I don't mind adult themes in my games generally but, I don't understand why I got soft porn going on in my D&D game. I had to end my sons game after titties were all over the screen... IDK, wtf?

Unfortunately BioWare made it standard over the years. Sex sells, I suppose. I wish porn stayed in porn games and dating sim mechanics stayed in dating sims.

When you open the Steam page:



ESRB rating:

M for Mature

BLOOD AND GORE
PARTIAL NUDITY
SEXUAL CONTENT
STRONG LANGUAGE
VIOLENCE

Buyer beware.

Personally, I don’t like sex in my RPGs either, but if you look at games like Dragon Age and The Witcher it is clear that lots of people do. It’s pretty common for a major M rated RPG to have some sex content in the game.

Well, I was planning on getting my son copy so we could play together around Christmas but, I think we will find something else. I agree, keep the porn in games meant for porn or... something.

This game has a Mature rating. Maybe check before you let your son play 😁 That said I don't really see the added value of explicit sex in a dnd rpg either.

I guess I was unaware how graphic they would go, he has more time to play than I do so he progressed further with the storyline. I won't be getting him a copy and I'm sad we wont be playing it together, oh well.

I have not played more than a handful of computer games, but for those few, I do not recall ever thinking, "Wow, those sexy scenes and revealing wardrobes really made that a great game experience!" On the other hand, I will admit that if such things are prominently put forward in ads and screenshots, I will definitely turn my head to look. Damn those psychology degree majors, now everyone knows how to manipulate me!

The good news is that if BG III does turn out as good as its predecessors, then you will be playing it on and off for the next 20 years, and eventually your son will be able to handle it.

And I wish people realized that there is nothing inherently inappropriate or dirty about sex that must be shamefully relegated to "porn games." Have you even seen any porn games, really? Because that's not what you choose if you want to watch mild erotica that doesn't even show genitalia.

You're all acting as if you are forced to go through an unskippable sex cutscene every time you load your save. You're given an option to pursue another character romantically, and you're free to decline it entirely or to skip the part that involves sex. What else do you want, to make sure that other players don't have the option? Why?
Because you find it distasteful? There are plenty of people who find gore and violence distasteful, and with much better reasons, too; should the developers remove all violence-related visuals and perhaps all mentions of slavery and abuse?
Is it because you, personally, aren't interested in romance-related content and would (selfishly) prefer it to be cut so that the developers can focus on something that better caters to you? Well, most players prefer to play as a Good-aligned human PC, it's not an opinion but a fact - should Larian scrap the option to play as any other type of character so that they can dedicate more resources to enriching the Good human protagonist experience?

Imagine starting a thread asking for something to be cut from the game because you don't personally enjoy it (or, well, because you think that your underage son can handle every other mature theme in an M-rated game other than naked breasts).

Honestly, I don't mind sex. I don't mind it in things like Game of Thrones, or the setting in general. It happened. It's only certain closed minded groups that shun it. It makes perfect sense for it to be part and parcel for any fantasy setting, ever.

A game that was only made for that content though, are routinely terrible.

The comproise, however, would be a check box in the launcher* as I am personally not bothered by it... but it is DnD and it does cover all age groups. Child locking, proofing etc, should be a choice for any parent buying for someone under the M rating.
Shouldn't be buying EA games for kids anyway, game isn't done. That's when nudity tends to sneak in and other bugs (even for games not M rating).

At least if it makes sense and the romance dialogues are sensical. I hope what we experienced up to now was just an alpha-quick implementation, because it was bad for the most part (random nookie demands out of the blue and even a random threat from Laezel, which I laughed at).

Same for some Netflix series or even GoT : if the nudity and sexuality is there for the narration/story and character psychology, sure, but often it is added pretty much to sell using voyeurism. In my playthrough, I did not have any nudity, and I am quite fine with that. I am not prude: I am OK with nudity that makes sense, like a dryad NPC or if it makes sense in the situation.

Agreed that there could or maybe should be options :
a) Setting to bypass nudity, so implied sensual visual :P
b) Dialogue that says to your companions "my character is more into x/y or bisexual" OR "no thank you, I do not want a GF/BF nor any sexual adventure" (before companions go zealous out of nowhere after a few drinks).

NB for Gorto : I am suggesting this for ADULTS ... not that I care about this adult bullshit that I feel is a form of elitism. Why should teens not play this. We are in 2020 for fucks sake.
I am 49 years old in Canada and not conservative in any way. It is called empathy.

the game is rated m for mature - it is not for children.
there is no need for childproofing since it is m rated and not targeted towards children.
It is m rated since there will be no childproofing.
Do not buy mature games for your children. They are not child safe. Thats what mature means.

Also i fully agree with everything xarico has said

Yeah, I'm not trying to step on toes. I've just been looking forward to this game. It's a pretty big title and, I enjoy playing games with my kids. We all enjoy D&D and RGP based games. I just personally won't buy another copy for my son. The old school BG's had some lewd humor but nothing like romantic sex scenes. Whatever floats yer boat, I guess.

