Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Re: the gore/smut

The trailer made me feel really uncomfortable watching. There i said it.

Now I just hope they double down on it. I would love to see a face ripper and have the characters you use it on actually have NO FACE. Fully detailed/zoomable/photo mode.
Hope the sex scenes are even more crazy than BG3.
I hope they go so nuts with everything and show off the crazy messed up world of Divinity but actually with the budget they've always wanted. I hope we see ripped off arms, crazy build variety, and other wacky fun shit that no ones ever done before.

Basically all the stuff DOS2 had in writing i want to see actually on my screen this time and MORE.

Just because something made me feel uncomfortable doesnt mean i dont want more of it lol. Hope you dont cave to the squirmy assholes on X.

PS: add lightning mages with plate armor ill forever be your bitch Larian and Swen.

Would be nice to see the company go completely unfiltered.

Though, realistically, they'll have to tone things down to avoid AO ratings which limit the sales of the game. Even more so than 18+ already does, which is why most games always tone down to 15+. Places like Japan outright prohibit AO media, to say nothing of many storefronts refusing to stock AO rated media (There was that semi-recent game that got notoriety for its AO rating and thus multi-country ban... Callisto Protocol I think it was?).

Such is the nature of media. It always needs to be censored by someone.

Agreed, the trailer made a lingering impact on me, I felt uncomfortable the whole day after it dropped. I thought it ingenious though in terms of presentation, because playing this at an event like Game Awards have kinda reflected on how we glorify violence as species. If you think about it, basically the whole Game Awards hall was cheering after they were shown such brutal and violent footage (parallel to the crowd from the trailer itself), all it took was a Larian Logo. The whole premise gave it the deeper meaning, kinda. A very cool topic to explore narratively in-game as well.

A thought came to me, does divinity universe have Hell as a realm? I think not and I wonder if what we see is the birth of Hell out of the human sin? It kinda vibes with "the gods are dead" and "new powers stir" thing, also the statue I think is called a hellstone or something?

I know there is Nemesis as a demon plane but I think Hell is not a thing in the universe as of now.

I get what youre saying but the japan thing is so ridiculous. They literally have hentai where a girl gets all her limbs cut off and raped by a horse in an apartment building lol. They are gore galore and lolicon and shit but AO game is banned? lmao what a joke reminds me of that 20 year old 4chan meme where its like "you can show a girl getting decapitated but GOD FORBID YOU DONT CENCOR THE CLIT"

I on the other hand want a well written game with a complex story and deep characters.

But as BG3 was none of that and got all its success from waifus and bear sex and Larian wants to make the game even "bigger" I fear it will go into the opposite direction and the content will be neglected even more in favor of smut and gore.

Again.... that is not what larian does or what BG3 was like. Did you play the game all the way through? Because that's a very small part of the game. It may have helped the marketing.... but that's not why the game is successful, or why it sold well.... it's maybe 20% of the reason at best.

I don't care for smut or gore in either way: I don't need it, but I don't make a fuss about it and I do hope, that Larian will find a better path between listening to community and visualising their own vision this time. I love BG3 dearly, but some storylines and characters suffered from fandom interference quite a lot.

I liked the atmosphere of the trailer, like I said, love folk horror and mythology and the nod to film classics here was undisputable. My first thought was indeed The Wicker Man and I was hyped. I was surprised that that trailer was shown at the game awards, but it got me curious and interested.
Again, it's not the gore or the sex I care for, is story, atmosphere and in this case the wonderful music.

And in this specific scene (like again in The Wicker Man) the ritual seemed to be a kind of fertility/thanksgiving ritual with a dark twist, so I think the gore was fitting, the sex scene was grotesque on purpose (it seemed more like a desperate mass frenzy)

It is a danger in making it too gory and lose the essence of a game. Gore should be a cherry on top, imo. If it's there all the time then it quickly get very tiresome. And it has to have a meaning with what is going on in the game. I really liked the way they did it in Silent Hill f during the ritual. It was also quite painful to watch.

Whatever this game ends up as I probably will wait until they are completely done with all the patches so I know what game I'm getting by the end. And to be sure there is no surprise rewrites (accidental or otherwise) of any characters.

