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

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 mire interesting characters, see Rogue Trader or Wrath.

Even the sexually open character in Kingmaker and up more interesting than the BG3 ones in that regard as their everything goes attitude contrasts with other characters while in BG3 everyone us basically the same.

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 us 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!"