Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Latest News Community Update #7 - Romance & Companionship

New community update is about! Love is in the air!

Go read it now!

Wow...those storyboards are...very explicit. If those scenes are going in the game then an M rating is definitely not enough...

My thoughts exactly. Those noodles were nasty… joking of course, but still. This is turning out to be a very adult game.

Frankly, I was hoping for more of a fading into the shadows and waking up together the next morning kind of romance, you know 90s movies style but instead we get the whole Bioware treatment with the cringy 3D animations and all.

Of course, I don’t want to be shitty about this. I can’t wait to play this game and I won’t pretend that I will never try out the in-game romances. Still, I really loved the Divinity Original Sin 2 style narrated story episodes for the romances, little silly bit still charming, though I do understand while in this game that is a no go (completely different atmosphere and level of immersion).

Why though? It looks like more time was spent on making sure anyone can fuck anyone than was spent on actual writing or character development.

I know now what kinds of gamers work at Larian. The kinds who care more about fucking goblins for the lols than about the adventure itself.

I hate playing D&D with people like that, and I can guarantee I will hate this game now.

This isn't D&D. This is pre teen masturbatory soap opera trash.

This kind of cringe garbage makes me REALLY not want this game now. It keeps looking worse and worse with every update.

I just don't get it. At least D:OS2 kept it classy with the narration. I at least hope it's not as easy to accidentally stumble into it like it was divinity.

Definitely sounds bitter.

I'm curious how you've determined how much time was spent on "actual writing or character development"

Of course since you've determined you don't want the game, hanging around this forum would indicate what about you?

Hey hey now, let's at least be friendly if romancing eachother isn't on the table 🙈

I suppose it's fair to remind that all of these updates are just targeted focus news on particular subjects, it doesn't mean either one of them has gotten more resources or attention at the expense of something else. Sometimes, we can have both the cake and the icing - Perhaps having enjoyable character development and writing, and in depth cinematics of its events playing out is possible. This is what any of us likely would hope to see be the case in the end, anyway.

I for one am not ready to jump to any conclusions until October 6th.

38 years of gaming and a degree in critical literary theory give me enough experience to know exactly the kind of colour-by-numbers romance that has been shoe horned in to this game.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire did the same thing and got the same reaction from me. It was more difficult to AVOID sleeping with everything that moved than anything else.

It is bad, cheap writing and lowers the quality of this game to a Danielle Steele novella.

It's on the game to prove my experiential expectations wrong, not the other way around.

So im rather new to the concept of gaming forums but is this a place to ask the developers questions? Or do they just look at the forums and fellow fans can answer questions if they deem fit to? Anyways I know some people are fond of this stuff but will there be a way to disable nudity or skip the more spicy cutscenes. I personally find them rather gross.

Well, by default it does actually mean that other areas of the game got fewer resources since resources have been taken up to create detailed sex scenes...because they would have had more resources if Larian decided not to create explicit sex scenes. I'll never understand why a D&D video game feels the need to spend so much time and money on mature, adult content like this when it adds nothing to the game. Alluding to it, as other games have done, is all that is needed; if you want to see the explicit content you might as well just go lookup up internet porn...at least its free. This is the first time i've actually seen Larian make a decision about a game that has me seriously considering supporting Larian anymore.

it's generally a place for the community to discuss the game, and provide feedback in a way that the developers can easily access it. so asking a question like this probably won't get a direct dev response, but it's good to ask anyway because it helps Larian see what people think about these things and determine how to proceed with the information.

Okay, I started the negativity, so sorry for that...

I think the decision has to do more with the shift in tone Larian wants to emphasize with this title that BG3 is an adult game without the silliness of which a lot of people accused their Divinity franchise.

To be frank, I was expecting something like that to be in the game, with the whole campsite stuff and all, so I am not that surprised they chose to do the romance cinematics.

It still can be a great game with great character writing even if they included somewhat explicit cinematics. I mean Dragon Age: Origins is one of my all-time favourite titles and it had both cringy sex scenes and great companions and stories connected to their personal journeys.

On the brighter side, I am really curious about the whole in party conflict how it will play out between the companions.