In a regular playthrough of BG3 of 60-100 hours you would encounter perhaps 10 minutes of on screen smut. Out of a 1000+ hours in the game I have spent less than 1 hour watching sex or smut on the screen. I appreciate that the intimacy brings more layers to the characters and adds to their personality, but I think it generates a very disproportionate amount of discourse and most of that discourse simply boils down to that people like and enjoy different things and if you don't enjoy it, you can just say "no thanks, I'll pass".

Thats a very short sighted view.

The need for smut and "romance" has driven a lot of BG3s design.
From the companion selection that is limited to attractive people (no dwarves, other short races or dragonborn), their shallow personalities that are always willing, Halsin as a whole being made into a companion because of EA players thirsting for him with "sex" being his only personality trait to the post game support which was mire focused on adding kisses than to fix some of the glaring plot holes of the game.
And then Larian even abandoned their artistic integrity when they caved to the simps and changed the Astarion kiss scene.

So for those "10 minutes" as you call them and outsized amount if design resources were used, to the detriment of other, more important aspects of the game.

I do hope this game gives you and others what you have been craving so you can stop banging on about it.

Guys, the disgusting stuff in the trailer WAS the entire point. They even say in the beginning of the trailer: "For mature audiences only".

To everyone clutching their pearls over the smut/gore/vomit: Larian is playing you like a fiddle and it's free marketing for them and all their games, including the upcoming Divinity.

And much to my delight, I might add, bc I have played all their games since DOS, and this is how Larian is, and why I love them. Larian never talks down to their audience: they make Mature games for Mature audiences, and they will never "dumb it down" or "sanitize", or be "intellectually condescending", so please no one start acting all sanctimonious.

Besides... if you don't like the way Larian does things.... why in the name of Zeus are you even here?

The argument about resources still boils down to that "I would have wanted them to dedicate resources to stuff that I enjoy, and not stuff that other people enjoy." I am not saying that the opinions or discussions aren't valid, I am saying that for the amount of content and impact it has, there is a disproportionate amount of discourse around it, which may be the reason it has also had that impact on where the resources have been allocated as you point out. In the end, if I don't enjoy the monk class, I can just not play with a monk, same as if I don't enjoy sex with Halsin, I can just not have sex with him. In both cases, resources will have been allocated to something which I don't use, but you don't see the same level of discourse around classes or other stuff.

Except, it's not just an argument about resources.

It's an argument about how the focus on such a feature has rammifications on overall design.

- Having all companions being "Pretty" meaning there's no diversity. No depth to companions, no interesting stories to explore from a companion perspective - No dragonborn means you don't get any exposition about how this race fits into the world. No small races means no interactions with how a small race companion might react to say the Duergar or Ironhand Gnomes.

Compare this to DOS2, where you did have the Red Prince, Beast and one of the best characters in the game, Fane. These weren't made with sex appeal in mind, they were just characters from the universe who were written in. But they had depth that made them actually interesting beyond "They make me feel funny in my loins"

- This push for sex is how they assassinated Halsin. People were actually intrigued by Halsin as a character. So they wanted him as a companion in order to learn more about him. But due to this focus on sex, he was made into his entire character being about how he's a massive sex pest and nothing more.

So instead of getting an actual interesting character to explore, one who's a high ranking Druid with a strong connection to the Shadow-Cursed Lands... We get Mr Freaky the Sex Machine...

This is different to "Just don't interact with sex" and comparisons to the Monk class, because it outright changes design of the game outside of "Do you select this option?"

If you don't interact with sex, you still have to suffer from the lack of companion diversity. If you don't interact with sex, you still get saddled with a cardboard cutout in the shape of Halsin instead of an actual character.

Then of course, there's the secondary argument which is about caving to demands of players. Wyll was rewritten from someone actually interesting into the boring nothingburger with no personal impetus in his own story we got. Halsin was as mentioned assassinated when he was suddenly shifted into becoming a companion. Astarion instead of having proper consequences from the bad decision of having him ascend and how that affects his shitty personality (That people want to ignore because he's sexy) had a change to remove it.

Instead of getting to experience what the developers intended, the vision they had of the world and its story... We got garbage that was made entirely to please gooners.

