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

I’m married more than a decade with the woman I love, but due to serious health issues (fixed now, no need to worry), the past years were rough and took a toll on my emotional state. The relationships in BG3 — yes, including the veiled sex scenes — helped me heal some injuries I suffered during that.

So I politely disagree. From my position Larian did this completely right and they earned every single award they got.

I totally agree, they earned every single award they got.

For me all the sex content has nothing to do with it. They made a damm good game. True now, true 25 years ago with BG1. That didn't need sex. For me in BG3 it downgraded the gameplay and immersion, even trying to keep it at a minimum.
Most of the sex and romance scenes are cringy as hell and look bad (to me!). I am very happy for you that you could find healing in it.

BG2 in 2001 saved my life in a time of my life were I contemplated suicide.

Maybe I'm missing something but I've never seen a graphic sex scene. It's all implied.
Of course I really haven't "romanced" anyone, except Shadowheart in one of my early play-thoughs.
And that was definitely "G" rated, in my estimation.

I watched one of the cut scenes of getting with the Devil Lady, and I just laughed. It was all talk.
She just described having your lust fulfilled, etc and yammer, yammer yammer.
This stuff is a joke, folks.
There's no sex in Balder's Gate!!!!

Then you must not be doing it right.

Damn!
That's what my wife said!!!!!

HAHA

The animation content itself is quite tame for an 18+ game, unless you lead a very sheltered life. It's not particularly different from, for example, the recent CD Projekt games, and really just follows the "romance" trajectory set by Bioware over the years; including that it is more amusing than arousing. I expect there will be mods on loverslab in time for those that want more explicit animations.

Where I found the game interactions lacking was ( as many have pointed out ) that most of the NPCs seemed to want to rip yours clothes off if you agreed with them once ( OK, exaggeration for effect ), which surprised me as the early access did not feel that way.

I appreciate that each NPC romance story is supposedly different, so I would expect the build-up dialog to feel more varied than it actually appeared in-game. There was some suggestion that the NPC "desperation" in the released game is a bug, which is possible. I will not replay the game until the frequent bug-fix releases settle down, maybe another 6 months, or after the formal mod tools are released.

I would also certainly agree with those that think act 3 was something of a damp squib. The early access hinted at a more complex political situation in the city than the released game provided. It may be that I simply missed a lot of act 3 content, but if so, it was not for lack of trying. Either I still have a lot to find, or the story was significantly simplified in an effort to actually ship it.

On the other hand, I don't think that the romance content was directly responsible for the lacklustre act 3, which was more of a design problem than a resource constraint. The romances are self-contained and orthogonal to the plot; you can ignore them and nothing really changes. If anything, the early access mania for Minthara and Halsin may have robbed us of one or more other NPCs, in particular a member of the small races that was datamined in early access.

All that is a long-winded way of saying, "no", I don't think the game is inherently over-sexualized, but it is buggy and has design issues that may make it feel that way to some players.

That’s quite possible. I’m in my second playthrough, and half the time I’m experiencing stuff I completely missed in my first playthrough.

Just realized that those are huge shoes for BG3 to step into — and that it is unlikely that it has a chance to ever really fit, because (outside all quality questions) it does not arrive at a time in your life where it can have the same effect. (at least I hope so)

And it’s great that BG2 had that impact for you!

There is a lot scratched though. According to datamined voicelines, Cazador for example had a bigger role, Raphael too. Maybe they expand it again in the definite edition. I'm all for political intrigues.

As for over sexualisation: At this point,I think Larian just does, what the fan base wants. When I see, that there is a 30 pages thread and more smaller threads about one kiss by a character, then you don't have to be a genius to know, what the people are after. And I say that judgement free. It's not my focus tbh ( I didn't even recognise, kisses were broken at one point), I want the political intrigues and a deeper character and story development, but if you look at social media, most of the posts are about romancing characters ( even the ones not romanceable like Gortash, Raphael, Kar'niss, Abdirak etc.) and lewd artwork and stuff. Which is totally ok, if that is, what people want. I still have enough that keeps me going, but hope for an act 3 update later on and think, it might be realistic for the definite edition, because it's a lot more work. Meanwhile the thirsty fan base gets their kisses, which are probably a lot easier to implement in patches and hotfixes.

