Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Romance Interests are Awful!

I'm a mature female gamer and I find the romance interests in this game to be awful. I'm playing as a female ranger and my options are 1. a gay vampire, & 2. a soyboy magician with a girly British accent. Almost finished with the Druid's grove so I don't know how good Wyll will be yet. I usually play a male (cause I like to look at them!) and even there all I get are two vicious angry females with bad attitudes. Really, Larian, you can do better than this! Do you have something against women? Are you all so 'woke' you can't create a 'manly' man for us straight women to interact with? Or a nice female companion who doesn't have a chip on her shoulder? Not much difference between Shadowheart (dumb name) and Lae'zel that I can see. I sincerely wanted a cool guy like Ifan with a sexy, deep voice for a romance! I've played both the Divinity Original Sin games and a couple of the older Divinity games and hopefully, since this is early access, you'll add some better characters, both male and female. I can't believe most gamers are satisfied with this lame bunch.

As a fellow female player I can only say this:

Steam is that way -->

Well, everyone os entitled to their opinions, for me all companions are great so far.

1- Astarion os not gay.

2- In my opinion both Gale and Wyll are both too "manly" for my taste, but I might give Gale a chance.

3- Shadowherat and Lae'zel have no difference that you can see? They are pretty much opposites? Shadowherat is calm, manipulativa and keeps a low profile, while Lae'zel is extrmely in everyones face, doesn't care to play social games and just plain intimidades anyone and has a very short fuse. Just because you didn't like them doesn't mean they are the same or poorly writen.

I'm baffled how people can't take one single game with characters that are not 100% traditional stereotypes before they start complaining, even though good part of them are still 90% traditional stereotypes. I guess people just got too entitled too allways get this perfectly traditional character they want and feel Very Personaly attacked the one time they don't get exactly that.

Anyway, I'm very satisfied with the way characters are, even though they don't seem to be doing much effort to make "woke characters", which is good, and are doing an awesome job at doing believable characters who fit the setting and have complex and realistic personalities intead of Just being a dudebro or a oldschool Disney princess

Hmmm being a lady gamer myself your feelings are alltogether lost on me...

Astarion - a bit too much like Zevran but still quite entertaining
Gale and Wyll are both manly (maybe Wyll a bit more than Gale but still) and seem to have solid backstories
Shadowheart is actually a lot sweeter than she lets on, I suppose could have something to do with her memory wipe
Ok Lae'zel could go burn in the seven hells for all I care, but I can see how she could be someone's cup of tea

Surely none of them is the proverbial knight in the shinning armor, that you were obviously expecting, but I actually prefer it that way.

It would be also interesting to learn how you came to deduce Larian had something against women?

And if I may which PC game character is your reference for a well done romance?

Lol, BG2 had that manly man(... to some degree), knight in shining armor, but we all know how that romance played out, hah.

Using the words "soy boy" makes me doubt you may be a woman and if you are? You're hanging out in a pretty toxic crowd, hun. Expand those horizons. Maybe don't use old alt right buzz words a brit youtuber completely destroyed? XD

I think no one here has anything against women just because there is not a manly-man companion nor a "maiden of the household" one, and I speak as someone who 9/10 times hate anything related to "SJW" or "wokeness".
I think that stereotypes are just boring and were well exploited by games of the '80s-2000 era. Even because I think both Gale and Wyl are quite masculine. One is a gallant wizard who could well play a role on one of my grandmas classic latino-fiction, the other is a charming, brawny man who plays hero and basically fucks a succubus.

Aside from this, if everyone starts to ask for a companion who represents "his/her type", the game is never going to be released.
Furthermore, at the start of the game you can even design the perfect example of "who you dream of at night"!

I couldn't have said it better myself. I personally love that none of them are pure little perfect angels. The fact that they are so imperfect is what makes them more endearing as characters. I don't want a romance character where they agree with everything I say and look perfect. Plenty of other games do that and I got sick of it.

Out of curiosity, do they let on a lot more in the EA? I brought Gale along to the end, but he does not in any way seem "manly", though he is fun to bring along and I enjoy having him in party. As for Wyll, I'm completely lost on that one, from what I've seen it's like a Peter Pan child stuck in an adults body. He's so childishly insufferable I couldn't bring myself to like him, so I don't know if he becomes manly if you bring him along a lot.

