Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Was BG3 overly sexualized?

It was animated. Someone, multiple someone's had to do that.

Which means rigging mock ups, iterating on those mock ups with consultation, fixing up animations by hand, rendering. Someone has to decide what the sex scene is even going to be about and what is said during it which means writers, voice acting directors, sound teams, etc are involved as well. This is like pretending bad CGI does not still cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and hundreds of manhours to make. Because it does. Larian did not triple in size and spend 100 million for no reason. And despite being done badly, they are ones who boasted of hiring intimacy coordinators for it.

The exact same people and man hours making a sex scene with the twins could have been used to animate responses to the Durge dying. Except cheaper, since the intimacy coordinators aren't needed.

Did the twins have a sex scene? When I went for it literally the screen just went black and left everything implied.

Well i Never Saw too.. i My Self never went with then..
But i saw people posting on Youtube and never shows Anything.. its like that..
always went Black and yu can only Read the Lines.. like yu Say its only Implied.. yu dont Get to See..
(or maybe its a Bug this Game has So Many since 3.0)

another Thing i always Felt Weird its the Lack of Options Regarding to This..
Yu can Only go with the Two of then, two of then with your partner
or Halsin Weirdo comes in to Play and Force his way to a 5 some (creepy Dude.)
But why i cant Have a Treesome with only the Lady or the Dude then ?
yu can go with only Her or the Dude.. but no option for 3 with only one of then.. weird..
Like they Want yu to do Single, Tree Some with the 2 of then or 4 some and 5 some.. ok game ok.. thats Weird as Hell..
even Withcer 3 i could Choooose at least 10 ladys in the Brothel to Bang if i want and Have 4 of then around the world.
Here yu only have this 2 dudes and the Driad in the Uper Floor but yu dont actually Bang Her.. yu get a Buff its just That..
i never went back on her to see if would open something new too after Getting the Buff.

Arcanum had a brothel and a sheep.

The twin scene is a black screen with text and the narrator voice. Not erotic, not arousing or sexy whatsoever.
I actually agree that the so-called sex-scenes could be removed entirely without loss to the game. Not because they're useless but because they're badly done. I mentioned the romantic scene with the Dryad in the circus. That was well done, without sex. They could have done more scenes like this and keep a chivalric or platonic romance throughout .
My opposition to the so-called oversexualisation is that sex has always been a part of sword and sorcery and the mythology on which it is based. I think that 90% of fantasy art shows sexy people. So I think it is a natural part of a fantasy book, movie, art or game. This game is IMO badly sexualised, not oversexualised.

Okay, NOW I can understand what your point is, and the word "oversexualized" might not be the right term, I agree.

"thirsty" , "immature", something else maybe.

I'm probably conflating it with Harleep tbh, but you get the idea.

Your argument still seems to boil down to "Sex exists"

Your problem with Minthara is that "Sex exists" and has been a functioning feature of her path.

Which is still hardly "Overly sexualized" it's at best mismanagement of resources. IF we consider the notion that the team that works on gameplay elements is the same team that works on dialogue and sex scenes.

It's also hardly the "Reward for an evil playthrough" since you can do an evil playthrough and... Not romance Minthara. It's again, only an optional piece of content for that playthrough, not the end-all-be-all of such a run.

There's plenty on offer for evil playthroughs. Many interesting unique items are only available in evil runs. The way the story plays out in later acts is different when the Tieflings don't survive and if you side with the Absolute...


How doesn't it work?

In the grand scheme of things, it IS a minor part of the game (It spans a handful of scenes among dozens of hours of gameplay) and it is avoidable so those that don't wish to partake of it don't HAVE to.

Which is in contrast to games that are "Overly sexualized" where sex is unavoidable and a much larger part of the overall play experience.


I do have to consider whether this detriment was due to the inclusion of sex as a whole or the amount of sex included, or rather the implementation or choreography of the sex. Since if it was simply poorly implemented, it's not "Overly sexualized" it's just "Sexualized poorly"

As "Overly sexualized" and "Poor implementation of sex" are completely different things.

Overly sexualized is referring to quantity. While implementation is referring to the quality.