These arguments aren't necessarily "Anti-sex" and advocating that sex cannot exist within the game. But rather that development and design shouldn't revolve around sex. Which harkens back to my initial comment on this thread about the developers being "Unfiltered"

Having sex and gore isn't necessarily bad. So long as it's only used as is necessary and is integrated naturally into the story.

If there is naturally occurring romance options in the game, that naturally leads to a sexual encounter, then having a depiction of the sex can exist instead of a stupid fade to black or worse, the clothed dry-humping crap from Bioware titles (Whereby they find the scene to be important enough to include, but not important enough to not treat it like an absolute joke)

Just like if there is naturally occuring scenes of gore, having it actually depicted is fine. A character like Kniles the Flenser is all about gore and he fits into the world perfectly, having his insanity properly depicted would make sense.

The issue arises when gore and sex start to dictate beyond their station. When characters start being designed because they have to be compatible with standard sexual attraction (AKA: They have to be "Pretty" both designwise and also race wise). Or if you add random BS just as an excuse for gore for gore's sake rather than it being a poignant expression of a key story moment.

With of course, being "Unfiltered" meaning that we see what the developers envisioned. Not what a subsection of players desired, whether they're gooners, prudes or splatterhouse enthusiasts. Since yes, that subsection of players might be pleased by being pandered to... But it leaves everyone else having to deal with what is essentially fanfiction.

I agree with most of your points. And was what I also tried to point out in my previous comment. Gore for gore sake, or sex for sex sake do not make good games. It doesn't mean there can be none, but it has to be intertwined so it is fun, or at least interesting to play. I think about the game Agony for instance. I have not played it, but boy it flopped.

I do think Larians decisions that aren't changed in the final game (BG3) should be taken as what they wanted. At least we can not know otherwise unless something is said from the devs themselves.

I am curious what this "unfiltered" Larian will look like. I hope they still think about the plot and player enjoyment.

The sex scene in the trailer is censored on Youtube btw. Also hope they removed the child actor before the trailer started!

Speaking of lengthy discourse...

There aren't any gooners in here asking for more slutty elf sex or freaky companions. All we have is a game trailer, we don't even know if the game will have companions or romance yet (fair to say it is an educated guess that it will). And already there are lengthy conversations directed towards audiences that enjoy different content when it comes to smut and intimacy. Maybe the whole game will be a dating sim, that would be a shame because I don't enjoy dating sims, but there's only so much conversation worth having around the fact.

I really liked what i saw in the trailer, the whole making gods out of idols and death rituals feels very much at home for Divinity.

I hope Larian only shows us these kinds of situations in the game's trailer. Being an adult doesn't mean we have to watch sex scenes every time. Brutality can be adjusted in options.

Uhh... We literally do. The OP made a thread directly asking for more gore/smut. With them saying they:



Which prominently features a woman having sex with a lizard man.

I just hope the game has great cinematics. Heroic, emotional, with reasonable but not excessive sex and violence. Yes, I know "excessive" imeans different things to different people. The operation table in BG3's House of Healing sits around my personal limit over which I find the view no longer enjoyable. I'm especially hoping for good adventuring scenes, scenes that make you laugh and some that take you by the throat emotionally.

I started to play Clair Obscur : Expedition 33, and the prologue ends with a speech from one of the expedition organisers to encourage members and stay-behinders, and set the expedition off on its way. I could not but think back to the speech scene in the final act of BG3 when Beor (if I remember the name correctly) speechess to the allies that are left to resist the netherbrain -- and had to shake my head. That 3 year old BG3 scene now looks really lame compared to this "modern" E33 speech scene. (All IMO, of course) So, just hoping they make the ingame cinematics at least of that same quality allover.

https://i.imgur.com/Uz3oCTt.mp4

I agree with papercut_ninja, that the sex scenes in BG3 are not over the top and you can decide to not have any in your game if you like.

I also agree with the person who said that sex and romance was the reason for a lack of diversity in the companion cast. We should have gotten Helia the halfling (she even had voiced dialogue) and we got Halsin the (yet another) elf. And I think that attarction played a role here. Most companions turned out to be interesting anyway. Though I hope for more diversity in the Divinity game.