Shadowheart has a great opportunity to change as a character and open up more, but it's either bugged right now or horribly written with the whole, "don't talk to me, you're not the company I'd keep, etc." turning into a friendly discussion of "oh I like you, let's talk more" to "why are you talking to me" to "let's drink, spend all night talking and kiss" to "that'll never happen again".

Hmm.

@Blade238
How..exactly would you define 'manly'? Are you looking for the strong and silent type or ..?

Trolls belong in the Steam forums, thanks.

I am waiting desperately for the Larian analysis tools to come out with the default "dream character" of the player base

As a guy I can say this:

Astarion - just rubs me the wrong way....he's got that accent they give all the American "old money" types in movies and such... "dahling" just erk...also, the whole sneak up and drink from me while I sleep thing....was a bit creepy
Gale - He's got Wizard-itis, he also has Waterdhavian ponce fever, but he seems generally well-intentioned and has good ideals, he does that scholar-king manly thing. But he's a bit of a dunce socially speaking.
Wyll - He's nice, well-intentioned, but man he is soooo full of BS. He's hiding the whole warlock thing so far and even without that, he's a bit of Gale's full-of-himself in a different way.
Shadowheart - I actually like her... She acerbic, intelligent, but also is weirdly encouraging of things Shar wouldn't approve of. I've been told I have a type in fictional characters and Shadowheart falls in it.
Lae'zell - She may have heard of respect once, in passing?

I'm hoping we get more companions as we continue. Right now we have a Cleric, a Wizard, a Warlock, a Fighter, and a Rogue. I expect companions of the other classes being introduced somewhere along the line. If they plan to lock you at Act I then maybe we'll see them added in. (There's a tiefling lady who may be a good bard companion in the camp. There's Halsin who seems to offer to go with you. Both of them seem better.)

As characters, I like them. They're better designed than a lot of past D&D companions. Lae'zell, Astarion, and Shadowheart also represent good "bad guy" friends. They're certainly LEAGUES better than bloody Bishop from NWN2 or that creepy dwarf from NWN.

One thing I was irritated with was that the Tiefling Victory Party has them all seeming to want to jump your bones. Though I was pleasantly surprised that with Shadowheart spending the night with her is basically wine and conversation, plus one kiss as the sun is rising. As a note, Lae'zel's possessiveness "how dare you look to someone else" attitude didn't do her any favors. I may try out the scenes with Wyll or Gale later. Lae'zel amd Astarion....just sort of turn me off.

If OP had worded this differently it would most likely be a different conversation regarding the lack of the inclusion of (and Ill just use the name here because if I said "them" we'd all know who I am talking about) Michael Fassbender a la Prometheus, Ryan Gosling a la Driver, Nick Offerman a la Parks and Rec, and Jon Hamm 24x7.

Deriding inclusion usually doesn't go down well.

There's plenty of ways one can be "manly" I would think, there can be a strong and silent type, there can be a light-hearted jokester, or any spectrum, but there's a certain way to present it. Wyll comes off to me as naive, childish and [to me] like a grade schooler imagining himself as a fantasy hero would behave. Perhaps I'm being unfair to Gale though, he definitely has more mature moments to him and I can see him being more "manly" with additional character development.

I personally think Gale and Asterion are the two best companions in EA, with Shadowheart having the potential but being either bugged or needing some work to progression on it. I also really enjoyed how Gale's dialogue includes actions you've done in the EA and would be a good drinking buddy (there needs to be less "romance" emphasis and more bromance or buddy stuff this early in game)

Astarion not gay? I caught him flirting with Gale in my playthrough!

I guess bi then. Actually, everyone is bi.

We're talking about a fantasy world in which exists magic and hundreds of different gods, planes, and even going to literal hell seems not that far from everyday life. And people are saying its unrealistic that everyone is bisexual......

I think part of the issue of a lack of "fully manly" companions (Im fine with all of them) is that Larian wants each companion to have a deeply personal quest for the player character to solve that dogs them throughout the game. Having such baggage does kind of go against the trustworthy, steadfast, problem solving traits I personally see in manliness. By comparison, Halison, who has quite a bit less problems than gale and wyll, also to me seems much more manly than either.
Gale comes off as a confidence man who is more troubled than he would let on.
Wyll seems to have some imposter syndrome and questions if his deeds are a result of his own efforts.
Everyone has baggage they deal with, guys included, and for the sake of having a quest arc for each companion Larian has expanded that more in all of them.

So Will got insane mystical power and in exchange , he must have sex with a demon woman that is specialized in it ? What a cruel fate for Will. Poor, poor Will.