Beamdog has released a blog post detailing exactly what went wrong when Baldur’s Gate II and Icewind Dale mysteriously vanished from Google Play, along with a timeline of when we can expect them to return.
Fortunately, there won’t be a long wait. Beamdog has confirmed that both of the Infinity Engine titles will return to Google Play “within the next few weeks.”
Baldur’s Gate II and Icewind Dale Were Removed Due to a Conflict Between Google Play and Beamdog’s Crash Reporting Software
So what went wrong? Well, it turns out that there was a conflict between Google Play’s policy and a crash reporting software that was baked into both games.
Previously, Beamdog tracked any crash reports from directly within the games themselves, but a recent policy change from Google regarding disclosure of data gathering conflicted with this, so Google pulled the games from the store.
Beamdog has removed the crash reporting software, but that coincided with another problem entirely: Google’s new requirement that all Android builds have to go through Android Studio.
Long story short, Beamdog had to do a lot of under the hood work for both games to get them back in ship shape. The good news is that all of the Infinity Engine games will soon support 64-bit and API level 26, which will future-proof the games as soon as Google removes support for 32-bit games.
You can learn more about the return of these games, along with the 2.6 update coming soon to Google Play, on the official Beamdog site.
