"BGII had a semi-open world, it was just predominantly the Athkatla urban sprawl as opposed to wilderness. Of course, to make the city feel alive they it ate up a lot of the best quest content of the game. From the point of the developers I think it made sense at the time, as the story matured from a low-key DnD adventure to a high-power setting. Having high powered characters trudging through the meadows, and killing kobolds just wouldn't do. Also they could reuse the assets and focus on putting more story and quest content in the city, which was, on the whole, much more memorable than the wilderness of BG1.
Anyway, I like both approaches, particularly since it's all part of a single,more or less continuous, narrative. If you look at it as a whole, you eventually get the best of everything."
did they really need to put a lich in every closet though