I think we need a proper thread for this, so here it goes.

An enhanced edition of Planescape: Torment has been made. It has secretly been in closed beta for three months, and has now been officially announced and made available for pre-order. UPDATE: It's out now!

Release date: April 11

Useful links:

• GOG pre-order announcement (now offline)
• archive link in case it goes offline)
• GOG store page
• Official website
• Official FAQ

Who made it:

This was made by the programmers/modders/artists at Beamdog (under the lead of the venerable Infinity Engine modder aVENGER), in cooperation with the lead designer of the original Planescape: Torment game Chris Avellone. No one other than Avellone was allowed to change or add in-game text.

What it is:

Unlike other Beamdog titles, this Enhanced Edition doesn't add new content to the game.

It's mostly an engine/UI update that makes the game run smoothly and user-friendly out of the box on modern operating systems and screen resolutions. Remastered music, additional UI convenience features expected by modern gamers, and a proofreading pass over the game's text done by Avellone, round out the package.

For details, see the official FAQ (especially the "What does PST:EE offer over the original version with multiple mods?" question), as well as this thread on the Beamdog forums.

What it means for GOG customers:

As the GOG announcement linked above confirms, the classic edition of the game will no longer be available separately in the GOG store - only the Enhanced Edition will be listed, but those who buy it will also get the classic edition as a bonus. (Similar to how it works with the Baldur's Gate games.)
Nothing changes for those who already bought the classic edition.

What it means for modding:

• Bigg's Widescreen mod and Ghostdog's UI mod are now redundant, because the scaling UI in the Enhanced Edition adapts to any screen resolution.

• Qwinn's Ultimate Fixpack mod was mostly incorporated into the Enhanced Edition (with Qwinn's permission of course). But a few subjective changes which were determined to not actually be bugfixes according to the original design documents, were left out.

• Qwinn's Unfinished Business mod, Qwinn's Tweak Pack, and any other existing mods: These are not compatible with the Enhanced Edition yet, but I'm sure they'll eventually be updated to get EE compatibility. If you want the changes and additions provided by these mods, you'll have to stick to the classic edition of the game for now.

The Enhanced Edition engine is also easier to mod, and provides compatibility between the BG:EE, BG2:EE, IWD:EE and PST:EE games - so chances are we'll see more PST:EE compatible mods pop up in the coming months than PST ever had.

At least they're not tainting it with their crappy Bioware-wannabe writing. But they're still leeching off of another studio's fame and still impeding our access to the original release, plus it once again looks like a visual downgrade with those awful player model border lines.

And I'm getting REALLY sick of GOG referring to these games in tweets as "Beamdog's".

Too bad the characters in this EE look awfully blurred and have black outline. Why, why, WHY DID YOU DO THAT BEAMDOG???? :(((

https://www.beamdog.com/assets/products/29341/original/09.png

They can thankfully be turned off, as you see in this screenshot. I too was appalled at first, but this looks really fine to me.

I went and preordered it. I've been looking forward to playing this for years and years, but when I finally started it, modding the original resulted in constant crashing. My other major gripe, which is the pop up action menu, has also been redone in this version.

Unless I'm interpreting that incorrectly, it looks like if you buy the Enhanced Edition, you can't download the old version of the game anymore; you have to play the new version with the new stuff disabled, which is most likely not a perfect match for the original version.

That alone makes it unacceptable for me to buy the Enhanced Edition.

But there are more issues here.

That edition appears to have serious flaws, like the character sprites being blurry.

Additionally, I can't justify paying 16 dollars just for some minor updates and fixes, even if some of them weren't faulty.

I love this game, but there's no way I'm buying this.

"Note: Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition will feature the unaltered original version and the Enhanced Edition in one definitive collection exclusively on GOG.com. The original game will no longer be available for purchase on its own, after the Enhanced Edition is released. Owners of the classic Planescape: Torment will not be affected by upcoming changes to the product."

I think this would suggest a similar bundle as in the previous EE's.

On the contrary.

Everyone who bought the classic PST, can continue to download the classic PST.

Everyone who buys PST:EE will be able to download both PST:EE and the classic PST.

