Baldur's Gate - EE Edition - New Art Director

Beamdog/Overhaul Games has announced Nat Jones as the Art Director for Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. Nat's bckground is comics and film, as you can see from this announcement:

Announcing Nat Jones as Baldur’s Gate Art Director

Overhaul Games is happy to announce that Nat Jones has joined the team as Art Director for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™.
Nat Jones has been a popular figure in the comics and film industries for over a decade, working on such popular titles as Frank Frazetta’s Death Dealer: Shadows of Mirahan, ‘68, Spawn, 28 Days Later, Rob Zombie’s The Nail, 30 Days of Night, and many more.
“I am excited and honored to be a part of the talented team bringing Baldur’s Gate back to the fans. There is a lot going into Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™, we have some amazing things in the works”, says Nat.
Nat will continue award-winning Baldur’s Gate artwork with his own dark fantasy style. Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™ will contain new adventures, characters, and locations featuring Nat’s take on the Forgotten Realms universe.
For more samples of Nat’s artwork, visit his official website. For all information regarding Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition™, visit www.baldursgate.com

More information.

metalhead

I gotta say that I genuinely love BG 1&2 and genuinely hate almost every character portrait/avatar that shipped with the originals. And 99% of the fan made stuff is crap as well.

I don't get the negativity here towards this though.

I don't know enough about this guy to be pro or con. I wonder though how artistic can he be with the infinity engine.

Originally Posted by Nat Jones
“I am excited and honored to be a part of the talented team bringing Baldur’s Gate back to the fans"

Pardon me good sir, I do so hate to break it to you, but it never really left the fans in the first place…the mod scene should be a simple enough tribute to that fact.

As for the supposed negativity here, I think it's quite realistic to have a skeptical mindset about this project rather than just accept it unquestioningly like a willing lapdog.

Hell yeah! Question everything!!!!! STICK IT TO THESE GUYS! How dare they.. uh.. do this!!!!! What jerks they are, with their new content and their hiring of ARTISTS!!!!!!! If we don't throw a bunch of shit at them, they might do something appalling like make a new oldschool styled RPG! And we sure don't want that!!!!!!

Ha. Yeah, it's not like they are going to systematically destroy every existing copy of BG. And you will still be able to buy them on GOG. The originals will never go away! And if the new ones suck, you don't have to buy them.

So why the hate on this? It could expose people to this style of game that they would never have seen otherwise.

Hate is not the right word, but I've just never found opportunism particularly appealing.

Bah. You could claim it was mere opportunism making a D&D® video game anyway. How dare they bastardize the original perfection of the pen and paper version!?

What is a new art director going to do?
If the art changes, it won't be Baldur's Gate?
If they are adding new content and it looks different than the original, it won't work.
I don't understand.
And why bring in a dark artist for this project? I played BG because I liked the art. I don't play The Witcher because I don't like that style. If this changes BG, I won;t be buying it.

New areas need someone to tie the art together. You can't just send out to art contractors "I need a temple, room props and two underground caverns" and expect to get a suitable result. I'm sure the new areas will follow the existing theme but someone still needs to oversee the new art to pull it together.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
Bah. You could claim it was mere opportunism making a D&D® video game anyway. How dare they bastardize the original perfection of the pen and paper version!?

There's no shortage of opportunism in the gaming industry, as is the case with all industries.

But when you create something from scratch - regardless of adapting an established ruleset, you're not taking the obvious or easy way to profit. Opportunism is harder to detect when you're getting something new as a consumer.

Taking the quality work of other people and then modifying it slightly, marketing it as something special - and blatantly using the popularity of the old material in your efforts to generate profit from a small effort - the opportunism becomes such that I can't consider it appealing in any way.

But it's no big deal, and we live in a world where people will buy most things on impulse - as long as the price is low enough. I can appreciate the mindset that wants to exploit that.

I just can't support it or commend it.

His art looks fantastic.. And very very fitting..

I think this is a great move..

How is it fitting?
I have no problem with the Artist. I just don't agree that his style matches Baldur's Gate's existing style?
Am I looking at the same previous work?

They remake movies all the time. I simply don't see any negative impact here at all outside people pouting about their cherished memories being tainted, or that someone is trying to make money. "Bioware totally cashed in on Gary Gygax's creation, man. Damn opportunists! And dumbed it down by….."

I'll wait for reviews to be sure, but since I've never finished BG2, I'll buy unless it's a total mess.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
Taking the quality work of other people […]

There are eight ex-BioWare developers now at Overhaul, by the way, so I think you're a bit off the mark there. Even direct sequels by the same company have personnel changes.

Originally Posted by Dhruin
There are eight ex-BioWare developers now at Overhaul, by the way, so I think you're a bit off the mark there. Even direct sequels by the same company have personnel changes.

Personally I could never bring myself to play Baldur's Gate II because it built off the hard work of the people who helped create Baldur's Gate but weren't necessarily present for the sequel. Actually I have a strong moral opposition to playing any DnD based games since they're basically spitting on the grave of Gary Gygax by using the evolution of the original system in ways he had not necessarily intended.

Also on a separate matter, don't get me started on the derivative nature of modern English fiction with regards to ripping off Shakespeare. Actually, screw Shakespeare - that bastard practically robbed every great work that came before him from Beowulf to the Greek Classics.

In the event that the team moves on to a Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition afterward, they would use the Infinity Enhanced Engine they've built off the Throne of Bhaal code base, which would add co-op multiplayer to the game for the first time.

Torment + multiplayer? What a waste of resources. I'm really wary of these guys and the direction they envision for the IE games.

Originally Posted by Drithius


Torment + multiplayer? What a waste of resources. I'm really wary of these guys and the direction they envision for the IE games.

What, its not like the player character in that game is a lonely and unique thing in the planes- whose very monicker includes some numeric descriptor implying his uniqueness. Another player wouldn't be out of place at all.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
They remake movies all the time. I simply don't see any negative impact here at all outside people pouting about their cherished memories being tainted, or that someone is trying to make money. "Bioware totally cashed in on Gary Gygax's creation, man. Damn opportunists! And dumbed it down by….."

I'll wait for reviews to be sure, but since I've never finished BG2, I'll buy unless it's a total mess.

I'm not saying there's a visible impact to other people, and it's not about cursing them.

It's simply me not thinking this kind of opportunism is appealing.

Should be pretty simple to understand, I'd say.