Truthfully I'd be more worried about content from moddable games. Even with a good rating, game can be turned into something else.

What sex?

To mod something there has to be intention, If the Intention to see mature content is there i dont think the first place they look will be modding lmao
At that point i'd be more worried about other websites.

Literally nobody has suggested that the content should not be included in the game. Calm down.

There were definitely opportunities to have sex in BGII. More or less graphic depending on your hero and choice of who you slept with. However, being primarily text-based it was not visually graphic. I'm not old enough to know if that was considered controversial at the time and have no desire to check on the internet, but I would venture to say there is a large number of people who enjoy the romance options. Especially when looking at the numbers Larian posted about EA romance.

However, I will say that their idea seems to be that you can more or less opt out of it -- unlike one of the dragon age games where a friend of mine said she was playing and saying nice things and her chick ends up in bed with another chick and had no idea how it came to be. As for the nudity, I personally don't care. I can see the appeal for a filter (say you want to play the game and there are underage children in your house), but it wouldn't be something I would use.

But back to the OP statement. I don't know how old your son is. I also don't know what you consider soft-core. However, if it's just topless women, I can see that on a PG-13 (13+) film, but it's an M(17+) rating in video games. Either way, if you want/need to censor what your son plays, then I suggest you do research on forums for parental reviews prior to letting him purchase or play a game. I imagine you could have a discussion, set boundaries, and play Co-op, but if not then that's up to you. Best of luck.

But whats the problem here. If he joins your game then you do all the talking with the companions, at least for now. No one really throw sex without your permission, companions won't rape MC.

About ratings and so on, who never played gta as kiddo?

So you are ok with him playing a game with child murder and torture but a set of fictional boobs and you take away his game?

the problem is his son can play the game without him present and take his chance to see the boobies.
Because let's face it this game won't have genitals doing the nasty.


Honestly if a kid wants to see boobs in this day and age the potential exposure is nearly limitless.

On the one hand, sex is one of the greatest hypocrisies of modern civilization (and someone already pointed it out here - torture and maiming are fine but once you see a boob which is ultimately natural and something you are much more likely to see in a healthy life you lose your mind). But I do wonder whether there should be so much sex everywhere in this game. To be honest I think so far the sex is pretty much on point. Your options for sex as far as I know -

I wasnt really going to go into detail but, I've gotten some serious responses and I should clear some things up.

First of all, I'm not suggesting anything should be removed. I can set a standard for my children and, a game where the characters are trying to sleep with eachother is not content I'm interested in for children.

My son was embarrassed by the dialogue and options being presented. He was running an evil campaign and had made completely different choices than my game. I was totally unaware of the graphic romance in this game. I figured at most, characters might hook up, maybe see them lay together and, some adult humor.

I was a bit surprised when he's skipping through romantic scenes and asking me "what is this game?". I didnt expect it from a D&D title. We are nerds, I play tabletop with my kids. We play the old BG's and Neverwinter.

Romance is usually dealt with tact and discreet humor... not anymore apparently.

I don't agree with OP.

The game is clearly targeted as Mature.

Sex choices are optional, you can just skip any proposal regarding it.

If you do choose sex, the game is not filled with it, I'm into thirty hours now and only things I notice were suggestions and proposals made during camp rest. It took no more than five minutes from 30 hours.

For all the awful things that can be done in the game, including children and families slaughtering, sex should be the last of things to worry about.

Sex is not gratuitious here, these are characters that were enslaved, tortured, beaten and can still go through a gruesome death. Consented physical pleasure seems quite an healthy option to deal with it.

It comes more as a side note, but these kind of issues always remind me one discussion led by one of Comic's Great Ones, John Byrne, where he told his issues regarding how Wolverine could be shown slicing and maiming enemies, but even the suggestion of sex was a huge No-No-No-No

I mean the Bhaalspawn was rawdogging Aerie back in 2. Nudity and romance has been mainstream in Rpg's for years

Fade to dark is the only tactful solution to romances.
Showing nudity is just a substitute for good writing, as always. I never felt like I needed a graphic sex-scene with Visas, Bastila and the Handmaiden because they were decetly written.
However keep in mind that in BG3, none of the companions are delicate people who are in it for a deep connection, or love, they are in it for the sex (with the possible exception of Shadowheart so far).
Astarion even bluntly tells you that he just considers this to be fun. Laezel acts like a dog in heat, basically treating sex like an itch to be scratched. Not sure about Wyll, didn't see his romance yet, but afaik he has potential for something more. Also Gale is creepy, I don't see why you'd romance that guy, ew...
Anyway, the romances we've seen so far are very low quality, they seem formulaic and out of nowhere. I like Shadowheart's the best because it seems to be nice and slow (as it should be), giving more room for development and letting the characters warm up to each other. As for sex-scenes, I would vastly prefer to just remove them alltogether, not because I hate sex, but because it's always better to leave that for the imagination.

