BG has a complete narrative. The final cinematic is a typical open ending.
Very nice ending too. Everything about Baldur's Gate felt like a fairly polished home made P&P campaign, the ending being open, fits very well in that scenario - there's always next weeks session.
Kristjanson confirmed that they had no idea who the robe guys were when they made that scene. It was just something they thought would be a cool tease.
While BG2 felt way more like a computer game, it had no connection to BG1 except for that ending cinematic - and that ending cinematic is there just because this is ostensibly a sequel to BG, but really it isn't.
It's fairly obvious that BG2 had been developed, written and probably mostly finished, when it was decided it should be an actual *sequel* to BG. The protagonist of BG2 could have been literally any Bhaalspawn, and if not for the intro and the outro, and some random comments and characters here and there, BG2 was its own thing entirely.
I imagine the plan was originally to make a series of semi-unrelated games:
- Baldurs Gate
- Amn
- Waterdeep (or something)
Then marketing and reality left us with BG2.
Edit: Nothing connects BG1 and BG2 except superficial elements which could have been added at the last minute. That's a fact, Infinitron.
The game is called Shadows of Amn. Let's say there's a game called New York. Then it's sequel is oddly called New York 2: Shadows of Miami
BG2 was never supposed to be Baldur's Gate.