The Infinity Engine is the game engine used by Icewind Dale and several related games.
Features[]
It supports real-time-with-pause gameplay with pre-rendered, isometric graphics and has custom file formats for every kind of game resource required by these kinds of role-playing video games (monsters, items, AI scripts, dialog trees, savegames, etc.)
History[]
The engine was initially developed by BioWare in the late 90's as the basis for the Baldur's Gate game, and then used for several more games by BioWare and Black Isle Studios. For each release of those games, various incompatible changes were made to the engine (especially for Icewind Dale II which required a different ruleset), so technically speaking, these games don't share the exact same engine.
Over a decade later, Beamdog overhauled the Infinity Engine for their "Enhanced Edition" remakes of these games, adding support for modern operating systems and modern screen sizes, and also unifying the engine between the BG1/BG2/IWD1 games.
BioWare's fully-3D-capable "Aurora Engine", developed for Neverwinter Nights, can be considered the successor of the Infinity Engine.
Games[]
The following games are based on the Infinity Engine:
| Game | Release year | Developer | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Baldur's Gate (BG1) | 1998 | BioWare | |
| ↳ Tales of the Sword Coast | 1999 | BioWare | |
| ↳ Enhanced Edition | 2012 | Beamdog | |
| ↳ Siege of Dragonspear | 2016 | Beamdog | |
| Planescape: Torment (PST) | 1999 | Black Isle Studios | |
| ↳ Enhanced Edition | 2017 | Beamdog | |
| Icewind Dale (IWD1) | 2000 | Black Isle Studios | |
| ↳ Heart of Winter | 2001 | Black Isle Studios | |
| ↳ Trials of the Luremaster | 2001 | Black Isle Studios | |
| ↳ Enhanced Edition | 2014 | Beamdog | |
| Baldur's Gate II (BG2) | 2000 | BioWare | |
| ↳ Throne of Bhaal | 2001 | BioWare | |
| ↳ Enhanced Edition | 2013 | Beamdog | |
| Icewind Dale II (IWD2) | 2002 | Black Isle Studios | |
(Since the source code of the IWD2 edition of the engine was lost, that game never got an Enhanced Edition.)
Tools & Editors[]
While the developers of the Infinity Engine kept its inner workings proprietary and didn't released any tools or editors to the public, fans of the games have reverse-engineered the engine's file formats and documented them in the Infinity Engine Structures Description Project (IESDP).
This has lead to the release of a variety of fan-made tools for editing the game files, including:
- EE Keeper (previously known as GateKeeper/ShadowKeeper/DaleKeeper), an easy-to-use savegame editor (supports all editions of all these games).
- NearInfinity, the most powerful general-purpose browser and editor for Infinity Engine game files (supports all editions of all these games).
- Infinity Explorer, an older game files browser that is simpler than NearInfinity but not as powerful or up-to-date.
- DLTCEP, an older game files editor with advanced support for creating and editing areas/maps.
- WeiDU, initially just a command-line based editor for Infinity Engine dialog files, which has grown into a full-fledged mod scripting language and mod installer that is now used by almost all fan-made mods for these games.
Fans have even created an open-source re-implementation of the Infinity Engine called GemRB, although it is still experimental.
External links[]
- Infinity Engine article on the Baldur's Gate Wiki, a wiki for the Baldur's Gate games.