Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Story & Character Discussion Halsin Romance, Expectations and Obligatory Poly

Im gonna disagree here. Halsin can and does make sense as a companion, Larian just did it badly and sloppy.

There is an uptick in goblin activity near the grove due to the cult. He goes to investigate and gets captured. When you rescue Halsin he senses youre infected. Hes been held captive by the cult and learns there is traffic to and from moonrise, therefore moonrise is a hub of cult activity. Moonrise is also in his homeland, which is affected by a shadow curse. He concludes the two are related somehow and decides to join you. He helps you with the cult and your tadpole, you try to help him with the curse. After fighting ketheric he realizes whats going on has become much bigger than expected, as it did for everyone. Theres a bjgger threat now and it threatens the world as a whole, and he stays with you because youve become lovers/allies and he is also a good alligned hero character.

Its a decent and simple enough story and it makes sense as to why he would become a companion.

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Your reasoning for staying with the group could as well be used for every other npc, you've met and help - especially from the tiefling group and Barcus. Halsin is not that special - he jus thappen to be a buff elf.

No, I dont think so. Neither Barcus nor the Tieflings have direct ties to the curse or the cult, Halsin does. Larian maybe made it more complicated than it had to be but thats the crux of it.

Halsin wanting to save his homeland from the curse that is related to the cult of the absolute that is full of members with the same Ilithid tadpole we are infected with is more than enough for him to join us narratively. We can help him because we are not nunder the control of the absolute and he helps us in return. The tiefllngs and Barcus do not have a real direct reason to join us. Their goal isnt to stop the absolute or the shadow curse, they are just there by happenstance.

One issue I had in EA was that I couldn’t find any male love interests I liked because the male love interests were either evil (Astarion) or involved with other women (Gale and Wyll).

Not only that, but Gale was a manipulative jerk in many ways and Wyll was in a very dark place. Then Halsin shows up and is like, "Hi! I'm totally awesome. I'm also unattached. Can I help you fight this evil cult?" Uh, yes please, why aren't you in my party already!!

Tbf, Barcus could've been insanely cool, I feel like his personal quest would be tied well with overall story and some meaningful choices in the end of it.

Larian will definitely not add more content and lines of dialogue to Halsin. His VA wrote a farewell to the game. It seems to me that with the addition of the epilogue, the game is definitely finished and the only thing we will possibly get are bug fixes or a few new animations.

I've never been interested in having Halsin as a companion, and after reading some of this I'm even less interested. Having said that, I remember the frequent requests throughout EA for him to be added, and the excitement when it was announced. It does seem odd that they wrote him the way they did. Surely they must have known many would find it disappointing?

Seems like they finally added "don't be an ass, I ll move with you right now" line to his ending dialogue, huh.