True. The Witcher games were the only games that came close to making sex scenes worth it (sometimes. it was very hit or miss)

I agree, I'm not so much against sexual themes but, a certain degree of tact and good writing should allow for it. Two characters lay down, Fade to black is perfect. I really dont understand why I need to see anymore. Sexual innuendos and humor can be fun and entertaining when your characters say something discreet out of no where.

I am really shocked how everyone fears their kid could see some tits but are perfectly fine with the player ripping the brain out of a living human.

I wonder how trump could loose the election.
This game hat an M-Rating! Parents who don’t look at the ratings before buying software for their kids and then being upset at games content should not have children at all.

This should be optional. I love sex content in the game. But still, there should be possibility how to turn it off.

While I agree that a discussion about the quality of sex scenes is valid, I don't think we should entertain censorship as an option in an R rated game. At this point, sex is part of the game, and it was always planned to be. we can criticize the quality of the sex scenes and say they are bad, but I really don't think this is what to op is arguing. He is arguing for censorship, which is a silly idea for a game that starts with your main character pulling out a brain from a living person. my question is of course why stop with the sex? why not replace the brain with candy and blood with water, and swords with plastic sticks?

You don't have to have sex in the game, it's SO SIMPLE. Just go to bed alone. Or are you upset that you choose the dialogue option "Sleep with a character, have sex with him" and get sex? What do you expect?
Do you want sex and black screen? It will ruin the immersion for 99% of players.

The game has an 18+ rating and her genre is dark fantasy, it's great that it has sex, violence, and other interesting things

Yes.

No.

Ok, I'll write about the game censoring murders.
I don’t want to see all these corpses and scenes of us pulling Us's brain out of the skull. Let there be a black screen, because I want to. And let the corpses turn into bags with drops.

And this video with a tadpole in Laezel's eye is so awful! I want a black screen instead. Children are watching!

Murder and sex are not the same, in case you didn't know
By the way fun fact: Murder is also not as graphic in the game as it is in real life. We could show necks being slashed close up with great graphic detail, or see guts spill out as our enemies cry and writhe in horrific pain, but we don't, and that's a good thing.
If we made murder too realistic and explicit in the game, most people wouldn't play it because it would make us feel bad. There is a reason why the enemies we kill are just treated as puppets without much of a personality, or evil.
If we don't portray murder and killing as ultra-realistic, why should we do the same with sex?

Fade to black is good, because it leaves things to the imagination. Let's imagine that I wanna have sex with Astarion and the game gives me a scene where he has sex with my male character as a top. But I wanna be top and I want Astarion to be a bottom. Should I write a complaint about how Larian didn't cater to my specific expectations?

Fade to black is once again superior because everyone can just project their own expectations into it.

Again this a M-rated game. The discussion is ridiculous! Do you write to Hollywood studios on every M-rated movie to complain your kids are watching?

This is not a game for kids and should NOT be watched by kids. That what M-rating means.

Don’t let kids watch you playing this game! Go out and play some ball games with them

I'm not a kid nor do I have kids but I still prefer fade to black because sex-scenes overly define what is happening and make implicit things explicit which kills quite a bit of the fantasy element. I don't hate sex or have a problem with boobies, I merely think that you can't portray intimacy while you are also exposing it to the masses. Fade to black is more intimate and more satisfying then an explicit sex-scene. I don't care that you think I hate sex, I don't, I just prefer to fill in some blanks myself instead of having the game do it for me. I will probably skip the sex scenes anyway.

I'm all for having some intimate scenes, like the way DAI did it, but they also did the fade to black which was nice because frankly I dont wanna know what goes on there, they sleep together they hug, bam done! We all know how it happens!

I understand you have the choice to either participate in those scenes or not which I am grateful for, but I just find when there are explicit scenes I cringe! Only because they are done in a way that's just plain unrealistic and glamourised!

Do it with quality and love, or don't do it at all (black screen). That is true as well for the whole plot and game.

To be fair, warnings of nudity/sex and the Mature label are absolutely everywhere...

Regardless of the merits of sex or no sex, and personally, so long as it's tasteful, I don't mind, I'd rather that than watching a Mortal Kombat fatality, there are fair warnings that this stuff exists in BG3.

As others have already said, the game's content reflects its rating. Don't make it available to your kids unless you are fine with them seeing some naked butts and nipples.

Whether you like or dislike this type of scene in your game is personal preference.

I personally don't mind them on principle, but I do mind their current execution. The jerky animations and poor scene directing reminds me of the romance scenes in the Mass Effect series. It's just awkward to watch. Fade-to-black would certainly be an easier alternative, but if Larian is committed to having them, I hope they will receive a lot more polish.

im going to go against the grain here:
COOMers. Unironically.

I dont have an issue with sexulization in games, however turning everything into an HBO Series with explicit sex scenes is significantly unsexy if you ask me.
They just dont work in a PC game. i had the same problem with wticher, they dotn work well.

[b][/b]

This, this a thousand times this. If I could like or upvote or star or give "gold" or whatever I would. This comment wins the interwebz today.

