Any computer role-playing fan who was old enough to hold a mouse at the turn of the millennium knows that September 2025 marks an important anniversary for a true milestone in the genre: Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. Long before Larian Studios wooed fans with great tactical turn-based battles and snarky vampire thirst traps, developer BioWare changed the history of CRPGs, setting an example that is still influencing developers today. However, while Baldur’s Gate 2‘s contribution to the legacy of video games has been amply discussed, this anniversary is, for me, a chance to remind everyone that this is not just a great game, but an amazing Dungeons & Dragons experience as well.
By the time I first played Baldur’s Gate 2, I’d already had a brief-but-chaotic taste of tabletop D&D — a fondly remembered second-edition campaign that fizzled out but left me hungry for more. (Turns out getting a bunch of 15-year-olds to consistently meet once a week is impossible.) So, I got a taste of the magic, then was left wanting more. Enter BG2, an isometric CRPG that uses the rules for second edition AD&D, and turned the game into a lifelong passion.
With few exceptions (combat being real-time with pause, and some other tweaks), the integration of the tabletop game rules into the video game was so deep and extensive that, most of the time, you got the feeling that you are playing D&D on your computer. (Weapons have a speed in this game just because it was an optional rule in AD&D 2e.) Rules aside, the aesthetics and general vibes of the game perfectly nailed what was the prominent feel of D&D at the time.
While there is no substitute for talking and interacting with other players and the DM at the table, the remarkable achievement with BG2 was its companions. The quality of the companions’ dialogue, their quests, and the resulting relationships that you can establish with them set an example for RPG developers, and arguably created a model that BioWare is still following today.
Baldur’s Gate 2 had it all: a world ripe with adventure and danger, exciting fights, complex rules that you want to crack, amazing storytelling, and great relationships to build. To me, that’s a pretty accurate list of everything I wanted from Dungeons & Dragons — and still want.
In the years that followed my first foray into Amn (the region of the Forgotten Realms where BG2 is set) I quickly gravitated back into tabletop D&D. It’s not a coincidence that my gateway product was the 3rd edition’s Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, an incredible sourcebook detailing the lands of Faerun, and still my favorite D&D product ever. That was the world that Baldur’s Gate 2 introduced me to, and I now had a chance to explore it further beyond the confines of the game and to create my own stories in it.
In the two decades that followed, I’ve set the majority of the D&D campaigns I’ve run as a DM in the Forgotten Realms. I know that other great settings exist, but Baldur’s Gate 2 made me fall in love with Faerûn: a world of endless intrigue and opportunities, populated by an impressive gallery of heroes and villains. It feels familiar and waiting to be discovered at the same time, which is pretty hard to emulate.
While the rules and gameplay of BG2 may look clunky by today’s standards, the story is unimpeachable and its quality has never been in doubt, even after so many years. Baldur’s Gate 2 has a sprawling array of quests, and few, if any, feel underdeveloped or “filler”. There is no basic fetch quest like in the Elder Scrolls games, and nothing similar to the half-baked mess that is Act 3 of Baldur’s Gate 3 (sorry, BG3 fans, I love most of the game). Sure, the folks at BioWare were crunching hard and a lot of content had to be cut, which you can clearly see in some small portions of the game, but the majority of the world feels rich and inhabited. Even the smallest quests have a sense of personality that makes them feel meaningful.
That’s something that I always try to recreate in my D&D games, too. I’m not a fan of dungeon crawling for the sake of it. Sure, collecting treasure is fun, but I always try to add something more to it. A little story, some personal connection to the characters, meaningful NPCs. Even a last-minute dungeon can feel alive once you start considering things like: What is the purpose of this place? Who built it, and why was it abandoned? Why are these creatures living here? How do they sustain themselves? What conflicts can arise in the environment?
The Windspear Hills and the adjacent dungeon in BG2 are a great example. Your party gets there following a seemingly simple quest to slay monsters, but is framed and tricked into killing some paladins. A generous noble helps you, only to see his son kidnapped and brought to a deadly dungeon. Once there, you fight scores of monsters while picking up clues about the true evil lurking in the earth of the complex. Players who had the privilege of discovering what Lord Jierdan truly is for the first time, before spoilers and walkthroughs were a thing, will remember that feeling for their entire lives.
Baldur’s Gate 2’s great focus on storytelling is also the reason why I prefer story-driven play in D&D. However, I have spent just as much time in BG2 trying to romance Viconia as I have reading the 300 spells available in the game, whose descriptions sometimes just suggest what effect the spell will have. Baldur’s Gate 2 taught me that rules don’t necessarily have to be easy to be good. I brought this lesson over to 5e D&D, a system with notoriously simplified rules, and I keep applying it to fix some of the issues I have with the ruleset.
As I look back at these past 25 years, I realize just how much Baldur’s Gate 2 has changed my life. Without it, I would probably never have gotten so much into D&D in the first place, and that game has been a companion in my journey throughout different countries, jobs, partners, and groups of friends. Now it’s time to fire up BG2 once again, see Alaundo’s words pop up on screen, and hear the chilling voice of the dastardly Jon Irenicus mocking me: “Ahhh, the child of Bhaal has awoken. It’s time for more experiments…”
