Beamdog ‘spells’ out its biggest hurdle to making Planescape: Torment — Enhanced Edition

Beamdog has been untangling old computer code for more than seven years now. It released three Enhanced Editions of classic role-playing games with Baldur’s Gate, its Shadows of Amn sequel, and Icewind Dale. You’d think the Edmonton, Canada-based studio would’ve figured out every conceivable hurdle to taking the old Infinity Engine code and making it work.

Of course not. Planescape: Torment threw a new problem at Beamdog: the spells. Seems that Brian Fargo’s Black Isle Studio started working with the Infinity Engine — the game tool behind the beloved RPG — before it was finished (Baldur’s Gate came out first, but Black Isle began work on Planescape before the engine was finished), and Beamdog discovered a heap of issues when taking the old code and updating it for the Enhanced Edition.