Video games with a Mature rating and up are NOT FOR KIDS!!!

Also, I am legitimately confused about which people were playing D&D etc and NOT getting into one situation minimum per session that involved extremely compromising situations with gazebos, orcs, demons and random misused spellcraft. I mean... I CAN'T be the ONLY person out there who played RPG table top games drunk off my ass in my miss-spent youth! It's just how it works. Just ask Critical Role!

Also, sex should NEVER be something shameful. Just sayin.

*** apologies for the capitals, the bold code wouldn't work and I'm feeling emphatic.

Gazebos ?!! ooooh ...

(*faints while clutching pearls*)

Well written!
+1

Honestly the sex scenes in this game aren't something i haven't seen all that much.

I usually just select Shadowheart and the only thing I see is this really sweet intimate moment. I think romance scenes should focus on that, some pixels going at it doesn't do it for me.

I am happy they are using mocap for these romance scenes because there are subtle gestures that most animations miss unless they put in absurd amount of time into it.

The purpose of these romance scenes aren't to be pornographic but romantic. Now take your own interpretation of what that means but whatever it is I don't think anyone could mistake it for porn.

As for the OPs situation, yeah its understandable. I don't mind the romance scenes either but I would also be super awkward to if watching something intimate like that on screen with my father.
So I understand your son's distress, I think this is a solid game to play with your son and its easy to skip these scenes.

If Baldur's Gate 3 were rated T for Teen, I would expect romance scenes to fade to black, but this is rated M for Mature. This game is NOT for kids. I don't know how old the OP's kid is, but I am far more angry at them for complaining about the game's content when the game was clearly labeled.

And this is before I get into my personal ideologies about what content should be classified as "mature". As brought up multiple times, this game doesn't exactly have explicit sex scenes; i.e. no genitalia or visual penetration. On the other hand, this game has content that I believe is far more egregious than showing shirtless characters; for example, allowing you to murder children.

This game is rated M for mature which means it is not meant for kids.


Their is nothing wrong or inappropriate about sex nothing to be shamed of that they MUST be relegated to porn games, every time I hear that I cringe. Sex sales and it always will sale and will be in video games, like Witcher 3, Mass Effect, Dragon Age Origins and any others that I miss

As soon as you go to the steam page this shows up:
THIS GAME MAY CONTAIN CONTENT NOT APPROPRIATE FOR ALL AGES,
OR MAY NOT BE APPROPRIATE FOR VIEWING AT WORK.

You have to accept that message to enter the store page and on the bottom:

MATURE CONTENT DESCRIPTION
The developers describe the content like this:

This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages. It contains General Mature Content, and may include Nudity or Sexual Content.

You getting on the forums and complaining IS YOUR OWN FAULT!!!! BE A RESPONSIBLE ADULT and NOT half *** it if you really want to sensor what they see. This was in your face right at the door, GROW UP and take responsibility for your own actions or lack there of.

May I ask how old the son who was mentioned is? Roughly? I mean the sex or romance scene happens after the game asks you something like who do you want to spend the night with. What did he think was going to happen?

Anyway as has been mentioned the game is rated M. If you want your son or whomever to play the game you've been warned.

The fact that it is M doesn't mean you must have sex scenes. If you just put sex scenes to shout "Look at me! I'm an adult game!" it is not very adult. it's quite childish in fact.

Not saying it has have to them. Many M rated games don't have them. But when a game is rated M and also says sexual content and partial nudity you've been warned.

I can't seem to find an actual reliable source of what M rating in video game means. Though I did find an article and it says that M Rating is for people older than 17 years old.

That M Rating contains

Even greater amounts of violence of blood and gore and sexual content like sex and nudity




Also OP if you bought this from steam you will get a popup/notification that says this before you can even go to the actual page.

(This Game May Contain Content Not Appropriate For All Ages, Or May Not Be Appropriate For Viewing At Work.)

The developers describe the content like this:

"This Game may contain content not appropriate for all ages. It contains General Mature Content, and may include Nudity or Sexual Content."

then it asks for you birthday just to continue to enter into the actual page on steam.

Frankly, I don't care what the game's rating is, it can be M for mature, I still think that if you can't make it good, just give us fade to black.
All I want is a good game, if you can't do that without sex-scenes, that's kindof a problem in and of itself, I mean I sure know that sex-scenes are not what FR or BG are about.
I don't mind a well written romance-plot or even a proper hookup, but let's not try to make this the game's selling point, because it's not going to work, in fact, I would rather have ALL romances be cut and have a good main storyline if it comes to that.
It's almost as if all games today have to go through a set of checkboxes to appeal to as wide an audience as possible, but sadly that unevitably leads to a decrease in quality at the expense of roleplay-immersion and storytelling.
Some people in this thread seem to think that promoting sex scenes is somehow a rebellious or minority opinion somehow, when in fact it's basically in every video game now. Larian would actually be brave not to include them the same way it would be brave for them to have a silent protagonist or to stick with oldschool pirnciples or roleplaying.

