Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please fix ascended Astarion romance scene

I’m a huge fan of ascended Astarion and his romance scene was always a big plus for finishing that particular quest line.

And now we get a box and a candle with huge censoring when other characters scenes are still hot or made hotter. Please change it back to how it was in patch 3.

I don't particularly care for the hotness, but I would love to know the reason why they decided to censor this when we have Minthara's scene in the same game.

Exactly! I’m not in it just for the smut, the thing that drew me to the game in the first place was the insane character development and story arcs. Having said that, I do appreciate a little steamy eye candy and it wasn’t that explicit to begin with.

I hope they at least change it back or make it better. Astarion’s romance arc seems to have taken a big hit with this patch.

Hi, just a thought (maybe bit off topic), but as apparently here are the fans of ascended Astarion, I will put my question in here.

Taking into consider non-ascended Astarion spawn burning in the end dock scene, I was just wondering... I never went the ascended road... so is there something similar for Tav who is made spawn? Do they have any 'sun issue' in the dock scene?

This sudden censorship is really puzzling and a step down. Bring back the original scene!


Tav is perfectly fine in the sun. Astarion's blood protects them. Earlier on he tells Tav not to stray too far from him to stay shielded.

Yes please! Here’s hoping the devs see these threads and take note of people logging feedback tickets so we can get it changed.

On top of this, Astarion's new skin texture is like if he gained 5% body fat. Is Tav's blood diabetic or what he lost his muscle definition. It was perfect before........I want my hot vampire ascendant back please

Just made an account today to echo this sentiment and express extreme disappointment with this change/bug in patch 4. The ascended romance scene has been built up for me for so long and getting to it during this patch was really underwhelming.

I hope the censorship was not purposeful, and I cannot imagine why it would be unless people (likely straight male players or just prudes) have complained about it. It would be stupid to listen to that kind of feedback for SEVERAL reasons, but if I may be so bold: Astarion fangirls/boys/theys are DRIVING the fandom and crazy success of this game. Those are the fans whose feedback should be listened to. Not only for fanservice purposes but for marketing reasons as well -- with that said I'm going to hold out hope that this ISN'T the case and it's just a camera angle bug that will be fixed soon. Along with kisses.

Anyway, I love you Larian - you spoiled us with such an amazing game and story that now it's hard not to be a brat about it when this happens! :p

Hahaha ain't that the truth? I was just working on my 3rd playthrough when i realized all the stuff I've complained about in other threads are all just because this game is so good already, I want it to live up to its potential.

That being said, please Larian, no stupid PG13 scenes for our sexy ascendant. We earned the original scene that makes the "on your knees, darling" moment so perfect. This isn't just because Astarion is the sexiest companion, but because it fits the dominant nature of the Ascendant. No censure for that man. He just agreed to make us his "dark consort." We want to relish in our poor decision-making.

Thank goodness I’m not alone in feeling like this! I feel that strongly about it that I logged a feedback with Larian simply asking them to change it back and I hope others are doing the same.

Together, hopefully we can get them to put the scene back in and the romance patches fixed (and definitely with more kisses)!

Oh good, I thought it was just me that noticed that! Well, it’s very much not good, but hopefully Larian will fix it.

I was one step away for the Ascension romance for my current playthrough and his abs changes really bothered me to a point I stopped playing. Luckily I just found there was a new mod someone (very kind) made to revert his pre-patch 4 texture and it worked great. Now I may continue with my playthrough. like c'mon our dom vampire ascendant deserves that sculpted abs

I'm all for how thirsty this thread is lol

Larian, please understand how seriously we take this. Sculpted abs are required.

It’s not my fault, Larian showed me a buffet and then decided I only deserved the salad!

Poor metaphor but the thirst is real ^^

Just have to add my voice to this. At first I was so happy that they fixed the body alignment in the ascendant scene, but then I was like "Did they censor this? Why??"

Who asked for less abs and a candle instead of hip thrusts? Also the new camera zoom makes the scene even less explicit as it already was. Bring the steaminess back, please!

Exactly! Larian, I hope you’re listening!!! *megaphone emoji*

I've also heard other people make mention of how Astarion doesn't get a more intimate kiss but everyone else did?

I mean, if anyone deserves more non-sexual intimacy, it's our complicated vampire. He needs to know affection isn't just a prelude to sex and, when I saw everyone got better kiss animations, I was hoping for Astarion's.

But its more PG bullshit. Not even PG, freakin Disney fairytales have more passionate kissing!

I'm very curious when/where they were getting the info we wanted better kiss animations. Because if it was from this forum, the thread that talks about it is directly citing Astarion's romance.

So my hope is that they're slowly adding more for everyone and that they just didn't have Astarion's figured out yet.

But guys, you roll back the steam from the sex scenes, you keep the zero energy kiss, and expect Astarion fans to what, just be okay that the sexiest character gets less heat than the freakin bear man?? (No hate to Halsin, I think he's cool.)

I 100% agree with everything said here. I do sometimes wonder (mostly jokingly!) if Larian just hates ascended Astarion (wasn't there a writer or someone who straight up said anyone who ascends him only sees him as a sex object or something?). I mean the romance is already kinda... it could be written a bit better (to be more emotionally manipulative, I mean, not to be better as in more wholesome or anything, and I say this as someone who writes dark romance for money so I tend to be critical of this stuff so ignore me if you want I'm not saying it's not fine as is because it is), and it does kinda feel like it's meant to be 'do this only on an evil (non-canon good) run' choice. It's been a while since I ascended him but I do remember finding Tav's dialogue options annoyingly limited in the way you react to Astarion, as if the writers decided that if you make choice x then you had to do it because either y or z. I tend to put it up to dark romance being tricky to write and only joke that Larian hates ascended!Astarion sometimes. But if they're actually censoring the actual culmination of the romance now... well. Maybe I should pull out my tinfoil hat.

I'm also hoping they'll add a better kiss animation for Astarion too. I know he's one of the less buggy characters so maybe they're just not prioritizing him (totally fine, fix the bugs first), but it'll be very weird if everyone else gets romance improvements and Astarion gets censorship. I mean Minthara's sex scene exists so I don't think Larian has a problem with, you know, sex being in their games.

If I remember correctly it was the same writer who wrote the Haarlep scene so don't take their comments on reasons for ascension too seriously.



Yeah, the dialogue after he asks you what you want is just... bad. You either demand things from him or get on his case. It's like there's no way your character may not want anything in exchange. Or like, to go for a midnight stroll and have him tell you about everything he can hear and see now, or whatever.[/quote]


He's been pretty buggy since Patch 3. And they had the time to airbrush his abs

I have 600+ hours in this game and had 5 playthroughs and every playthrough I romanced Astarion. non-ascended Astarion once and rest of them were all ascended Astarion. It's safe to say his personal quest line alone kept me wanting to play the game over and over again (aside from the game being awesome itself). What Patch 4 did to Astarion's ascended romance scene and his character model and the kisses animation had a triple-kill effect on my overall experience of my 6th playthru, which again I romanced Astarion. Now I'm just heart-broken, and registered an account here just to vent.