I think gore and smut should not be the focus, but a tool for a well written story, if needed. That scene in the trailer was a pretty effective way to deal with both of them and I'm pretty sure, that the game will not be a gore fest or a sex game, so I'm not too worried.

I'm going to bet the trailers does represent the tone but does not represent the actual "gore" and "smut" in the game.

Unless they replaced their entire writing rooster, "Larian's Whimsy" is here to stay.

BG3 had wonderful characters with great stories and was as complex as you could get with so many choices and varied paths. Maybe you should think about why you are focused on the bear sex.

In all this discussion, it's noticeable that the people who have a problem with this are filling the forums with these threads and turning a few encounters into an entire game. It's tiresome and I hope Larian sticks to his plans.
I want attractive companions, or at least ones that are still visually appealing. It's fine and the success of BG3 proved Larian right.

I heavily disagree. BG3 had shallow characters as each of them had to be easy to get playersexuals.

That limited both the possible characters, no old companions, no short ones and their stories and characters to all being not comitted and looking.

Other rpgs which are less focused on romance and thirsting thus can have much more interesting characters, see Rogue Trader or Wrath.

Even the sexually open character in Kingmaker are more interesting than the BG3 ones in that regard as their everything goes attitude contrasts with other characters while in BG3 everyone is basically the same while also fitting their story and personality while in BG3 everyone has to be playersexuals regardless if it fits the character or not.

The choices are also pretty rpg standard with them either being a railroad or having a good and evil path decided by a single conversation and the evil oath usually pretty undeveloped. Here too other rpgs have some mire complex examples like good Wenduang.

The focus on the bear sex is because it represents BG3s failure very well. Focusing on sexual spectacle to draw in the casual audience while sacrificing core part of rpgs, story and characters, for it.

And I will remain wary if Larian continues to go down that route.


Strange, considering this forum is more filled with threads by people who ask for more gore/smut....

No, I've noticed that these discussions are constantly being reopened and dragged out over a few potential encounters.
Hopefully, Larian won't be swayed and will do what they think is right.

I think too much adult content will negatively impact Larian's gaming experience. See what happens after the game trailer is shown (also here on the forum), (but Larian's marketing works to the studio's advantage).
This is what happened with Baldur's Gate 3, when people complained about romance and the romantic scenes (which were just funny and nothing showed). Remember, it's like a settings slider. You can adjust it too far in one direction.
Adulthood is not about being able to see adult content every minute of your life.

I agree that the lack of variety with regards to companions is a weakness. If they can't make interesting companions that aren't conventionally attractive, I consider that a shortcoming. But one weakness or shortcoming doesn't tank the entire game, it's just a flaw in an otherwise great production. But when a flaw involves romance or sex, it seems to get blown way out of proportion.

I am sure Divinity will have its flaws, creators make mistakes. But I can easily look past a few flaws if the overall quality is great.

I rather have the "flaw" of not having sex scenes with everyone than the flaw of only having conventional attractive companions with with very weak stories so all of them are all romanceable and playersexuals.

And I doubt that Larian will satisfy both goals because with BG3 they created their image of the smut studio.

I don't think it gets blown out of proportion.

I think people understate the effects it has.

Like, I've already covered how a focus on sex has lead to lack of variety in companions, it also lead to the character assassination of Halsin who became just a walking sex pest as a result.

But there are other things affected too, like there have always been complaints about how "Thirsty" companions are and how it's hard to simply be friends with companions without them trying to get into your bed because dialogues are overall made with romance in mind (Yes, you can opt to turn people down... But this is still an effect, where in order to get to know a companion you have to keep going through the song and dance of them becoming attracted to you and you then turning them down)

With the main concern being how much of a shift this is from prior Larian titles.

If we look at something like the Witcher games, then sex was a feature of all of the games. It was actually at its peak during the first game where sexual encounters earned you cards depicting the naked woman you slept with. It has always been a feature in the game and it's always been a side aspect rather than a main focus. Even in CDPR's other title, Cyberpunk 2077, then sex remains a very much minor aspect of the game and has little impact on anything besides the romance scenes and a few random sexual encounters you can have with joytoys or BD's, it's all opt-in and has no effect on the NPC's outside of specifically pursuing the romance (Perhaps it affected their design, with all the LI's being pretty but it's harder to say with the lack of ugly main characters overall).