I don't care about having sex-scenes, Baldurs Gate should never revolve around a dumb romance plot.

They are going to add a censorship button for Twitch so I'm sure that button will apply to sessions where you don't want mature content, also.

This may not be your situation but even if it is please listen to the message rather than taking offense. I've noticed over the years that many parents with this reaction to sex in video games have no problem letting their child play violent games like Battlefield and Call of Duty. I think attitudes about sexuality really need to change. Most parents feel like bare breasts are more harmful to a child than blood and gore.

I did not allow my children to play video games portraying human to human violence until they were about 12/13, I did allow them to play Doom much earlier though and my children turned out fine. I let them play Grand Theft Auto in their tweens as well with no harm to their psyche. I also talked to my children about drugs in a way that most parents are afraid to do. I told them about the harm of some of the more potent drugs. I told them how I felt pot should be legalized, and I told them I would rather they didn't experiment with drugs, but if they did I would rather they do it in the home so their parents were there to help them if something went wrong. Neither of my children bothered with drugs.

You protect your children with education, not prohibition.

I don't think that anyone is saying that an M-rated game is obligated or made better by including sex-scenes; Hell, I am not even saying that Game of Thrones is better by including sex-scenes or nudity; However, the OP coming here to complain about them is to me the same thing as them purchasing an adult film and then complaining to the store that it had nudity.

I don't know, maybe next time the OP should look at the rating before purchasing.

Again, it doesn't help that we don't know how old the OP's child is, my niece started playing video games at 4-years old (I mean it was Castle Crashers, but still counts), so I don't know if this was just a child child (4-12), a teen child (13-17), or an adult child (18+).

In this thread:
A puritanical world view combined with a failure to respect the ESRB rating results in a kid learning about the birds and the bees.

You're not concerned with people arbitrarily killing children, casual profanity, and ritualistic BDSM, but you draw the line at physical intimacy?
This post should be pinned for posterity. This is hilarious.

Do not attack people for their personal moral views. They may be different to your own, but that does not make them less valid.

Likewise, don't assume other people's views on aspects of the game.

It reminds me of that time when parents took their children to see Deadpool in theatres, despite the numerous warnings that it was rated R, and then stormed out mid-film angry about how it "wasn't appropriate for children". No shit. That is why it was rated R.

I agree with that its just not movies its video games and TV shows as well and maybe even manga and anime. I don't think parents or some parents don't even pay attention to the ratings of shows movies etc and then they get upset.

You don’t know that the OP is okay with any of that because you aren’t aware if the OP is aware of any of that.

What really happened in this thread: somebody had a misconception about the game, voiced surprised, was corrected, responded reasonably, and then a bunch of jerks piled in and reminded everybody of how abysmal trying to communicate with strangers online unfortunately often is.

The subject is "things that people find shocking or unacceptable." All of those other things are present in the game and are generally things that people find shocking or unacceptable, yet none of them were mentioned and the biggest pressing issue is a D-, awkwardly-animated intercourse scene that isn't particularly explicit. Putting on our thinking caps and understanding what critical thinking is, one could fairly infer that they don't have issues with those other things since those concerns weren't voiced and could have easily been lumped in alongside the complaint of brief pixelated sex.

And if we follow your convenient logic and they actually weren't somehow aware that any of those adult themes were a possibility, then that tells me either one of two things: they pay zero heed to game ratings because they aren't particularly concerned what the kid sees (for a variety of reasons since I'm not blindly assuming things here,) or the kid is mentally and emotionally capable of handling an M rating, in which case this entire post is moot to begin with.

The essential points are ...

a) good to give player choice, so actual dialogue romance rather than the half-baked "romance" we have in said Patch 2". If player does not choose those dialogue options, the relevant companion(s) should not all say they want to fuck you during the drunk party. --- I won't repeat what other threads explained: the romance dialogues are blatantly half-done (only EA I hope).

b) respecting player option, in settings, to remove nudity for whatever reasons. Nothing to do with age. I am not remotely close to conservative, but my way is not The Way and it can be just a game/RP choice.

c) role-play, story, writing. Don't give us random nudity à la some recent "TV" series where it does not really fit the story or character.

You can’t infer that the OP was okay with content when you don’t have any evidence that they knew the content existed. The OP was only aware of the romance in the game because his son brought it up to him. What you are doing is neither logic nor critical thinking.

The OP was already made aware of the game’s rating and content and moved on. You trying to ridicule him just makes you look immature.

Fantasy "murder" is not the same. There is a detachment from reality when you are slaying monsters. Yes this game does offer some graphic scenes and normally, I dont give it much worry. Murder and sex are not the same in video games. That's like saying Minecraft has murder in it so, it might as well have sex too, which it does, very non graphic, they even make babies... Done with tact.

I always find funny those kind of thread. Not only they post to complain about something that is perfectly included in the rating services.

To be honest lower rating is for game that have no sex or nudity but dipitch cruel violence like heads popping off guts spilling over mass of flesh exploding spraying everywhere in blood.

