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?
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...
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.
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.
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.
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?
