A countdown timer has appeared on the Baldur’s Gate website, ticking down the hours to…something. Whatever it is will happen tomorrow, so we won’t have to wait long to find out. The last time this happened, it resulted in the actual reveal of Overhaul Game’s HD “Enhanced Edition” of the game. Anyone betting we’ll get a release date announcement this time?

The First Age of Update: Yup, a release announcement. The game will be released on September 18th for the reasonable price of $20. It will include three new companions and a new adventure, which will be included with the game rather than provided separately as DLC. iPad and OS X version ($10 and $20, respectively) are also coming in September, though the exact date for those has not been specified.

Boston Magazine ran a massive piece on the rise and fall of 38 Studios. In its pages, Curt Schilling (the piece is, partly, an interview with him), largely accepts the blame for the company’s fate, which (it seems) can largely be chalked up to hubris and ignorance; Schilling dreamed big…too big. And when it all came crashing down, he didn’t know what to say to his people, which is why events caught them by surprise as well. (And yes, that’s no excuse.)

Sadly, the piece also reveals that in Schilling’s opinion, the upcoming Amalur MMO just wasn’t fun, which…well, that’s a pity. Especially because Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning was actually a lot of fun.
Oh, and that mystery investor that Rhode Island governor Lincoln Chafee’s ill-timed comments scared off? Take-Two Interactive. Of course, it’s doubtful that the deal with Take-Two would have saved the company even so; they’d burned through $133 million by that point, a hole so deep that even a wildly successful Reckoning 2 probably couldn’t have dug them out of it.

EGLS, the Chinese developer that copied some Torchlight art assets for use in an iOS-targeted MMORPG, have announced that they will be modifying some parts of their game. Gee…I wonder which parts?

Runic Games, for their part, are still aiming for a summer release of Torchlight 2, and they’ve also released a helpful infographic outlining just how much bigger Torchlight 2 is compared to its predecessor. It would seem that wrist braces might prove a good investment to make prior to playing the game!

A developer diary for Epic Mickey 2 has been released. It goes into some detail about the challenges of telling a story within the Disney framework. Also released was a behind-the-scenes trailer for the game, which also focuses on the storytelling aspect.

Oh, and Irrational Games is hiring level designers. Make of that what you will.