Probably because there are many posters that are not making it clear that what they're against is the way the sex was portrayed, rather than the inclusion of sex as a whole.

A lot of the arguments about the "Overly sexualized" nature seem to suggest that they feel the handful of scenes we get in the game are somehow everywhere and it's too much to handle and it's basically a porn game.

While the crux of the issue is that the sex and moreover relationships as a whole, haven't been implemented in a particularly good way. But this is nothing new and is not particularly impacted by Larian's choice to include full nudity. For example, Dragon Age and Mass Effect have both featured terrible relationships and awkward sex scenes... But apparently Larian's so much worse because the models are nude instead of wearing underwear?

Of which this scenario of RPG's having terrible relationship systems, isn't helped by everyone ignoring the core problem in favour of crying about sex scenes. I recall even back in DA:O where no-one was talking about the terrible relationships and was more concerned with talking about the god awful sex scenes. In Mass Effect the main issues being brought up was "Why can't I bang daddy Garrus?" as opposed to again, the terrible relationships.

Which is why I suggest that RPG developers look into Dating Sims and AI Girlfriend apps. Since the first step is to create better and deeper relationships within games, THEN we can focus on making sure any sex scenes appropriate. Since with or without sex, the genre still fails hard in creating interesting and fulfilling character relationships.

Otherwise, we might as well just say to cut relationships from RPG's entirely and just focus on making more in depth gameplay and world building since that would be a far better use of resources than half-baked shallow relationship systems.

Person A made a million dollars last month.

Person B says: Person A made a million dollars last month while all their employees don't have a living wage.

Does Person B's argument "boil down to" Person A made a million dollars last month.

If you like Person A? Yes

It seems that you and I are talking about different things entirely. You are focusing on the sex (animated) scenes themselves while I'm talking about the overall sexual feel or overreliance of sexual writing within the game and comapanion/npc stories. (I do think certain companions have been ruined or made less because of a mindset that just adding sex/sexual situations was thought to be hot with the disregard of what came before/was established. Again, not the sex itself but the implementation of everything sexual surrounding it.)

Sexualized - Made sexual, given sexual associations. So it doesn't necessarily mean just sex.

Like I mentioned in my post quoting Fylimar, I lost interest in discussing these things and romances as a whole to be honest with you. Maybe I could spend and hour or two having a conversation with someone going into more detail seeing how I would be forced to be present within the moment but with the forums and their reliance on text I find myself drifting off mid writing because I just don't find it as interesting as I did before. I kinda regret diving into this topic a bit lol.

You might be right tho, the word that was used might not be appropriate to the situation at hand. But when I look at the game and everything sexual within it I cant shake this feeling of I don't know, disgust.(Might be too strong a word for it.)

From Larians braggadocious interviews about romances and them being taken seriously to the poor excuse of 'deep and romantic' writing that we ended up getting that is more in line with a cheap erotica I really cant take it seriously.

Every companion being playersexual - as if their main reason for existing is to fulfill the players need to have sex (People are even begging for Jaheira and Minsc to be romancable ffs.) / Companions jumping at the thought of trying to bed you / Bestiality which by the way isn't confined to one 'funny' scene (One of the weirdest interactions I've had around this is that I was called homophobic for saying that having sex with animals was bad/wrong, just what?!) / Necrophilia / Cheating (Out of nowhere a character does a 180 just because the writer thought it would be spicy) etc. So, no. Not everything is about being explicit and seeing two pixels bang. (To me.)

And Larian seems to be catering to this crowd.

As for the 'just ignore it' thing. Not to beat our good ol' dead horse Halsin but he's the perfect example of a character being over-sexualized to the point that he infects others companions and other parts of the story (You can't resolve the issue surrounding the shadow curse/shadowlands without him). And despite all of that the majority of people either ignore him or outright kill him but their issue still persists.

I would say that BG3 is more sexual than other mainstream RPGs but I think the fanbase or a part of the games fanbase has made it worse. To quote Roy Batty 'I've seen things, you people wouldn't believe.' I'm just waiting for this games Tali sweat guy to pop up and we come full circle.


Oh I hope fucking not lol. That would be horrible, games shouldn't become waifu/husbando simulators for lonely people.