I am also interested what happens to the companions whom you leave behind at the end of the Act 1, do they die, like in Divinity 2, or they turn into mindflayers or something… I can’t wait to find out.

The update is not only about romance, there are a lot of interesting relationship dynamics there.

I just wish that it is not exclusively during Camp time.

Other thing is that Gale and Shadow Heart don't look too evil for me as far as we have seen.

I'm still optimistic and I like the direction they are going. I (*cough*, *hack*) remember when Bioware first announced that they were going to include romances and I thought worst idea, ever. this is going to be trolling gold , this will sink the game And I was wrong. Turned out to be my favorite part of the game and -- as you can see from the many, many BG2 romance mods that's also true for many BG2 fans.

Now I do hope you can still have an intimate friendship path with NPCs that you don't want to bang. My favorite 'romance' ever was Durance from PoE1 -- we never made the beast with two backs but he confided in me and my decisions determined his fate.

Yeah, I'm hoping for redemption / corruption paths with each character. Shadowheart is having a crisis of faith, we are starting a temple of Selune and I'm wondering if she can be turned to the light.

personally im also more of a fade to black fan.
video game sex scenes ae almost guaranteed to be cringe.

Still, i like the commitment to make characters that arent Lawfull Good Human Fighters feel like they belong intot he story.

Somehow alot of CRPGs, the majority id argue, are terrible at this.
Not just for gnomes but also for more obvious fantasy types like dwarves.
Theres a lot of games featuring grumpy dwarves, but very few games that represent the protagonist beeing one very well.

Much more so for truly out there characters

also

>beeing mad about romance
why.
half the reason why people seem to remember baldurs gate is because they wanted to bone the hot evil elf...

I have never seen a video game sex scene that didn’t make me cringe in embarrassment. If explicit sex scenes are a mandatory part of romance subplots then I’ll probably forgo them entirely.

At least somebody out there is going to get to see their wild half-orc on halfling fetish depicted in a AAA game for the first time.

Larian, if you could have a PG toggle feature where during the sex scenes the narrator just describes the intimacy DOS2 style while characters just stand in front of the camera looking incredulous and embarrassed I’ll love you forever. I’ll buy two copies of the game.

Nope, not mad about romance. I'm upset with sexually explicit content.

I doubt we're going to be seeing any 'peepees' and 'weewees', so I wouldn't call it sexually explicit. Personally, the whole romance thing, sexually charged or not, is of no significance to me whatsoever, and from my own worldview, resources could have been devoted to other more important things. But that's me. Plenty of other people probably love this stuff and find it to be a significant element to the overall appeal of the game.

Evil characters don’t have to be explicitly evil, but Swen did say that the characters in EA or all either evil or neutral.

Yes, everyone gets their own opinion and what they want out of the game. But if sexual content is a "significant element to the overall appeal of the game" to someone then I'm sure someone could refer them to other games where that is supposed to be a bigger part of the game. IMO, this is Dungeons & Dragons and sexual content shouldn't even be on the list of things to put in the game. Playing P&P it's easy and quick to allude to explicit content and be done with it. This, however, is a video game and Larian has opted to put significant resources towards creating sexual content that adds nothing to the game that the classic fade-out didn't also add. Now if I buy the game, i'm really only getting a % of the total content because I don't care for watching sex scenes.

People play differently. One of the groups I played with was entirely made up of couples. At one point the DM decided to replace the lovers with doppelgangers to see if we could spot the difference between the character and the double. "I'm going to try and seduce the guard!" was a frequent ploy that usually produced lots of laughter and blushing. Yeah, we 'faded to black' and didn't require details but that group did have romances in pen and paper version of D&D.

Hey, I agree that this stuff really doesn't seem like it belongs in D&D. I think it's overdone in movies and TV as well. Just doesn't seem necessary, and is often boring. But Larian doesn't seem to me like the sort of company who would willy-nilly decide to throw so much time into something that they haven't vetted. If they didn't and it continues to be received the way it has in this thread, they'll lose more than any of us.