But with Larian games... It's never been a thing in any game until BG3. Where it suddenly starts taking up some of the main focus. With marketing focusing on Bear Sex, with characters being designed around sexual compatibility (Both in terms of being "Normal and pretty" in appearance as well as them being generally pre-disposed to come onto you so long as you're not a complete dick to them) and much of the post-release support being focused around sex and romance.

This 0-100 turn from Larian is disconcerting. Even more so when these things are also incredibly popular aspects of BG3, with Astarion and his romance being THE most discussed aspect of the game. Meaning, if Larian is like most other developers and looking to make something successful... They'd double down on this sexual focus that is the popular part of BG3 and make their new games focus on it too (Potentially even more so), when it shouldn't be the focus of the game, it should be a side aspect.

I somewhat doubt it. BG3 also had oddly gory and uncomfortable announcement CGI trailer, and the final game was a cheeky/horny comedy sketch.

For now I assume it is Larian's looking to get headlines and eyeballs, rather then any expression of artistic intent. Violence and sex is an easy sell.

One update gave us 12 entirely new subclasses and another gave us a full epilogue scene. You think that was something they just worked with on the side while they mainly focused on kiss animations?

If your experience that you got from the game was that the main focus was sex, romance and aesthetics, then I won't take that impression away from you. We experience things differently. But my takeaway was vastly different, where it at most created a few jarring moments if I didn't go out of my way to actively seek things out.

The mere existence of sex and thirsty companions did not ruin the entire game and allowing it to loom over the entire development cycle over several years for the next game gives it far too much relevance than it actually had to me. It's time to let go of Astarion's kiss animations and Halsin's unwanted advances, they are not part of the next game. I am sure they will make new mistakes to fuel further drama, but it won't be the same ones.

Do i think people sending in their christmas lists of smut and crackfic content that they want to see in the next game is very premature and widely misses the mark on what the game development should focus on?
Yes
Am I overly concerned that Larian takes note at this point?
No

Yet this kind of player/customer thirst got us Halsin as companion which was originally planned to stay and NPC and not come with you into act 3.

Ahh yes, because 2 updates out of 6 gave us features that weren't updates to kisses or romance surely means that romance wasn't a high priority in their development...


Yes, because you completely discount the concessions made in favour of facilitating sex.

The actual sex doesn't make up a lot of the content. But its existence has had impacts outside of simply the scenes that you can encounter. Namely in how companions were presented, their lack of diversity, their playersexual nature and their overall thirst.


It may not have "Ruined" the game, but it certainly made it worse than it could have been.

The developers made concessions in the designs to facilitate sex. This means that everyone is impacted by the inclusion of sex even if they don't actively engage with it, by the very nature of the concessions made.

Now, yes, they're making a new game. But guess what?

They went after BG as an IP because it was popular.

They made changes in EA to further increase the presence of sex (I.e. Halsin) based off player feedback.

They continued to work in player feedback in regards to romances in future updates.

So what are the chances that they completely ignore the massively popular aspect of BG3 that is its sexual content/romances and player wishes for more sexual content for their new game?

Not to mention that they also chose to include sex in the reveal trailer.

Of course it would be foolish to assume that Larian is going to abandon the massive impact that fan interaction with romance and sex in the form of fanart, fan fiction and discussions had on the wider appeal for the game.

That doesn't mean that they are completely blind or oblivious to the fact that they need a solid game underneath to sustain it. Most people, even gooners, are not going to grind through hours of boring writing and frustrating encounters and game mechanics for a few minutes of smut. People were perhaps drawn in by hearing about the sexy elf vampire, but they got into the story and learned to enjoy the mechanics and character progression of a pretty deep crpg for a casual gamer, because those things were solid, engaging and fun.

As someone who enjoy the more tactical and classic crpg mechanics, I didn't feel like the developers abandoned me to exclusively cater to a different audience. There were things that was certainly aimed at other audiences for sure, but also stuff like honor mode for those of us who wanted more strategic gameplay to sink our teeth into. The fact that every decision they made was not made with my specific tastes and interests in mind does not mean that I was ignored, just that other audiences were also included.