I think there is no good reason to argue about this and most of the criticism is in bad faith (i.e., trolling or bigotry) because the supposedly disturbing content is easily avoided by the player. THE GAME HAS A NUDITY SETTING. SO IF YOU DON'T LIKE "PIXEL PORN" SET IT TO NO NUDITY.
Besides that any entertainment can be whatever the artist wants it to be, and people want to enjoy. Obviously enough people enjoy BG3 as it is that to say it is wrong in having any particular content makes no sense. What does make sense would be to suggest that the game give the player more explicit choice in settings to avoid content that they might not want to see, such as violence settings. It would make sensee to say that the game should have a no romance setting. I do think that would be an improvement. In effect, there should be a PG-13 version of the game, with a parental lock for mature content, for whoever wants it for their children. If my children were young I would appreciate that.
But I will also say that I personally enjoy the sexual elements of the game, and I am glad that I can choose which partners I want to see getting it on. To me it adds to the sense of immersion in the story and makes the characters more meaningful and less expendable. People can easily enjoy the fantasy of not only the sex, but the experience of defending the life of their sex partner. Although IRL I am a straight male I enjoy playing as a female character who fools around with female characters. I don't want to see Halsin or Gale naked, let alone having sex. But that's just me. I want to see beautiful female images if I am going to spend hundreds of hours in a game. But to each his own!
If anyone had read The Illiad and saw through the veiled homosexuality of Achilles and Patroclus would appreciate this. It doesn't have to be homosexual, but since women did not fight until recently those were the only battle romances that were possible, and no doubt they existed after Achilles.
If you don't like gay characters in your game or potential gay sex, well you can play other games.
Please .... just stop with the hate.

I had a romance with Karlagh, but let myself be seduced by Minthara. This broke Karkaghs heart. Damn I felt bad. Went back to a previous save and will stay with Karlagh.
If this was an oversexualised game, wouldn't it let you get a harem of lovers ?

In general, it might be my impression, but the scenes people seem to be gushing about are not the racey but the emotional ones, hugging Astarion in act 2, Gale's boat ride, looking at the sunrise with Lae'zel ...

(and of course it is this post that turned me into an old hand.)

Still no.

My impression as someone that has not played the game yet but was put off by the marketing/thirst posting initially, it was my perception before talking to some players that the game was overly sexualized. Which seemed really odd as the first two games were firmly in the non-graphic camp and romance content was both well written and something you had to choose to pursue.

Wanting to avoid a conversation like "I'm playing BG3" "Isn't that the game where you can f*** a bear?" just led me to ignore the game for a while.

Also as an aside I've never played a video game where two polygonal characters bumping uglies was remotely titillating, it's just awkward and kind of funny to watch.

Anyone purchasing this game hoping for a lot of sexual content would be disappointed. What sexual content there is in the game is entirely avoidable. So in my view the answer remains no.

1000 times yes! There is nothing more to argue about here.
Anyone who doesn't need sex can simply turn it off. But they don't, and continue to talk about the over-sexualization of the game. Why? Enjoy yourself and let others enjoy it.

The general sentiment from anti-nudity viewpoint is that the time and resources put into making full nude models, animating sex/kissing scenes, writing romance dialogues, implementing approval systems etc. Could have instead been spent on other aspects of the game, aspects that they care about instead of nudity. Thus, its mere existence detracts from the overall game quality even if they never actually interact with it.

Of course, such an argument is predicated on the fact that such resources would have actually been spent elsewhere had these things not existed. Which is a notion that is unsubstantiated. One can imagine that it would be the case, but we don't know.

There's also the argument that it shifts the direction of future games in a similar direction creating a world that focuses heavily on sex as opposed to x, y, or z.

Suddenly the world goes from providing what one would consider to be acceptable and appropriate entertainment to something that more closely resembles pornography.

*

Regarding whether or not the resources are placed elsewhere, that's not terribly relevant. Even if they aren't, the existence of this content impacts the entirety of the project, whether that be through the extension of release dates or the spiraling effects of bugs throughout.

In short, it's not a non-issue. I consider it to be absolutely reasonable in terms of feedback and critique.