I like a good relationship system in an RPG (I wish they would say more n how it is to work), don't care for romance itself (prove me wrong Larian! - not by making a digital porn video though) but I couldn't peeled my eyes from the video hoping for another look at this magnificent beauty:

It's interesting how reactions to this update seem to be the opposite of how people have reacted to this game thus far.

For me as a strong critic, this was a good update, maybe even an awesome update. Just to get the sex issue out of the way, my attitude on romances in cRPGs is very absolute: either go all the way and include everything (so NO CHEESY fade to black) or else leave romances out altogether. I greatly value realism even in my games.

But this update had so much more. It was a great update about decisions, choices, and consequences. And that stuff is the heart and soul of the RPG experience for me. I LOVE that they phrased this entire discussion as being about RELATIONSHIPS, with romances being just one part of it all. Relationships is what it ought to be all about, including a great variety of different types of relationships, both between your PC and NPCs as well as among NPCs with each other. And, there was a lot in there about how your custom character will not be shortchanged relative to the Origin characters in this department. This means a lot to me as someone who will not ever play an Origin character. Heck they even revealed that at some point one of your companions may not survive because of reactions between you and that companion, as in you kill them. Awesome! The evil companions must DIE!! For someone like me who very strongly favors the outside-of-combat roleplaying parts of a cRPG, this was a hugely meaningful update.

The one thing that left me a bit confused/concerned was this from the Q&A:
Will companions be interchangeable during long rest?
Yes, at the start of your adventure your recruited companions will be at camp when not in the adventuring party, and can be swapped in and out at camp. Just like friends in real life! After the first act however you are going to have to commit, also just like in real life.

That very last sentence is what has me concerned.

It means that like in DOS2, after Act 1 your party is fixed and cannot be changed.

But hey, "it's not DOS3!" ...

It just means that the story will be fixed and linear like in DOS. You will basically be on rails through the acts with "large" maps that you can explore, but not return to after you complete each act.

Seriously?! Because if this is the case, that would be awful.

+1


Why does it concern you? Personally, I dislike the Get-them-all feel of most modern RPGs - while BG1&2 didn't exactly block companions you did adventure with the party, I did generally stick to certain party composition. I still do so in modern RPGs (PoEs Kingmaker) with other guys only joining for quests. I find it somewhat cheap that one can experience "everything" while not actually not using companions. I didn't really know Kana, Hiravias or Takehu until I traveled with them for the majority of the game. I don't mind having to commit more.

That's one of the things I liked in D:OS2, though they could have done something more interesting with it. It sounds good to me on paper - we have one chapter to explore companions available to us and form the party for the adventure. And if companions are good enough then subsequent playthrough would feel more different, then "you got everyone" approach. It would be cool though, if non picked comanions would still be in the game in some form - perhaps join enemies or get turned into mindflayers and such.

Sure, but if Swen didn't tell me I would be thinking they were all good from what we've seen so far.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say that it means that only 4 of the total x characters are going to successfully extract their tadpoles.

my thoughts exactly. pure contrivance, just like the source collars.

this game is pound for pound turning in to an upgraded DOS2.

It does resemble, but the plot here is far better.

My concern is the camp for now. Are we gonna be teleported from the Underdark or a cavern everytime you take a long rest? Or you will not be able to take long rests in Underdark?

we actually don't know if the plot is better. it's the setting that's better, and all of that is pre-written for them.

I can see where you're coming from on this, but I just don't like it. I see it as a limit on my roleplaying, and I don't care for anything that limits my roleplaying. I think it ultimately comes down to whether you are big into replaying this game. People who expect they will replay this game a lot will probably not care. But those gamers who typically don't replay a game a lot, or at all, will likely not be happy. For my part, I also value greatly the notion of being able to tailor my squad for the mission at hand.

If this ends up being how the game is set up, the importance of being able to increase party size to six becomes even more huge.

I imagine that there must be different camp “biomes,” so I’m not too worried about that.

And the whole pet companions travel with you to a new biome? Guess we will find out soon.

Fair enough. I for one prefer for the mission to be tailored to my squad - I am fine with certain quests or paths becoming unavailable.

Hi people,

I just watched the Romance community update. It seems that Larian do take a lot of care to implement romance as a narrative and cinematic feature.
They want players to care about the characters and impact that such relations have on the story.

