Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Was BG3 overly sexualized?

If you ARE interested in a romance with an NPC (and so of course into sex) the scenes in BG3 are NOT enough. I think: Still TO soft for a over 18 (!) game. If you are NOT interested ... JUST SAY NO!

I don't really see the problem here. I was searching all this "LOT OF SEX SCENES" in my game but ... I could not find them. I would be happy if I would find it. Honestly.


Seem to me, none of the people who are offended by the sex scenes have EVER played a game like (for example) Dragon Age before. Or she/he play a RPG games with a romance option for the first time ... Or are puritan / very young (here we must see: There is a huge difference between european people and for example US-americans). Or ... want clown-faces in the Steam forum (if they post a thread about this on Steam).

I keep seeing people fall back on the same arguments without seeming to understand a lot of the discussion. The actual scenes for many of us are not offensive, in fact none of it is about being offended. It is rather a visible effort to cheap push adolescent sexuality into the game for easy teen gamer interest. A system that BRRINGS nothing substantial to the game yet is pushed at hard. Do not think it has been impactful? Just look on this forum alone where the threads about various romantic and sexual woes are often more engaged than threads discussing how the lore was interpreted wrong, the game system has things missing and other things directly related to what the main "plot" of the RPG is supposed to be.

That's just another opinion in the same way mine is just another opinion. If you think the game is "overly sexualized" fine, but why push this narrative? The game is spectacular in many ways and arguably a hundred times better than the original which (in my opinion only) was fine but of its time. Why cant we just put the adult stuff aside and enjoy the magic as well as the silly romance stuff. It just looks like pushing an agenda again and again.

It sort of looks like this matter is "pushed hard" particularly by those who disapprove. On this forum at least.
And what do you mean with "substantial" ?
If the romance between Conan and Valeria were removed from the movie, they could still defeat Tulsa Doom. Nothing substantial changes storywise. But the experience would be substantially different from an artistic, emotional point of view.
You may see this primarily as a fighting game and not so much an RPG, but I think the romance elevates the story.. (BTW, I think there is much more noise on the forum about how the fights are not hard enough, than about the sex and nudity. The fights are hard enough for me, so I could consider the effort to increase difficulty useless and wasted. But I'm not complaining. You can never make the perfect game for everyone.)

I have to agree that the implementation, or visualisation of the romance scenes is not particularly good. Actually, the rare times we see a lewd scene, it sucks... 90% of the time. Also, I think there is not enough romance and sex. In places and times where it would really fit in, well, it is absent.

No I don't think this was done to attract adolescents. I think that perhaps the developers were unsure how far they could go with romance in this time and space. Afraid of backlash from certain cultures and communities perhaps. And so they made a half-baked thing. If it was made a generation ago with the same technology, the sex scenes might have been done properly.
But even the half-baked thing makes it better than what it would be without it, for me. ( BTW, 'm not an adolescent. I played AD&D in the early 1980's.)

Re: Marketing, was there anything much else aside of the bear scene? I think people get this the wrong way anyway. If this wouldn't have tied into the overall tagline of BG3 being a game "where you can do pretty much anything", it wouldn't have caught on as it did nearly as much. Sure, it's lulz, but it tied into the overall campaign, reaching some beyond gaming mags prior to release already. Like: "What? You can do even THAT?" "Um, yeah."

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2...eo-game-where-you-can-do-almost-anything

In terms of promoting tatas and catering to the young crowd, Larian have still a lot to learn though. For Origins, the bulk of the promotion can be summed up by: "Bloods and titties". They weren't even subtle about it. https://rpgwatch.com/forum/threads/...in-maxim-magazine-a-marketing-ploy.8783/ Not gonna linke the "sex & violence" trailer anymore, as it's too cringey. Maybe I've just missed the more obvious stuff when trying to avoid spoilers as to BG3. If not, one for the next time.

The game being "spectacular in many ways" is an opinion too, one that I utterly disagree with.

Oh, please, fellas. It's a forum. A forum is a place where you discuss opinions.

Mine is as follows:

They release this:



And I say, yes.

I played BG3 a lot. I always avoided having sex with my NPC companions. Only with Minthara did I do a round in my underpants.


