Oh my ... this will be long one. :-/
Looking ahead, Karlach is not male gaze material, and neither is the werewolf halfing, based on datamined information.
If we are talking about datamined material ...
There is also some female-druid.
Also keep in mind that, exclude Halsin, everyone you just mention are Origin characters ...
That dont mean at all that they will be the only possible companions, especialy since after Act1 we have to "commit" as Larian say. Wich probably will mean that we let most of Origin go (im guesing everyone, except one we will follow futher) ... and i kinda doubt that game will change from 4person party to 2person party.
Also there are those mercenaries that was allready confrimmed.
And finaly, even tho im not quite sure if that was only mupltiple repeated wish, or confimation from larian ... there is some talking about possibility to adjust looks of Origin characters, to suit our taste. :P
Anyway, what im trying to say is: There is potential to have enough material to gaze for everyone.
There is no way I'd be convinced that there are as many male people finding Lae attractive as Shadowheart unless you provide me with solid proof saying otherwise.
Well ... this isnt easy, to be honest.
Shadow is indeed prettier (who would guess right? :D) but on the other hand, from her personaly i feel so incredibly strong urge to slap her pretty face, so its no use for her ... :-/
And to be completely honest ... and maybe i will look like a little weirdo now ...
As i said abowe, if we would be able to adjust looks of our Origin companions (i mean, it should not matter what face, hairstyle or what make-up they have ritght? :P ) ... there is at least one (maybe two) Female Githyanki face i find quite honestly kinda pretty. :P So Lae'zel potentialy could even win this contest for me.
Also, a little offtopic ...
Im not satisfied with faces in this game in general ... like, when you look at Goblins, even there some of them are look better than our Tav options, especialy when you create a male. :-/
And look at the title of the thread. It's companions and romance, not character creator. And your imaginary friend is only in your head, and does not exist as a real companion.
We dont know that yet ...
Its totally possible that Larian will use this "model" in the future somehow.
And after all, what is wrong in being attracted in your dream person? :P
We are talking here about attraction between imaginary people anyway.
So i would count this one with clear heart and mind ... problem is its +1 for everyone, since its suppose to be "perfect oposite" ... so it dont move the scales a bit to either side.
I mean, if there had been an option for ACTUALLY creating co-adventurers (without bugging the game) and have romances available between two PCs, then I'd agree (sorta? I still wouldn't rule out NPCs for those who want to run one PC or simply want their multiple PCs to be other things than lovers). But we're literally just talking about what appears to be a mind bender trick. :]
I believe it was confrimmed by Larian somewhere in the past that we will be able to create whole party of adventurers since the beginning.
But maybe im wrong.
Anyway, the idea of romance between PC sounds interesting, but unprobable ... after all, PC cant even talk to each other except specific situations. :-/
The WotR companions feel like an actual party of friends and yet still manage to be incredibly diverse in motivations.
But in Baldur's Gate we are not suppose to be "actual party of friends" ... we are suppose to be "actual party of random people wich stick together, since they dont see much other choice".
companions and characters are actually interacting with each other, instead of only having things to say to the player.
This i would certainly welcome in BG-3 ...
But i believe we are aiming there ... after all, in previous Patches companions were just standing there, gazing to space, waiting like robots ... now they are doing something (reading books, fighting with githyanki box, etc.) ... so, i dare to hope for some action in this case.
That said, now that I think about it, the BG3 companions never really say anything (as in, having voiced lines) when you select them to move or act in combat, while the companions of most other cRPGs will. It doesn't sound like a major thing, but it's a small detail that goes a long way towards subtly fleshing out their personalities. For example, Ember from WotR has exploration dialogue that can range from cute innocent elf, to saying some profound things on the true nature of the world without herself realizing how much she's actually making sense. (The Pathfinder games are already known to go a step beyond most cRPGs in this category, by even having party banter during long rest sequences too.)
Honestly im quite glad they dont ...
- for one its oftern breaking fourth wall ...
- for two it may quite soon be anoying ...
I just recetly reinstalled Dragon Age: Origins ... and i quite fast find every little thing my brain "displaced"(is that corect word for forced forgeting?) and on my list of anoyances, this talking to player with every second comand is cearly on the top. Especialy if you choose Violent voice ...
"Can i get you ladder, so you can get off my back!" ... funny sentence, right? Well, not as much if you hear it every 20 freaking seconds!!! -_-
And even better, if your PC decided to have this "incredibly important" monologue to player, when you listen someone else talking ... that creates beautiful cacophony of mess, from wich you get litteraly nothing. -_-
BG3 may already be planning to rectify this, but I'm not that confident, as I'm fairly sure the DOS2 companions never actually said anything while fighting (besides shared generic lines like 'I shall yield to none!') or during general exploration either. The other part is that the devs are heavily hinting that we're going to be facing another DOS2 type situation where we end up losing everyone not in our active party at the end of Act 1 - and so the logic might be, why even invest in more inter-party dialogue if you're going to lose all but 3 of them fairly early in the game?
There are inter-party dialogues while you are exploring ...
I specificly remember Shadowheart asking Lae'zel about punishment for stealing, or killing in their culture. (certainly without any secondary intentions, *wink* *wink*)
Not me, I'm a girl and I like girls. But in games, I'll try different romances, that have nothing to do with preference, for role-playing purpose.
...
Maybe that is one of the reasons, some girls want to see a Halsin romance, he seems to be a bit more down to earth (of course I know, many like his looks too)
I just want to say that im simple Heterosexual Male ...
And even i want Halsin romanceable, since sometimes i simply create female character, and i dont want all of my female-characters to become lesbians, just bcs im not into guys.
And, although I'm not the audience target for them, I'm not really that impressed with the male companions. One is an evil asshole and the brooding vampire stereotype, that sadly became so common, since shows/books like Twilight, Vampire Diaries and True Blood became popular. The other two have a demon and a goddess as exes and they are clearly not over them... so not really interesting in my book.
...
And that is exactly the second reason ...
Even tho someone can find those male companions visualy atractive, they (for simmilar reason as Shadowheart) are completely unusable for me.
