Baldur's Gate II: Shadows of Amn is a fantasy role-playing video game developed by BioWare and published by Interplay Entertainment. It is the sequel to Baldur's Gate (1998) and was released for Microsoft Windows in September 2000. Like Baldur's Gate, the game is set in the Forgotten Realms, a fantasy campaign setting, and is based on the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons 2nd edition rules. The game, which is powered by BioWare's Infinity Engine, uses an isometric perspective and pausable real-time gameplay. The player controls a party of up to six characters, one of whom is the player-created protagonist, while the others are certain characters recruited from the game world.
Based on the above text, what's the best answer to this question: is baldur's gate 2 a direct sequel?
yes