

īaldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn was released in 2000, two years after the release of Baldur's Gate.
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MDK 2 drew the same level of praise as its predecessor but, despite the success, BioWare returned to the Baldur's Gate series for their next project. MDK 2 was released on PC, Dreamcast, and eventually PlayStation 2, offering BioWare their first taste of developing games for consoles. The company's initial thought was to develop a sequel to Shattered Steel, but eventually a sequel to MDK from Shiny Entertainment was chosen for development. Logo used by BioWare for almost two decades, from Baldur's Gate to Mass Effect: AndromedaĪt this point, BioWare decided to return to the action genre. 2000s: EA acquisition, Mass Effect and Dragon Age The success of Baldur's Gate was followed by an expansion pack for the game: Tales of the Sword Coast. Following the success of Baldur's Gate, the Infinity Engine was used for the games Planescape: Torment and the Icewind Dale series. Baldur's Gate sold more than two million copies after its release, nearly matching the sales of Diablo. Augustine Yip decided to continue with his medical practice. The demands of development later prompted Muzyka and Zeschuck to leave medicine and move into full-time development.

During this time, the three doctors continued to practice medicine. The result was Baldur's Gate, with a development cycle of three years. Accordingly, Infinity was reworked in line with the Dungeons & Dragons ruleset. Interplay suggested that the demonstrated gameplay engine would be well-suited to the Dungeons & Dragons licence which it had acquired from Strategic Simulations. When Interplay financed "exploratory development", BioWare presented the publishers with a demo called Battleground: Infinity. Their next development project, therefore, was determined to be a role-playing game.

īioWare's founders and staff were keenly interested in both computerized and pen-and-paper variants of role-playing games. A sequel to Shattered Steel was planned for 1998 but never realized.

Two noteworthy points were the deformable terrain (player weapon damage caused craters in the environment) and zone damage (well-aimed gunfire could shoot mounted weapons off enemies). Shattered Steel 's release was described by IGN as a "modest success" with "decent sales". BioWare's first game was released the following year. Brent Oster and Trent Oster left BioWare at that time to form Pyrotek Studios, which continued developing Shattered Steel but broke up a year later, with Trent returning to BioWare to finish the game. A publishing deal for Shattered Steel was eventually signed with Interplay Entertainment. This demo was submitted to ten publishers, seven of whom returned to the company with an offer. Their first game, Shattered Steel, began its life as a proof-of-concept demo, similar to the MechWarrior games. 1990s: Shattered Steel and Baldur's Gate The company was incorporated on 1 February 1995, though formally launched on. To make their first game, they pooled their resources, which resulted in capital of $100,000. Their success in the medical field provided them with the funding they needed to launch a video game company. The three also played video games for recreation, eventually deciding to develop their own. Together with Yip, they had created a medical simulation programme. Of the founding team, Muzyka, Zeschuk and Yip had recently graduated from medical school at the University of Alberta, and had a background in programming for use in school.