I don't think it's generally wrong to have sex in the game. It would also be okay if the NPCs fell in love with each other. That would even have added RPG value.

Personally, however, I tend to leave out the sex stuff because it also has something to do with respect. And simply riveting everything that offers itself makes me lose respect, or is too cheap for me when I'm so directly and specifically hit on in this way.


Does BG3 have too much sex... hmm, hard to say.

Basically, it's not important to me. But there was one thing I didn't like so much. That everyone really got involved with everyone.

It didn't matter whether they were men or women, the NPCs were inclined towards everything.

That was one of the weak points of BG3 in terms of content and seemed false and contrived. Nobody would have minded if one of the characters had been attracted to both sexes, but it seemed abnormal.


I can absolutely do without all the relationship boxes in this type of RPG. I wouldn't miss it. In a game like this, I'm not interested in a real-life simulation of relationships and sex. The focus here is on adventure, classes and combat, as well as the beautiful world. If such a game then has a high replayability value through class variations and different NPC behavior, other locations, etc., all the better.

I thought BG3's romance would be mature when I got EA a few years ago, but it's probably on the immature side of RPGs I've played (excluding Skyrim, because that doesn't count).

Then the game is not for you. Time to move on.

I saw this thread on page 1 a while ago and was going to respond, but then the forum was down and I forgot all about it. I hope bumping after one and a half months isn't considered thread necromancy. ^^

(The following is meant as constructive criticism / food for thought. The game is mesmerizing overall. No hard feelings, just my humble opinions, etc.)

The critique in the opening post and some of the early replies speak to me. (I haven't read much more of the thread; ain't gonna wade through 12 pages.) I just turned off nudity and sex scenes immediately when starting my first play-through, because the marketing had made it fairly clear that this aspect of the game is mostly just a gimmick/thirst-trap. If I want to play a game that's heavy on lore, story, and adventure, and immerse myself in its world, then such gimmicky sex scenes merely serve as an awkward distraction from that. Also, even if I wanted to watch characters in a video game having some adult sleepy time, the graphics of BG3 don't seem suitable for it, based on the few clips I've seen. It's almost uncanny valley territory.

That said, I think even the non-sexual parts of romance were not well done at all, but I don't know if I can fault the writers for that, because there's a fundamental issue here that's probably near impossible to solve:

If you want to have convincing, high-quality writing for a character with a rich personality, and have romance/sexuality be part of the writing, then you HAVE to give the character a sexual orientation, preferences, history, and so on. But in doing so, you will end up greatly disappointing a lot of players. Maybe I really wanted to romance Wyll with my young male elf Tav, but comes out I can't, because he's only interested in women, specifically women around his age who will live a human life-span, so they can grow old together. (That's very Wyll, isn't it?) Or maybe I really wanted to be Shadowheart's first sweetheart (there's a pun there somewhere...) but comes out this is her third serious relationship, or she's divorced, or something. ^^

So what are the writers to do? Firstly, they have to make every single character "Tavsexual," meaning they are devoid of an orientation and preferences, and instead unconditionally interested in the player character. This is already limiting in terms of writing when it comes to any one character, and becomes worse when applied to *every* companion at camp. At that point, we really get into "harem anime" or "erotic visual novel" territory, which is part of what makes the game feel overly sexualized. If you like that type of media, great! But it's not everyone's cup of tea. And also, suspension of disbelief is out the window: how convenient that everyone happens to be interested in my main character.

Secondly, though this is a weaker point, you'll want to make the relationship history of the characters nebulous to some degree, so everyone can have their fantasy. I say this is a weaker point because it doesn't actually apply to a lot of characters in BG3: Gale was in a devoted relationship with a certain someone; Lae'zel and Minthara are obviously, uh, quite experienced; Astarion has had... tragic things happen, which I guess overshadows anything else. And so on. So, props to the game for not making the characters *that* devoid of a personal history. But what about Shadowheart, for example? She's been with Shar since childhood, and maybe they strictly control relationships or something, since it's a cult of sorts. Might Astarion have had a devoted lover before being captured, or was he already a playboy of sorts? Karlach has definitely had some action before Avernus, but has she ever been in a serious relationship? These are some things you might be very curious about in a real relationship, but you don't get to ask such detailed questions in the game.

