Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Romantic options?

Is there any plan to have romantic options turned off?

I avoid all dialogue that seems to move in that direction.

I haven't played the game in several months and, I'm curious if the romance will be able to be toggled off on full release.

I browsed the forums and haven't really found a clear answer.

There won't be an answer here because it's functionally a false problem. The romance is opt-in, and you have to actively pursue it for it to go anywhere.

That said, there are a couple of places where they'll throw the hook conversation at you regardless of previous player input ,and that's at least a minor issue.

I highly doubt they'll create something specifically to remove the ability to pursue that optional content from the game... but they could do more to make it more obviously player opt-in than it currently is, at certain points.

What exactly do you want to turn off?
The random chat amoung your companions on the road?
The somewhat flirty dialog options?
Or just the date cutscenes?

Because if it's just the latter, those can't be triggered by accident. Even if you pick all the "correct" dialog options and have the companion approve your behaviour you will get a prompt asking: "With whom do you want to share your night?" Just select that you want to sleep alone and you won't see those scenes.

Or simply press spacebar, when the scene starts.

Romances, unfortunately, seem to be core part of companion experience - so your very best chance, is to either turn down the companions when they start flirting with you, or have negative reputations and hear "yo, we could have boned if you did stuff I like. Too bad for you". Hopefully, after the horny Act1 and romance will develop, or be unexistand if you didn't hook up with anyone.

As far as invasiveness, I didn't find it too bad.

I mean, I made my first run without any romance. I disliked every single companion. And still have issues with most of them after more playthroughs. It's not hard, to begin with, they do not flirt openly with you unless you seek dialogues for that. Seriously, they flirt with each other in banters way more than with the player.

The only moment they seem actually interested without any real searching through the dialogues is at the party. But then that seems more a weird thing than what was promised in interviews I've read. But is easy to just not talk with them and go to sleep, problem solved.

Unfortunately, they went with the 'all companions will either tell you they want to have sex or they would have wanted to have sex with you if they liked you' style of "romance". Yes, it's juvenile, but let's be honest here, this is the company that was proud at how explicit their sex storyboard drawings were.

I don't know to me it feels just like real life

And that's why I liked Shadowheart scene the most (I watched all the others on yt, etc). With her is just knowing each other better. Not just, yeah, let's have some sex right now. I can see her romance growing in a healthy way with time and I hope her intimate scene will be worth the wait.

Yep, shadowheart is definitely going to be the romance of choice i'm betting for most (if they can get past her snarkiness) because it's not just "we'll bang ok?" Honesty, even I'M starting to like her more than the other companions just because of this.

Your best way to avoid romances will probably be to create a custom party and not recruit them. Companion cutscenes are one on one, they'll confide in you about their deepest dreams, and to me they seem pretty intimate. Depending on how much you want to thematically friendzone them, some of this stuff you'd think they wouldn't just dump on a friend. In my playthroughs, the more approval I gained from companions, the more attached my character's point-and-click voice lines were when I clicked on them. I like this, but I figure many in this forum won't dig it.

Personally I think you'll be missing out on a ton of content, but to each their own.

@AvatarOfSHODAN This is new to me. Besides the fact that with higher approval you can get more scenes, dialogues, and in which I always was the one who had to approach the flirt dialogues (if I wanted), never the other way around. I never got anything that would make them seem more attached to my character, even Shadowheart who is the one I spent the night with always had the same old dialogues and banters, etc.

No, I mean Tav says these lines - not the companions. There may be a marker in the game that recognizes the beginning of a romance with a character that triggers these lines. I got my character saying "First in my heart" when I clicked on Gale in one of my runs. Very cute. The marker for him might be unlocking the Weave scene.

Interesting, I wonder if Shadowheart has something like this, and if she has, what can trigger it. I believe I had done everything and was even in exceptional approval with her. Gonna play again and check this. Thank you.