Baldur’s Gate fans are freaking right the fuck out at the moment, and for good reason. Following on the heels of an unexpected site update a couple weeks ago, a mysterious 24-hour countdown clock appeared on BaldursGate.com this afternoon. No one really knows why.
Is it just me, or are developers getting better and better at this viral marketing thing lately?
So the clock is ticking away at the expected rate of one second per second, but wait, what’s this? A secret message in the source code! Yes, indeedy. Cryptic, commented messages have apparently been slipping into the source code on a regular basis. Things like: “Shadowy Figure – Raise Dead : Infinity Engine” and “It is coming.”
The line “Raise Dead: Infinity Engine” is worth noting, because Infinity Engine is the name of the engine that both Baldur’s Gate and Baldur’s Gate II ran on, as well as Icewind Dale I, II and Planetscape: Torment.
The site got swamped and overloaded when the links went viral, so at the moment we can’t see what other rad lines have been added to the source code. In any case, no one really knows anything right now. But if you’re a fan you should probably start freaking out anyway.
[UPDATE 5:45pm MST]
Trent Oster–one of the big wigs behind the BeamDog distribution platform as well as being an Ex BioWare / EA Game Director–tweeted this about an hour ago:
You guys killed my server ;( #baldursgate #itsjustacountdowndammit [Link]
This comes about four hours after this little nugget:
I’m hearing frantic typing in the other room. And someone said something about a counter. #baldursgate #alittlemoreteasingthenitends [Link]
It may be anecdotal, but Oster’s BeamDog recently released the HD remake MDK2 HD, could we be looking at an HD Baldur’s Gate release? Some have expressed concerns about the fact that the Baldur’s Gate license is still owned by Atari. But as you can see from Oster’s March 8th tweet below, Atari is on board.
Great meeting with #Atari at #GDC now we need to get all the ducks in a row for an announcement #baldursgate #bestthingever [Link]
Also, Oster is clearly having a blast teasing us all. I’ve contacted Oster to see if he cares to comment on anything during the server downtime. If I hear back from him, or any other interesting stuff comes out, we’ll be sure to let you know. Keep an eye on this post.
[UPDATE 7:00pm MST]
Site is back up. I took a screencap just in case it goes back down. Enjoy.