But I want to suggest something that could take that impact to the next level - gameplay.
What if characters who are in love could gain a treat that would enable them to react to things that happen in the fight? Perhaps even automatically?
For example, Shadowheart could have a chance to cover the player with a shield from an attack, or the player character could immediately counterattack the monster who hurt their love interest. Rule-wise it could work based on the reaction rules similar to some spells to stay true to the DND source.

The closest I have seen to this was either the new unique skills in Tyranny, permanent buff to the stats in NWN:Mask of the Betrayer, or the friendship system in the XCOM series.
Of course, it may be seen as an imbalance, but imagine the impact such system could have on the player. We would spend 60 to 80% of our time in combat, and having romance change something about how characters behave in combat and not just in dialogue would be precious and previously unseen in RPGs.

What do you think?

Lol, how did you manage to analyze all that based on seing a few sketches? Anyway since you somehow know how many hours Larian has spent on each different section of the game could you share some of this insight and where you learned it from? Id be greatly interested in such info.

To continue following up on my take of this update, I think it is stuff like this that Larian should've led with following the February announcement, rather than focusing on combat as the first thing we were exposed to. Decisions and choices and consequences and relationships and storytelling and roleplaying: this is what is most important in a ROLEPLAYING game. For people like me, it is as I learn now, belatedly, more about these aspects of the game that I have a more positive reaction to the game. But unfortunately, I have already soured on the game quite a bit from all that I had been exposed to in the first few months after the reveal, because that was all about combat which is always a very divisive and controversial area in games like this one. And that's too bad.

I'm a big fan of romance in stories and games.

I also watch porn.

But I don't mix the two. If I'm playing a game, I want my hands on the controller (not a euphemism). I didn't flee from the Mass Effect 1 sex scene, but it also didn't do anything for me. If the scene in BG 3 is more than 30 seconds long, I'll be more likely to get bored and thinking "get on with it so I can get back to the game I'm here to play".

I don't think Larian should cut that content... but I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to add an option in the settings for a fade-to-black.

Alot of prudes in this thread. I'll get the smelling salts.

I mean as someone who was just fine with what The Witcher 3 did in this regard, I will say that those storyboards seemed a tad excessive. I'm personally just fine with the fade to black, I don't think you lose anything by not having sex scenes in RPGs and the fade to black is more reliable. My feeling on explicit sex is that it's way easier to get wrong than right and what it brings to the table for a game is generally not gonna be that much in the grand scheme of things. So if Larian wants to go down that road then I hope it works out, but I don't think the cost-benefit analysis would be such that I'd go for it in their shoes.

Sex scenes aren't something I shy away from, but in a video game they are exceptionally cheesy.

I think those are mostly figuring out what they need for various NPC... ekhm... configurations. Actual direction (shots etc.) will probably be more cinematic then just shot of them humping.

Still, I actually quite liked verbose romances in D:OS2. Especially spying on Red Prince was straight up hilarious. Whatever Larian does I hope they won’t loose creativity on the way.

Sometimes I feel like you can do so much more with words than you can with a cinematic, and the romances were one of those things. It's why I didn't really mind them so much in that game, it still had a certain kind of charm to it. And yeah that Red Prince part was hilarious, I experienced that in MP where my friend was RP.

I'm worried this game is going to become like metro exodus, one long cutscene movie. With that being said, I would love to buy a BG 3 movie, hell yea. I just don't want to play a bg3 movie.

I’m not sure what leads you to think that. We have already seen that there is plenty of combat and exploration.

Fade to black is the cheesiest of all. Anything but that.

You've just described The Witcher 3 to me. I don't think that despite the more cinematic presentation, it will be anything like that though, as is obvious from the ridiculously many possible branches in dialogue choices they are targetting -- as well as the far more open quest design and general world interactivity.


As for romances, BG2 was the beginning of the end, really.

So I received a Larian Gazette about how romance would work in Baldur's Gate III, and the gazette contains the following image:



Not sure how you guys think about that female character, but isn't her body animation a bit too masculine? Are you guys really fine with having romance with such a half-man?