But oh no a pair of naked breasts on the screen is unacceptable.

Sorry is just that i have an hard time to consider more acceptable depitched violence in detail rather than something natural like sex and nudity.
My two cents.

And i am glad some mature games starts to have mature content.

This game is rated M its qll qbout graphic...

Yup, totally agree with this.

A game rated M is all about the graphics, all about showing everything and not hiding it.

An M rated game is not meant for 17 year old's and younger. All because of what it shows blood drugs violence nudity/sex etc and not hiding it like fade to black.

Like oh no! Shield your children about something natural like nudity and breast and spoon feed them blood and gore that is more acceptable!..

This society is....quite something.

I just looked up the rating level beyond "M", which is "A" for adults only. The description there says the following: "Content suitable only for adults ages 18 and up. May include prolonged scenes of intense violence, graphic sexual content and/or gambling with real currency."

AH HA! So that's where the moral red-line has been drawn! Don't let your children witness gambling with real currency! Whew, glad we don't have to deal with that in BG III ... uh, unless there is a gambling tent like in the Nashkel fairgrounds? Oh oh.

It's because the violence that's portrayed in movies and videogames is usually nothing like real violence. When it is it's actually pretty impactful (see Joker). Tits are tits. That's how i see it, anyhow.

I think is a bland excuse. Reality is that many people see violence ok. BUt when it comes to something natural like nudity and sex they see that as dirty and morally wrong. And beside i am often a very respectful person but when you make a thread on a game rated by M complaining that your children should not playing it. Sorry but that is the parent that is in the wrong.

For example, ever play a D&D campaign and one of the player characters tries to hook up with an NPC? It can be fun and entertaining watching the Bard court an NPC. You do a little role play, make a roll to seal the deal and, the DM says something like. "Rembrand and the bar wench take leave of the bar room and head upstairs for a night of romance." Who goes into detail about what happens in the bedroom? It's creepy, nobody does that. The only reason my son made the Choice in the game to sleep with the Drow goblin leader was because he was trying to avoid her trying to kill him at camp. He reloaded and choose to sleep with her and got graphic cut scenes. We play all kinds of "M" rated games. I don't let him play GTA because it's too human, too realistic. D&D offers a fantasy, slaying monsters takes the humanity out of it, like killing zombies.

If we disregard the sentimental aspect of it, another thing to consider is to consider how much how much money and resources Larian* uses on sex scenes alone and how much that takes away from other aspects of the game, with all that elaborate animation, voice acting and motion capture, especially considering that a lot more of it will likely be coming with the full release of BGIII. BG1/2's romantic encounters simply alluded to sex and I feel that is more than enough for an RPG. I felt those romantic encounters were much more tasteful than what I've seen in BGIII EA so far, especially since most of them centred around love rather than sex and of course the dialogue was much less clunky.

Beamdog?

How dare you!

😂😂😂

Woops :P

Despite having over 150 hours in BG3 I had yet to see any of the sec scenes, so I YouTubed the Minthara scene, and holy crap that is soooo bad. I’m not talking about being morally objectionable, but just in terms of cringe inducing. I love BG3, but I really do wish Larian had put that time and money elsewhere. 😂

You know... People don't go to bed togheter just if they feel love. Sometimes they just love to play with each other even not being in a relationship while i did enjoy that mod i felt some time were quite.. Too much cheesy.

I can understand this when the game forces such a thing on you (TW2's very intro), but at no point are you forced to romance anyone in this game. At worst, you are meant to create your dream waifu/husbando at the start, but no titties involved there.
Also, the game is rated M for a reason. Even if there was no nudity, or graphic sex init, it would still have something that clearly isn't meant for kids.

Rated M for Mature, 17+
BLOOD AND GORE
PARTIAL NUDITY
SEXUAL CONTENT
STRONG LANGUAGE
VIOLENCE

All of the explanation in the world isn't going to change the fact that you let your kid play a game that explicitly warns about the potential content that it features.
Your irresponsibility isn't Larian's fault, and they're not obligated to change anything just because you couldn't be bothered to check a rating that's been slapped onto every game made in the last 25 years.
Lesson learned, I hope. I'm sure you'll be more proactive from now on.

You react to this:



With this:



What is wrong with you?

+1

Even if Baldur's Gate 3 did not have ANY nudity, it doesn't change the fact that you decided consciously or not to let your kid play a game that is clearly rated M for Mature.

Logic, I guess?
No video game developer on the planet is going to pay focus groups to determine just how sexual is too sexual because most people aren't going to have the same answer.
That's why ratings exist. Sexual content was listed. In this case, OP gambled and lost. A collective shrug is really the only feasible response to this post.
Being sympathetic to this person for complaining about a situation that they put themselves into is weird.

You aren’t shrugging. He shrugged. You are being a butthole unnecessarily. He never asked Larian to change anything. I’m not sure why this is so difficult for you.

Actually, I've never managed to get 'titties across the screen'. But, if you do not want to see this, or have your child see this, you should play a game that isn't meant for a mature audience. What I don't understand is why blood and gore is acceptable, but tits are the deal breaker.