That's how they did it with BG:EE, BG2:EE and IWD:EE - you buy the enhanced edition in the GOG store, and then you look it up in your GOG game library where you find a gift key for the corresponding classic edition, which you can then activate so that you'll have both the classic and the enhanced edition in your library side-by side.

I.e. the classic editions are still considered separate products by GOG, they're just not listed in the store independently anymore. As Keppa4v said, these are caused by optional graphics settings. They were introduced by version 2.0 of the EE engine (for Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear), and are now making their way to all the EE games that get updated to that version (e.g. IWD:EE at some point) or newly released (e.g. PST:EE now).

I don't like the blurry and outlined look either, but since it can be turned off, I wouldn't consider it a downside of the games.

I didn't get the Baldur's Gate EEs so I don't know how it was done for those. The OP explanation about the original version being available "as an add-on" is not reassuring at all either; an add-on is normally something that runs on top of something else, meaning the original version would be "leashed" to something else.

Meh, doesn't really matter. Like I said, there's no way I'd pay anywhere near that much for a mere technical update.

Maybe if, someday, I can't get the original to work anymore and there's a 80% sale on this version or something, then I might consider it.

Right now it's just too absurd.

I meant bonus. Updated the OP. If the classic game works well on your machine, and you are comfortable with its UI (with its tiny buttons and tiny fonts etc.), and you are okay with the limitations of the classic engine (problematic pathfinding, buggy windowed mode, etc.), and you are willing to spend the time to correctly install the widescreen, fixpack, etc. mods needed to make it playable...
...then yeah, there's not much justification for you to buy the EE, let alone at full price.

But for many other players, that's not the case.

Just browse the forum history, and you'll find people struggling to get this game (or other classic Infinity Engine games) to work properly on their modern Windows machines.
Let alone Mac and Linux gamers, who faced all kinds of issues running it in Windows compatibility mode (Wine), but now get native support for their platforms with the EE.
Or those who would like to play the game on iOS and Android tablets, which has never been possible before but which the EE supports (though not the GOG version).

Things like pathfinding problems, or lack of vital information on the character record screen, or lack of modern RPG UI features like quick-loot and container highlighting etc., are also things that have been complained about a lot regarding the classic game. Veteran gamers who grew up with these kinds of old games might not mind, but for new players in particular such issues can be a big turn-off.

The EE has apparently improved all of that, so I for one am glad that Beamdog and Chris Avellone made it.

Also, I'm sure that like the other Enhanced Editions it will eventually go on sale, so those who find the price too steep will just have to wait... :)

Any chance we can get a Steam key with our GOG purchase? I would like to be able to use cloud saves so that I can easily move between my desktop and laptop. According to the FAQ, they will send you a Steam key if your purchase from Beamdog.

They are getting a LOT of stick on their Youtube channel, I see. I guess trying to label all those fans who complained about the bugs and the rotten writing in SoD sexist\transphobic, backfired.

Has anyone mentioned if the Galaxy version is getting achievements?

So, in a nutshell:

Baldur's Gate - Siege of Dragonspear: "In our inspired design vision, we've completely redesigned large portions of the user interface (including putting out great effort to fix things that weren't broke) to make things easier for the casual, unwashed masses to understand. We've also brought in some of the most forward-thinking, politically correct social justice proponents to educate our fans on sensitive and relevant issues, as well as correcting many long-standing errors in gender stereotypes so that.... ummm... hey, why are all these people with torches and pitchforks lining up outside our office?"

Planescape Torment Enhanced Edition: "New plan: we ain't touchin' s**t unless Chris Avellone gives it his personal thumbs up."

Everyone who wants to buy the Classic version will now have to pay 4 times as much, because they have to pay for the EE version as well.

Actually they only bundled the EE versions with the classics last year. After they managed to alienate more than half their fanbase with that SoD crap they pulled. They did a "buy our games or you don't get BG at all" move.

And that blurry outline can be turned off in the BG versions too. BUT, as you fail to inform people of, the alternative sprites looks even worse than in the original games.

You would help more people if you told the whole truth, and not just half-truths to get people to buy the EE versions.


You work for Beamdog, don't you?

So you have to buy the EE of the game to get the original one? Not this again.

$16 is definitely too much for a slightly-updated game.