TL;DR: You can't write fully fleshed-out characters with a detailed personality, novel style, and yet give the player total freedom in forming a relationship with any of them. It's sadly an unavoidable dilemma. Personally, I would have preferred characters with a fully fleshed-out personality, even if it means my main character may end up being rejected. The devs decided to go the other way, to give maximum player freedom, which may have been the right choice for various reasons, but unfortunately it makes this aspect of the game feel gimmicky, and perhaps overly sexualized.

The writers didn't have to. They, or rather Larian, choose to in order to sell the game for thirsting.

Look for example to Rogue Trader. The equivalent to Shadowheart would be Sister Argenta. Good looking (depending on taste) early female companion.

And she can't be romanced. Not a single bit. Because that would not fit her character (and there are many people who are disappointed by that).

Owlcat prioritises story and immersion, you know the thing RPGs depend on.
Larian throws those core values of RPGs out of the window and instead goes to cheap sex sales to people that do not care about RPGs. And they made sure people knew it by putting bear sex into a large promo event.

And its a shame that BG3 sold so much better than Rogue Trader by sacrificing core values so sell porn to the masses.

This is probably the biggest joke I've run up on. The whole thing is laughable, and really plays no part in the game.
I can see how some have tried to advertise it as ""sex scenes" to generate interest, but there's nothing to it.
The closest I've come is that scene where you share a glass of wine with Shadowheart and the scenes fades to "the next morning".

While I generally agree, it also very much depends on who you romance.

Do you seriously think that Larian, the game maker, has created real scenes for the characters that are real, X-rated sex scenes?
I don't believe that.

While I can't judge that because I haven't seen all romances, some are definitely more explicit than others. Some companions also seem to have a tamer and a more elaborate path the romance scenes can take.

I guess nobody remembers all the mods that were made for Skyrim.
Those got out of hand!!!!

I would say the game is a bit overly sexual due to how poorly tacked on it is since most of it does not feel organic or natural as well as how diverse it is with the amount of fetishes it contains to the point where it is a selling point to some people out there. There is also a strong positive correlation of Google Trends with Baldur's Gate 3 and Halsin's infamous scene around late July-August.

In fact, his relevance in Act 3 is so nonexistent he is only known for that scene and a beastiality + incest scene that half of your companions want in on a fivesome with. Simply put, any controversial and negative valence will result in getting the most attention to a product or event. When the game first came out, people mostly only talked about the sex as well to the point where the story was equal and even second to the sexual aspects of the game. Sex is definitely a big part of the game and would prefer if that budget went to fixing their bugs and paying their employees better.

The game allows you to design your dream waifu and lets you have sex with her later on (or the Squid whichever you prefer).

It was popularised with a bear sex scene.

Halsin was added in response to horny memes thirsting over him.

There are "sex speed runs" for this game on Youtube.

Minthara rewards you with a sex scene for being a naughty boy.

Main companions are obviously designed with sex appeal in mind (no older characters, dwarfs etc.) and they all have a romance path (why?).

You can have sex with two demons just for the sake of it.

The game is riddled with sexual innuendo.

I definitely found it weird and very noticeable. I'm not a prude but I just don't see the point of all of this constant in your face sexual content. Is this how the writers express eroticism? Is it just for the "wow they let you do that?" comedic effect? Is it "fan service" because people expect it from RPGs? To me, it just sets a weird tone that ridicules and undermines what could have otherwise been promising romances. It also doesn't help that a lot of the romance scenes and dialogues mostly seem like they're wish-fulfilment written by a teenager. I thought video game companies these days could do better than a linear arc that ends with you getting laid.

I don't know what gave you that impression. Given that literally nothing has ever done any different.

I'm not sure if companies are simply incapable of making better romances, or they simply don't care to because people eat up the "Linear arc > Get laid" formula. Though given general writing I'd put my money on the former...

Of course, part of the issue is the severe lack of actual attempts to do things. Hopefully BG3 and CP2077 will get companies over the "Look, nudity!" shock value and allow developers to simply get back to actually trying to make better relationship content.