Originally Posted by Mizukun
As a Halsimp (solo romanced him twice now), I'm going to throw in my two cents:

I can't comment on Shadowheart much as I didn't romance her, but it feels like the writer was just trying to have fun with shipping his two characters together, but didn't account the emotional impact that it might have on some players (I'm not trying to bad mouth the writer, this is just what I legitimately believe). I think the easiest way to remedy this is to lock the interaction behind the poly relationship.

Also all this extreme Halsin hate makes me quite sad, honestly. The guy is super sweet and has layers to his personality other than "horny bear man" if you dig deep enough. Between having to deal with the curse and his guilt for a century, his loneliness (he has no family anymore), being forced into being a leader position he didn't want, his backstory with the drow, etc. It's no wonder he falls head over heels for the player when you literally (figuratively) sweep him off his feet and fix all those problems. UGH I just love this big ol' elf, man.
(And there is a datamined friendship route for him if you felt that he comes on too strongly)


ANYWAYS, I hope Larian tweaks his flags around in the future, including an alternate way to trigger Halsin's backstory reveal without having to do an orgy.

I read your post about Halsin, and yes, I understand that Halsin himself is not guilty of anything, it's just hard not to react to the video of your favorite character being dragged into this "open relationship". The problem is that someone had the "great idea" to ruin the game with these very "open relationships" (in reality there are other, more accurate words to describe this "act", but in the forum, of course, we should call it that). I just imagined what would happen if these "open relationships" were not in the game. Is there any other reason to feel any negativity towards Halsin? No. Not a single one. He really could have been a "good bear" with his good romance for those who like him. The rest of us would just be friends with him, some would like him more, some would be more indifferent, but it's unlikely that Halsin by himself could cause anyone to even want to kill him.

It's the same with brothels - we've seen brothels in many games (in The Witcher, every brothel worker has her own cutscene). Some are happy to go to brothels, some are not interested, but the idea of dragging your partner into a brothel, hurting him, or getting a "proposal" of this kind from your partner is... It's wrong. It's not about the 21+ rating anymore, it's about something else, much worse. Who needs that in the game? If there are such people, they can't be the majority of players, there are tons of genre specific videos for such people, there are all sorts of "erotic novels" and other products of this kind, why is it needed here?

And you can also imagine how great it would be if all the resources spent on "open relationships" the developers instead spent on other things in the game. Yes, the game is great, but there are a certain number of plot points that could have been improved. They could have, after all, made the existing romances in the game even deeper and more interesting, added an extra cutscene for each companion for their romance, for example. Everyone would be happy, there would be no resentment and aggression from players, and it certainly wouldn't affect sales badly, rather the opposite. Sometimes "new" is not always successful, and sometimes "old and proven", like "beautiful romance between a man and a woman", if you do it competently and interestingly (and in BG 3 it's done, there are amazing romances that don't need any threesomes) - it works great, players really like it.

One life, one love - until the world falls down.