So on point too with the Mass Effect: Andromeda reference. It's like sex has become equivalent to getting close to companions. BG3 just couldn't have moments where party members enjoyed each other's company, and had a good time without it being horny. I've said it before, but Mass Effect has such better companion relationships and it's not simply because it's over three games. That example from ME:A shows it perfectly. Mass Effect wasn't afraid to have party building moments that weren't just titillation.
I think what more recent BioWare games have done well (maybe from DA2 onwards?) that BG3 hasn't pulled off is help build a feeling that the whole team is coming together, rather than just companions building a relationship of whatever kind with our PC. It's not that Larian haven't tried at all: there's the banter though somehow that's not really working for me, and I do like that all the party members will have something to say about the progression of each others' companion quests. I just finished Astarion's today, and found it genuinely moving: from what he actually did and how he responded, to how he talked to my PC about it afterward, to what some of the other party members said about his choice.
But while the latter was probably the most strongly yet I've felt that the companions are coming to have relationships with each other, it's still not the same as actually seeing that properly in action. I think we need more and better banter, more conversations about what to do out in the world, and more companion interjections in dialogue with NPCs. But I'd also love it if, on ending the day, I'd sometimes get to see companions chatting to one another, even if it's not full cutscenes but just conversations we can eavesdrop on like between missions on the Normandy in ME3.
I also do agree BioWare can do great individual friendships. However, while for me BG3 hasn’t yet managed anything like, for example the friendships my “canon” Shepard has with Liara and Wrex, I also don’t think that’s anything to do with sex in BG3. In fact, somehow my BG3 PC has ended up with relationships with a number of her party that feel to me more real and stronger than the relationship she has with Wyll, with whom she has an active romance. But I’d agree they’re still not at the level of BioWare at their best, though for me that’s a very high bar. BioWare are just good at writing companions, particularly characters they and their VAs have had the opportunity to develop over a number of years. I also wonder if it’s partly to do with the challenges of writing fulfilling emotional relationships of any kind when one half of the relationship could be anyone. I do feel that some of the strongest companion relationships in BioWare games come in games where our protagonist is fairly narrowly defined, such as DA2 and the Mass Effect games.
Anyway, apologies. A lot of this is probably venturing off topic. But I suspect that’s at least partly because the topic of what it would take to have fulfilling friendships in the game is only tangentially related to romance and sexual content, and could probably do with its own thread anyway.
"You may call it 'nonsense' if you like, but I've heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as sensible as a dictionary!"