This I do agree with and maybe in the future we will see writing improve but until then I rather see the boring BioWare style romances/friendships opposed to what we ended up getting in BG3.


I agree with this even more. I like romances even tho they aren't the most important thing that I look for in a RPG, I do think they have a place within games (some games) seeing how they can add to the story and companion/npc depth but I rather have a well crafted game with no romances than a hole ridden unfinished mess that masks it behind 'Look you can bang these people' or 'You can have an orgy with them' you get the point.

Now I feel like I'm rambling and If I misunderstood your point I blame it on being tired from my night flight.

It would only be horrible if they just copy/pasted from the bad Dating Sims and AI Girlfriend apps into the game.

"Looking into" simply means seeing how such things thrive based on creating a relationship with a character. These things create a feeling of a relationship being developed, which can help developers think about how to implement better writing and mechanics to their own relationship content (Less "Here have this gift/dialogue option to receive love" and more nuance and character development)

Of course, the key would be looking at GOOD Dating Sims. Ones that aren't just about obtaining waifus. But that have more depth and platonic paths.

Since, these are the best iteration of relationships in the video game market.

General point - "overly" is a relative term and a definition of "sexualised" would have helped.

I'm with those who think the sexual aspects are poorly handled and I also think that BG3 is one of the most over-hyped games ever.

Broadly speaking, Europeans generally have a more 'grown up' and liberal view of things sexual but here we have European Larian obviously targetting the American adolescent market.

This might be slightly off topic, but not really. I'm in the Saw subreddit, because I love horror and for some reason the Saw franchise, despite being a bit too brutal. I just love the story, characters and moral dilemmas there. There is currently an ongoing discussion, because after the latest movie, there are tons of new fans now writing. And they are thirsty, they thirst after some of the protagonists ( all serial killers, mind you), some of the other characters and the Saw group now looks a bit similar like our Character& Story section, only instead of Astarion, Karlach, Shadowheart... they lust after Hoffmann, Amanda, Strahm , Adam ... And now I'm afraid, that Twisted Pictures will pull a Larian and explore Hoffmans sex life in the next movie.
What I want to say is, the sexualisation is everywhere, even in brutal and dark horror movies. I'm ok with it to certain point, but I feel it's getting a bit out of hand.

I'm perfectly fine with a game having some stronger sexual themes, especially if used in a meaningful way.

When Lae'zel threw herself almost instantly at my Tav during my very first playthrough, I was fine with it. She's an alien with weird customs and socialization, so her acting like that was plausible. My opinion started to change when every other companion turned out to behave exactly like the horny gith. Every interaction with them was about me trying to turn them down as politely as possible, because I was afraid that they might leave the party for good. A creepy experience for sure. The game would have been better if it followed the "less is more" approach when it comes to romances. All party members want you, but none of those "relationships" amounts to anything more than a cutscene. Even worse, being in a "relationship" with someone makes many scenes feel dissonant and off, because your supposed partner acts as if you weren't together.

I also like the dryad circus scene!

This thread has been a delight, I had expected a shite show. Thank you to all of you for showing gamers can have a discussion on topic and not devolve instantly in a sewer.

Sounds very similar to what happened in BG3 except that Larian actively tried to attract them.
I wonder who this demographic is.

Menopause made me asexual, so it all just kind of grates on me these days. I still very much appreciate romance, though.

However, I've been playing computer RPGs since the late 1990's and even then sex wasn't a drawing point for me unless the characters were very, very well developed. (No pun intended.) In the old BG games it was just theatre of the mind, and it didn't take away anything from the story. And I remember Mass Effect getting some real flack for it, but I feel that those scenes are extremely well done and well deserved in that game.

I mean, Larian brags about "show, not tell" and yet these are some of the most graphic sex scenes in any game. And the development of deep friendships is ignored in favor of the sex, which is very disappointing.

I am still amazed by the double standard of western civilization.
Murdering thousands of people in the most gruesome way imaginable? Heh that is fine, give it to Timmy 10y/o he will like that.
Having a very soft suggestive scene after working dozen of hours for it? We wont let that happen in this mature rated game! Relationships should stop at hand holding at most.