Larian Studios’ crowdfunded turn-based CRPG Divinity: Original Sin was one of Kickstarter’s biggest success stories, gaining huge critical acclaim and becoming a bit of a rallying cry for once disenfranchised role-players. Though they could have simply stopped there, Swen Vincke and company didn’t, and pumped out new content and patches at a respectable clip. Knowing this, it shouldn’t come as too much of a shock that the Belgium-based studio has decided to retool their masterpiece into an “enhanced edition” that aims to improve on an already solid title.

The new version will include controller support, fully voiced NPCs, local co-op with splitscreen, a remastered ending scenario and (perhaps paired with the new ending) a completely reworked main storyline.

Today we are very excited to announce Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition for PS4 and Xbox One as well as PC, Mac, SteamOS and Linux. This isn’t just some patch or minor content update to the game you all know and (hopefully) love; it’s a whole new experience! With controller support, local co-op with split screen, fully voiced characters, a totally reworked story (with a brand new ending), and much more, we’re very proud to finally be able to share what we’ve crafted here at Larian.

We’ve also included controller support on PC, so now you can kick back and explore Rivellon from the comfort of your sofa with Steam’s Big Picture. We’ve put a lot of effort into streamlining the experience and have designed a slick, new UI that makes playing with a controller just as intuitive and fun as playing with mouse and keyboard.

Two very important things to know about this is that not only will the game be completely free to any owners of Divinity: Original Sin, but the enhanced edition will *not* be a mere patch or DLC…but rather, an entirely separate game.

Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition is a completely separate game: not an update to Divinity: Original Sin. Both games will remain available on PC and Mac, and it is important to note that they are totally different entities, so if you’ve already bought Original Sin you’ll see separate listings for Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition in your Steam Library. This means that saved games can’t be transferred from Divinity: Original Sin to the Enhanced Edition. This is largely because of the technical changes we’ve made to how the game looks and feels, but the story has also been rewritten so heavily that most saved games would no longer be compatible with the plot. (After all, it wouldn’t make sense to load a game in which you’re halfway through a quest line that’s been replaced with something different.)

From the very first day of production, we designed the Enhanced Edition to be optimized for DirectX 11 graphics. For our Windows players, this means that Divinity: Original Sin Enhanced Edition will require a 64-bit system and a graphics card with DirectX 11 hardware support. However, both editions of the game will remain available to everyone on Steam, so Windows players with 32-bit systems and DirectX 9 will always be able to play Divinity: Original Sin.

Lastly, there is a short blog entry on Swen’s personal page that talks about the enhanced edition and his motivations in waiting until now to introduce it.

Given how much we put in there, I suspect that what we call an Enhanced Edition goes a lot further than what others call an Enhanced Edition. Chances are of course that all those changes don’t make much economic sense but then again, maybe they will. We’ll find out soon enough and for what it’s worth, I’m quite happy about having been able to make all these changes so that we could craft what’s essentially a new and more complete experience. I do mean that.

As for the release date, Larian states that it will be ready “when it’s ready”. Though they do assure readers that it will be in our hands sooner rather than later. A summer release, perhaps?