungeons & Dragons, from leveling to character class to party structure.

For a game released in 2000, there’s a lot of thought put into your options for a starting character. Baldur’s Gate II lets you choose everything from gender to race to class to your starting abilities. Many of your choices impact how other characters interact with you throughout the game. This includes potentially limiting your romance options later on.

Story

At the end of the first Baldur’s Gate, you and your companions have been taken captive. You wake up in a cage being tortured by a wizard name Irenicus. He seems to know all about you and your heritage. He is keen to experiment on you until he unlocks your unlimited power.

His experiments are interrupted when a group of shadow thieves attack. You use the opportunity to escape with your friends. As you begin to explore his compound and the city around it, you learn more about Irenicus and his plans. Your goal is simple, even if your path isn’t: Save the world.

Irenicus is one of the most beloved villains in PC gaming history. This is due to how well written he is, along with some truly hilarious quotes. He could easily have been a black-and-white villain. After all, you see enough of him early on in the game to understand he’s a truly twisted individual. But as the story progresses, you start to see that every villain truly is the hero of their own story.