One of Baldur's Gate 3's pioneering map modders is recreating the opening area of Baldur's Gate 2
Lotrich, a member of Baldur's Gate 3's nascent map modding community who has been uploading videos of their work to YouTube, has just provided a peek at their latest creation: An in-progress, but still very recognizable take on Waukeen's Promenade, one of the opening areas of Baldur's Gate 2.
The promenade is a bit bare at the moment, but its distinctive archways and amphitheater-like layout are immediately striking—Waukeen's Promenade always felt like someone turned a sports arena into an open-air market, fitting for the mercantile city of Athkatla. The circus tent where you can recruit companion Aerie is visible in the distance, and Lotrich includes a special treat toward the end of the video: A peek inside Ribald Barterman's Adventurer Mart, one of the best shops in the game.
This feels like one of the inevitable outputs of any modding community—once a game's map making tools are out, a countdown starts until someone recreates an area from an older video game with them—and our hobby is littered with well-intentioned efforts to recreate older RPGs in newer RPG engines. Mostly Fallout: New Vegas, how many schismatic New Vegas-in-Fallout 4 projects even are there at this point?
Indeed, The Baldur's Gate Reloaded mod team has been working on recreating the OG 'Gates in 2006's Neverwinter Nights 2 for so long, Neverwinter Nights 2 itself is now retro. The original has long been available at the Neverwinter Vault or Nexus, while BGR2 (covering Baldur's Gate 2) happily seems close to entering a beta testing phase, at least according to a Facebook post from the mod team in March.
Lotrich's Waukeen's Promenade map definitely seems more like part of the author's continued efforts to learn and acclimate to the still-fresh mapmaking tools—their YouTube channel includes a handful of other prototype maps—rather than a commitment to a full remake of Baldur's Gate 2. That's probably for the best—I like these small dose «what if» exercises, seeing an iconic area brought to
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