I see it differently.

BG3 had and still has some massive problems. The initial state had many bugs, the evil path was practically nonexistant at release it has many plot holes and leftover artifacts from when Larian rewrote the story in the last minute and the writing is at best average when you compare it to for example the Owlcat games. Several mechanics like trading and party control were and still are pretty bad and Larian didn't even bother to add an epilogue.

Together with the already mentioned lack of diversity among companions and their rather bland and "romance ready" personalities.

Yet it was an instant and massive success, not only because of the name BG but also in large parts because it attracted people with bear sex and waifu like companions. So the priorities were not really on the core parts of RPGs, be it mechanics or story.

Sure, Larian could decide that despite not being the main reason for BG3s success to heavily invest in mechanics, story and writing. Or they can double down on what made BG3 successful and only invest in the other parts till they are "good enough"

DOS2 had similar problems and there, instead of adding more romance content, Larian reworked the last act to improve it.
Only that for BG3 the priorities for post game support were clearly different to match the expectations of the large group of new players that were drawn in by bear sex. And they will have similar expectations for Divinity, especially when you consider the even here the first threads that sprung up were about having equally or more smut than BG3.

I see where you are coming from, and many of the flaws you bring up are things that I agree the game could have improved upon.

But I think you are making it very simplistic when you attribute all that to the inclusion of sex and romance for appeal to other audiences. I have watched many different people play the game. I have seen people who went into the game with the mindset of playing it like a dating simulator and then watching them become fully locked in fighting Myrkul, going through all the different combinations they have at their disposal in their inventory and character sheet to figure out how to win the fight and be absolutely euphoric at the success. Or becoming so emotional when speaking to Karlach after defeating Gortash that they have to take a moment and leave the room. Saying that these people did not care or weren't invested in anything else in the game feels like gatekeeping the experience against other audiences. You find a flaw in the game and rather than looking at many different reasons why it ended up that way in the game, the disappointment is directed towards an external group - it is because of "those" people. I don't think it is as simple as that, but I share your sentiment that there were mistakes and flaws and that it could have played a part in it.

I also hope that they are sensible, and don't go overboard with making the game appeal to any specific audience, be it the people that share my preferred playstyle or any other audience.

And it should work both ways of course. If I want more diverse companions with less focus on aesthetics I shouldn't be met with an attitude of "get out my elf-dating simulator, we don't want any ugly shorties in here!"

Its funny cuz a day or two after i made this thread. Swen in a gamespot interview or one of the others he did simultaneously was like "divinity actually had all this dark stuff but it was text based now its actually on the screen" which is exactly what i wrote in OP so im glad he said that and im glad its the route its going. I wouldve loved to have seen that good witch that went crazy naked on a cross in act 2 in CGI up close, i would love to see a face ripper ACTUALLY rip a face off and we see it instead of just text "his face ripped off" i want to SEE the stuff that was only TEXT in DOS 2. PLEASE MAKE IT HAPPEN SWEN AND CO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The problem wasn't that it was text based, look for example what Owlcat or old Bioware could do with just text, but that the older games were full of Larian Whimsy™ which drowned out all the dark elements.

I am all for adult rating. I think most who even played BG3 were adult. The only thing I would presume is some sort of filter / toggle or, simply a notice if they don't have a filter giving people chance to accept or not.

We need SOME games that are aimed only at an adult audience and I'm really glad to see Larian push that and its boundries again. If you develop something for a mixed audiance, you get Disney or close. Lets see what they come with.

I am admittedly more interested in the gore and horror elements over the sexual stuff, though I am not completely opposed to the latter. I just hope there's some classic traditional romance on offer rather than pure, unfiltered sleaze.

I imagine a lot of the gore will take the form of environmental storytelling, Divinity Original Sin: II was particularly great for that, especially within Fort Joy.

I think you can be almost sure about that. I find sex interesting, incentive and necessary to a certain degree but I bet it will be only a very small part of the relations/romances and the rest. It will be a combat oriented story-driven cRPG in the end, not a porno.