In addtion, romancing npc's is optional so if you do not want to see it, you can just not go there. Also, I have the feeling that the possibility of homosexual relationships in this game would blow your mind.

He only "chose" to romance to possibly avoid a fight. I'm not suggesting anything should be removed. I know better now and I wont be buying him his own copy for Christmas is all.

One thing I noticed while reading the whole thread: Americans are really hung up about sex and nudity.

So, letting for example your child play the evil playthrough where part of the campaign is murdering whole families is fine, but the dealbreaker is the reward sex from the evil drow cleric. And other gamers wanting any content that offends them (in this case sexual content) to be opt-in only so that they can avoid it where possible, in a game that deals with a lot of very dark storylines and concepts (like torture, murder, slavery, BDSM etc) is a very odd concept (for me).

I understand that these players want a very specific type of game catering to their specific taste, and that as such is fine, I just have the feeling that this is not the game for them. There are games out there that I DID not play for similar reasons, such as Rust, but I never expected the devs of Rust to change the vision for their game to cater to my sensitivities.

+1
The "freedom fighters" over here are very judgamental and crude.

There are many choice to be made in early access. Like there is the choice to read the rating of the game before puchasing it to ensure the content is fitting for your son and daughter. The only existance of this post is not an aknowledgment of the mistake made from the person but is actually an attempt to get in touch with the developer to change the contents of the game. This is the whole reason of this poste to raise an issue.

But in the end there is not an issue because the game was rated M from the start so ultimately it was an evaluation error from the parent.

I am being respectful here but i see some answers i don't actually like. The fact a game is fantasy does not mean it has to avoid certain contents. The fact is D&D does not mean that don't have mature themes. Heck Belhial and Fierna are actually son and daughters and lovers. ((This from a manual of the 3.5)). You have deity that have in theyr influence carnal pleasure and even Pain.

No D&D was never meant for kids it always had mature content there were even CDP that were focussed in seduction.

Who thinks not is completely mistaken.

I guess it's time to close this thread.

Stop.

The game would have sold just as well without "M" rating. D&D fans are all ages.

Truers. Kinda funny how talk of pixel boobs gets so many really involved

From the 1978 Dungeons & Dragons introduction, page 5: "Dungeons & Dragons is a fantastic, exciting and imaginative game of role playing for adults 12 years and up."

If I ran a game-making company, I would probably try to be sure my products reach the largest possible market. And I think this is what this thread is really about: is it a better business decision to widen the market appeal in terms of age range, or to focus on a mostly-adult market with content specifically placed to appeal to adults who insist on pixual intercourse? Maybe we will never know, Leira willing.

To be honest this kind of post surfaced on other forums as well in the past. Like if there is always someone doing the same mistake. I doubt this post is authentic or if is.. It is clearly an unwanted provocation. If a game is bound to have such content and is correctly advertised coming in the forum companing about such conents is not only unnecessary but also completely out of place.

I don't blame those people for answering as they did. They have the right to do so as they are not in the wrong. Nudity is beautiful it can be pictured on canvans made with pixels or real it does not make it less natural. Instead i doubt of the integrity that think that blood and gusts and entrail fly over are more acceptable for childrens.

Guys, I typically try not to be censor Nazi, which is why I allow my kids to play "M" rated games. With a few exceptions GTA and Red Dead. My son and I play Dead by Daylight all the time. Even that game doesnt show up skirt on character models. My sons physical embarrassment while playing this game caused me to draw a line.

This thread is full of some interesting choice comments.



Almost everyone maintains contradictory world views, even if its not this particular one. I could give plenty of examples to highlight this point, but I think the moderators would be upset if I turned this thread into a discussion of real world politics, so I will not do so. Suffice to say, I wouldn't laugh so hard if I were you, because the chances are upon close examination, you do as well. I know I do, even if the ones I maintain aren't the ones on discussion within this thread.



I will agree that this is more or less how the mature rating is used in real world applications. I will also agree that, if a person does not read the labels, it is entirely their own fault. I do however dislike the use of the word, "mature," for this particular rating, because in my opinion that is not what mature means (to be clear, this is not an issue with the rating itself, rather the word they used to rate it). To me mature would be a game that makes you think about difficult, hard to discuss situations. An easy example is if there was a scene in a game where you were in a room with a sadist who gives you an option between him torturing your mother or torturing your father, where a failure to respond means both get tortured. Then, regardless of which outcome you pick, it throws the long term repercussions of this at you as you continue playing the game. Its facing you the protagonist with a difficult situation where there is no right answer and its also a lot more, "mature" (in my opinion) than anything which is thrown at you in BG 3. Papers please is to me a good example of a mature game.

In my opinion pixel sex is probably fine being lowered to 16 or even below, there isn't really anything mature about it.



