Does anyone know if any of the new areas can be accessed before the traditional end of BGEE, the Sarevok battle? Or is it like ToB where there is a true barrier?
They said it's ToB style. Also the story involves you hunting the last remaining followers of Sarevok, so it would not make sense to go there before defeating him.
@PhillipDaigle said "It's in the style of Thone of Bhaal, so there are two new world maps that you'll be traveling around in. You cannot backtrack to areas from BG:EE. You'll be able to freely explore certain sections of Baldur's Gate, though." And so far as I'm aware, that's all that has yet been revealed about map accessibility.
You can see a couple of areas of Baldur's Gate in the screen shots. You can also see that they are slightly changed, as you might expect with the passage of time.
While they are in Baldur's Gate, they are technically new areas
... which have been re-drawn, and now have BD codes instead of AR codes. But presumably we'll find that in practice, they operate roughly the same way as what we already know, because there shouldn't have been drastic change in only a couple of weeks.
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Would the engine actually support larger zones?
I suspect some of the city will be closed off due to the refugee crisis. (and save resources).