The decision to opt for turn-based combat might worry old-timers – like yours truly – who remember the terrific real-time-with-pause system of the original games. Fortunately, the game’s turn-based combat doesn’t require lightning reflexes and high-speed action, so you can still get by with an M1 Mac if you need to. However, we had to drop the resolution to just 1600×900 on our M1 iMac in order to get a playable 25fps, so an M1 Pro or higher might be better. The developers says that the game will run on an Intel Mac with a quad-core CPU and an AMD graphics card, or on most Macs with M1 or M2 processors. The 3D graphics really bring the game to life as you and your companions wade into combat, but the spectacular visuals do need a fairly fast Mac in order to run properly. So, along with other survivors from the crashed ship, you set out to try to find a cure and then quickly find yourself embroiled in a mysterious war between the Mindflayers and an assortment of enemy races – who won’t be fully revealed until the game’s launch in the summer. The ship is attacked by dragons, but you’re able to escape – only to find that a Mindflayer larva has been implanted inside your brain. Rather than the powerful, god-like being that you became in Baldur’s Gate II, the new game lets you start from scratch with an entirely new character, chosen from the traditional D&D selection of races and classes – humans, elves, dwarves, wizards, warriors and rogues – and you then awake to find yourself prisoner on a flying ship controlled by Mindflayers (a familiar villain from D&D lore). It’s not a true sequel as the story and the main characters are all new – set more than 100 years after BG2 – although it is still set in the famous Baldur’s Gate region from the popular Dungeons & Dragons table-top games (and – spoiler alert – some familiar faces do make a welcome reappearance). It’s actually been available in ‘early access’ on Steam since 2020, but the game finally has a firm release date for August 2023 so you can now dive in and test drive the early chapters of the game to prepare yourself for the arrival of the full game in just a few months time. However, the forthcoming Baldur’s Gate 3 brings the series well and truly up to date with slick 3D graphics and a vast adventure that looks set to match the epic scale of its predecessors.

The original Baldur’s Gate games were classics of the RPG genre when the series was launched almost 25 years ago, but their 2D graphics haven’t aged well, despite an HD update in 2012.

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