This raises an interesting point about the fact that sometimes, leaving something up to the imagination of the player is better than shoving it in your face. Writers have the well known mantra of, "show, don't tell," and I guess you could say this is kind of like that. Whether or not sex scenes are an example of a situation where this rule is applicable is something I am undecided on, but there are plenty of cases where I think games could do this better, for example, lore. Don't tell me about the world through NPC info-dumps, show me it through the way people dress, the way they talk, their mannerisms, the local architecture, etc. Don't tell me an NPC is angry with me in a dialogue, show it to me through their posture. This is something I think most games fail at, which I think could dramatically enhance the quality of storytelling in games. With that being said, DOS 2 probably had the worst written romances in any RPG I have played and if it is a choice between DOS 2 written romances and cutscenes I think the cutscenes are probably better done.

As for the OP, there will probably be a streamer option when the game is finally ready which disables this stuff, because streamers are one of the big forms of advertising for this game. Whilst I think its good that you are drawing lines and trying to be a good parent (even if I am sure the definition of good parent will differ wildly from person to person in this thread), you should probably have read the ratings a bit more carefully, or looked at some of the press coverage about the game before hand. Swen (the lead developer) has been very open about how there will be sex scenes in the game from the very beginning, I think it is probably one of the games main marketing points.

More class options > animated sex scenes. Sacrificing resources for something that isn't even important and restricts your market.

Just in case there is still any question about *clutches pearls and gasps* nekkid bodies in the game... as opposed to say, murdering children, slavery, wholesale genocide and canibalism...


This is all over the internet and should give everyone a rough idea of how terrible the boobies will be. Don't want anyone else being shocked by a nipple after betraying and murdering a whole city full of people - to my knowledge that's the only way to get the scene in question? Aside from the rating warning at the start, the pertinent info is around the 7 minute mark. Oh and in the description.

https://youtu.be/qYD5HHKmVT8

This is a false dichotomy, because this is not an either or situation. They have already stated they will implement all of the classes and the sub classes within the PHB. It isn't done yet, but it will be on release. Even if this was not the case however, the people responsible for doing animations are not the people responsible for implementing classes, those are 2 completely different skill sets. Animators are not suddenly going to become programmers just because sex scenes are removed.

Personally, my bigger issue with romances is that they feel poorly written. The characters are written to be player-sexual, rather than having their own defined preferences. This makes them much more one dimensional than they could otherwise be and takes away from them as characters.


This is also untrue. Sex sells, if it didn't, it would not be in the game. This isn't some newfound revelation either, developers are very much aware of it. Here is an example of the lead developer from Pillar's of Eternity talking about it.

The relationships are horribly written, they just throw themselves at you for no reason. And it does restrict your market. I would have purchased two more copies myself.

That's not really how resource allocation works; and "isn't that important" is a rather subjective matter.

Did anyone buy the game because it promised sex?

Can you just go ahead and say that you made a parenting error and be done with it? The amount of pride and entitlement here is staggering.
There's this underlying expectation in your last few comments where you're trying to inspire some action because you're convinced that pointing out that "the company's bottom line may be affected" is going to cause a change that suits you because you're not ready to have a conversation about sex with your child yet.

Larian isn't going to panic just because you brazenly disregard ratings and warnings and therefore won't be buying 36 copies of the game from them.
Swen isn't sitting in his office right now clutching his pearls over this no matter how many more times you mention that their audacity is causing them to "miss out on potential sales."
They know what they're doing. For every parent who doesn't understand how the ESRB works and gets flustered that their precious child was subjected to something shocking, there are ten more people out there willing to buy it because of that something shocking.

Pornhub is free.

It does take resources away from anything else because they had to pay someone to animate awkward sex scenes in a D&D game.

True in the long term, perhaps. But it's too late to make that change now. If they cut the sex scenes right now, fired the people responsible for finishing them, and used the saved money to hire or, more realistically, train people to do new classes or whatever, they wouldn't see gains for months, and this would require throwing away a lot of work. The ROI is not only negative, it's severely negative.

Ugh it's really not how it works. It's like saying putting outdoor seating in a new restaurant is "taking away from the kitchen budget". No it's not. They are DIFFERENT resource allocations with DIFFERENT budgets. It absolutely doesn't take away from anything else. If it was left out of the game, those resources simply would not have been budgeted for in the first place so the funds would not have been raised in the first place. They wouldn't have been entered on a cost benefit proposal, and investors would not have had to cough up as much money for "the game production".

To say that the theoretically non budgeted, non financed, and therefore essentially NON EXISTENT funds are being 'stolen' from 'more important' parts of the game is beyond being a stretch to being straight up fiction.

That's just not how business and finance works.

This game was going to sell. You had Larian / Divinity merged with cult classic Baldurs Gate. You didnt need cheap naked gimmicks to sell this game.

Are we talking about the harpy boobies? if so, they can harpy charm me all day.... and night. On a serious note, the game rated M. Your son seeing boobs; is entirely your fault. Also, they are breasts. Get over it

Okay guys, I'm locking this thread.

I allowed it to go on in the hope that you could wind your necks in a bit, but clearly that isn't going to happen any time soon.