I see what you're trying to say here, but I still think you're just wrong on this particular point. It's not that you can't remove the over the top violence because they're adventure or fighting games, but you can't remove the violence because of what those SPECIFIC game franchises are. That's their point of differentiation. There are other fighting games out there, but the thing that makes Mortal Kombat unique is that extreme violence. Take it away and you have just a generiic fighting game. Same with God of War. Take away the extreme violence and there's not much that's really special about it. At least the original games. The new games still have that gritty, intense violence as a fundamental part of them, but they do actually think about that violence more, and mete it out with more consideration. Each game was built from the ground up with violence as their focus, thinking about how to step up the violence and make it as impactful as possible at every point. Sex in BG3 isn't anywhere near as central to the identity of the game. If you took sex out of it entirely, then structurally the game really wouldn't feel that different. It's not going to leave the game blank and generic because you still have the breadth of choices, the deep systems and reactivity, the classes and ruleset, etc. Violence is built into every aspect of GoW and MK, sex and sexuality isn't built into every aspect of BG3. I think removing the violence from those games would be more akin to removing BG3s reactivity. That's the part of the game that Larian built everything in consideration of.
I think that if you took away ROMANCE from BG3, that would change the game far more fundamentally than if you took away sex from it, and I believe the two are connected, but not automatically so. Also, I just in general don't think Larian put that much thought into how they approached sexuality in this game. I don't think Larian put that much thought into a lot of stuff they put into the game. They seem to have a hard time saying no to ideas, and on every level of the game, they shoved stuff in because they thought it was cool without really considering if it would be an actual benefit.
Well I'm not surprised that you find my viewpoint wrong, because as stated, violence is viewed to be much more intrinsically linked and inseparable than sexuality, but to say it can't be removed is completely false. Does removing the over the top violence change the characters? No. Does it change the story? No. Does it change the combo and blocking system? No. The only thing the over the top violence does in MK is give you fatalities and xray moves. That's it. The same with GoW. You removed the over the top graphics, you're still have the exact same award winning narration, award winning soundtrack, award winning voice acting, and top tier combat, just without the grotesque finishers to give that brutal edge. And noticed how the sexualization is called out for BG3, but no one has address how BG3 goes into the grotesque violence area as well.
And yes, the romance and sexuality aspect of the game is every bit as central to BG3. You and others may not believe so, but there's a reason why one of the most talked about fixes requested in this game is fixes for and more hugs and kisses.
This conversation just highlights the conclusion that violence is viewed as much more necessary than sexuality, hell, I think I even remember reading about this in psychology class. I have to look it up.
