Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General The Inevitable Romance Poll

Thanks you guys for the clarification.

Actually a bit stunned that regardless of sample size, consistently over half of voters intend to romance Shadowheart or Karlach when there are eight total options.

Sometimes a third intend to romance Shadowheart.

I’m willing to assume some of this is due to the forum playerbase skewing somewhat more female-attracted than male-attracted, but I’m curious about this specific concentration and the apparent comparable disinterest in Lae’zel, Minthara, Wyll, and Gale.

Could also indicative of the playerbase split between male and female players as well. Different games are more popular with different demographics. But this forum(or any forum for that matter, even Steam) will always only be a small sample size...millions of people will buy and play this game and the vast majority of those will never go to any forums or vote on any polls about the game, etc. They'll just play it, maybe talk about it to a few friends if they want to try coop and that's it. I also think most will play this single player. Larian will probably have a better idea as they will get statistics about what players chose directly from the game as people play it.

But Shadowheart is an absolute sweetheart, she will most likely be by far the most popular among male players. Those who go down the more evil paths may also grow an appreciation for Minthara. But I think Karlach is skewed by the livestream. I don't think she'll be that popular with the more casual players. With the ladies(at least the ones who didn't read up the lore of how sus he is) I imagine Gale as he is a charmer and probably Halsin as well.

It's also a single choice poll.

Some people may intend to try Shadowheart on the first play, then see how the story progresses with Lae'zel, etc...

And I would expect Minthara to be lower on a single choice poll because of the conditional requirement involved.

If this had been a multiple choice poll, I think we'd see a rise in popularity of some of the companions.

Wyll and Gale both have existing problematic relationships with women, so it doesn’t surprise me that they didn’t get as many votes. I am glad a few voted for Wyll, though. It would be sad if no one did!

You're stunned that the one 'good' female, and the other tsundere female are popular?

I guess the Minthara and Gale fans were just an incredibly vocal minority?

The poll left Mizora off the list too...

Jackpot

Unfortunately, I'm currently in the camp of "none of the above". I'm super excited for the game, but I don't find any of the companions from early access to be interesting from a romance perspective. Maybe Karlach will appeal?

Can I make a request for Morrigan or Leliana?

If you guide Shaddowheart towards evil she does become quite a bit like Morrigan...less sass but with all of the goth edginess.

Minthara has more of the liveliness and attitude to her but less goth edginess lol.

Frankly I like them both quite a lot.

I find that Shadowheart lacks that shallow charisma (i.e., good looks) that I found appealing in Morrigan.

Weird, because I think Shadowheart looks a lot better. She also has a lot more character to her while I found Morrigan to be a far shallower sass machine. Morrigan always appeared as though she wore makeup and skimpier clothing, not sure if maybe that's what you found more attractive?

I think it is hard to call any DAO characters attractive. That was an ugly game when it released, and it has definitely not aged well.

Perhaps.

I wish I could change Shadowheart's hair selection. Not sure why it bothers me so much. I imagine the modding community will come up with something.

It already has. All you have to do is wait for the modders to update to release version.

She gets a new hair style after a big story moment

I didn't participate in the poll, since I can't decide between Shadowheart and Karlach. I would romance Lae'zel too, but she usually doesn't like me and I'm pretty sure, she will leave me in full game.

You really gotta stop spamming that spoiler in every thread.

You don't know, if it is Shadowheart, who changes hairstyles after a big story moment. I'm pretty sure, all the companions have their big story moments and eitehr one of them could change their hair.

Minsc will get a new hair style.