We all have heard the controversy shortly before the release of BG3 when other game studios dissed BG3. But now that I look at the game and the reactions to it, I fear they were in some way right, but for different reasons.
BG3 obviously has problems. Act 3 is a mess, its full of bugs and even the story and characters are not all that great. But nothing of that matters. Why? Because nearly everyone is talking about sex and are simping for the companions. So what does that tell other developers? That they just need to add sex and characters specifically made for sex appeal and "attractiveness", checking off various preferences on a list and they are good. No need to invest much resources in writing and storytelling. This will sadly be the near future of RPGs. Sure there will still be PG13 RPGs without sex (although they too will likely create their NPCs in a way to allow for simping/thirsting) but the flagship AAA RPGs will probably all go into this direction.
Go ahead, the sex scenes don't bother me at all, in fact, I'm one of those who think that Larian should recycle scenes to make montages to go to sleep with your partner at the camp and have a romantic scene with your partner before the final battle, I think they are details that would give immersion because they are realistic behaviors. Having said this, I am concerned about the behavior of the community in relation to this, especially because these companies have investments, shareholders... who do not care about the quality of the result, they want to sell with the minimum investment. If the message that we consumers give is: you can give me an incomplete game and I can't stop saying that the game is perfect, how wonderful, because you give me a few sex scenes... in the future we are going to eat a lot of shit from games full of soft porn. And for the record, I hope they fix Baldur's sooner rather than later and it becomes the epic game it deserves to be, but right now it is not and we cannot forget it because of some erotic scenes (which, by the way, they have made these scenes very elegant, nothing scandalous).
I add that other games have had romances but it is the first that has such explicit romances, and with so many possibilities. Damn, you can fuck an illithid
Pretty much. The other companies see that they can release unfinished games just fine. They just need to add waifus and soft porn to the game and everyone will only talk about that.
But I disagree that the BG3 sex is elegant. Larian came to the same conclusion described above which is why sex was such a central feature in the marketing. From constantly mentioning it ("we used intimacy coordinators!"), to of course showing it to rile people up (bear sex) and of course how central sex is to the interaction with the companions and much dialoge is about romance and sex and not much else. Which is also why they changed their plans, abandoned what they worked on and made Halsin/Minthara companions as they saw people were thirsting for them. So Halsin became a sex addict to fuel that. And of course how easy it was to get sex already in act 1 (no, this was not a bug. This was intended so that EA players can have sex scenes)
Are we playing the same game? Sex was not at all central to interacting with the companions for me. The only one who propositioned me was Lae'Zel, and I put that down to her being a weird alien. The others flirted with me, but I rejected them. I romanced Shadowheart but tbh she seemed distracted for huge chunks of the time with her personal questt.
I swear I read what's being said in this thread and I feel like I'm seeing comments from another universe. Like, you guys are the *only ones* saying that "NOBODY IS PAYING ATTENTION TO THE BUGS BECAUSE SEX!!!" Meanwhile, there are complaints about the bugs in act 3 and other issues in *nearly every other forum here, in multiple threads.* Also seems bizarre to me that you're talking like this is a new thing. In fact it seems to me romances in games were MUCH more involved and in-depth than what BG3 offers 10-15 years ago, and yes this includes sex scenes. Somehow a bunch of other much more popular games included sex scenes and romancing companions without destroying the genre. I mean you DO know that Baldur's Gate 2 allowed you to romance companions, right? In a much more involved romance storyline than BG3 does? If I remember right I think one of the romance options even gets *pregnant*? It didn't have sex scenes, though. But DA:O, at the time considered the spiritual successor to Baldur's Gate, did.
Go to reddit, various fan forums, discords, ect. Bugs are mentioned here, but in other places, places where the Devs pay much more attention to, its all about memes and thirsting. That is especially obvious in places with a voting feature.
And already in EA Larian created hype with their sexual content and put it into overdrive in their last PFH. That hype created good reviews, as magazines have no interest to go against the hype, and all of BG3s problems faded into the background. A template if what other publishers will do in the future.
And no (mainstream) game did what BG3 did. BG2 had a few romances with selected companions, but in BG3 you can have sex with everyone and quite early. Its also not fade to black but acted out. Cyberpunk did beat BG3 with their genital selection (Not sure though how this looked in EA) and no game boasted having to use intimacy coordinators during their marketing or showed sex scenes, including sex with a bear, during a big, public marketing event.