I think female characters should not act like men and should have femininity.

If you mean the way she's moving, that doesn't strike me at all as masculine, or rather, not exclusively masculine. that two second physical motion seems like a perfectly normal way someone would move when they're talking. As someone with a lot of women in their family, nothing about this strikes me as inherently masculine. Is it inherently feminine? No, but that doesn't really matter. I'm willing to bet the majority of people in this forum also have no issue with it.

As for your blanket statement about how female characters should act, there's a lot to unpack in that simple statement and I have no interest of going to that trouble. What I will say is that more kinds of characters is a good thing. If you're restrictive, then you'll just end up with the same kinds of characters being reproduced over and over again until they become boring.

There is nothing gendered about her movement in that fraction of a second clip. She is being assertive, so if your point was that woman shouldn’t be as such, oh boy...

Wait, since when does human standards of masculinity/femininity apply to githyanki warriors?

There is nothing "intrinsically" masculine there. Plus, she is a cleric not a noble princess.

I don't see it either, but a sweetheart she is not.

When Lae'zel gets in the mood, she will supposedly spin 3 times to the right then jump in the nearest sleeping bag...whatever. They have so far missed the mark completely in the female preference camp.

Yes I know...there will be more, but this is surely not putting their best foot forward.

"Romance" for me, has never been a huge deal. I have enjoyed some stories where I have connect to the characters for sure...more like a seance of "I will miss this group" at the end.


The characters overall seem very interesting (including NPCs). I can't wait for early access myself, just not planning on "personal connection", so I know I won't be disappointed.

Gray Ghost, I appreciate what you said above. Women are not a monolith and Shadowheart is supposed to be a badass cleric of Shar, not a dainty noblewoman--but that wasn't even masculine, it was just normal movement. She looked like a person.

As for the topic at hand, I hold as always to the standard of "it's better not to do anything than to do something stupid." We've seen some very janky animations in-game so far for the most part--but on the other hand, we're still early in development. The best is yet to come.

As of the 6th we'll get to give feedback on what we see firsthand, in any case. I'm quite sure that anything which looks bad now will attract outcry and be altered in the following years. I like the rest of the update--it's just the sex scenes I'm tepid about for the time being, but I'm sure the final versions would be better than what we saw. I'm just not convinced we need to see them at all; implied sex and visualized intimacy (read: intimate moments of conversation while naked but not necessarily showing anyone's bits, just shoulders) are always better than a dorky, janky sex scene with fingers clipping unnaturally through hair. That wouldn't be good enough if it was the final product.

I'm far from a prude, but I do want any sex scenes that happen to feel not awkward. That's very important to me. It's better to focus on depicting passion than thinking from a perspective of "one must make digital porn." No, above all else, one must make the scene believable, and sometimes that means making sure you DON'T show anything that would break the immersion. I'd rather pick text options on a black screen and hear some good sexy-sounding voice acting than cringe as my dwarf gets a hand stuck through her breast and into her rib cage.

Yeah. I'm no expert on The Scheduling Of Things, as my own general state of disorganisation will attest, but I would imagine that, as with voice acting, stuff like animations would be mostly done quite late in development so they have a (reasonably) final idea of what is actually required. I think I would tend to categorise it as part of the "polishing" stage than the more core development that'll have been happening.

As far as sex scenes go, one thing at a time; will there be snogging?

Yeah, exactly! I never thought for a moment that the animations for Astarion in that first camp cutscene we saw were going to be endgame level. I do want better for the romance scenes, but I'm sure they will either give that to us or figure out another way.

I sort of hope for snogging, but well... I guess it's difficult to find a balance for that, especially with so many permutations of body shapes. And honestly, that kind of thing is only worth watching if it's really well done, which is hard because lips are so squishy.

I also want to add that after watching the update again, I feel like I should emphasize that some of what I saw, I really liked. The idea that you can just sort of talk and make flirty eyes at someone while having a sip or two of wine and banter is really nice. I've seen people talk like the whole thing was porn, but it really wasn't. I've got some strong hopes for the in-game interpersonal connections.

Dear Larian,

I'm a long term RPG player (a little bit more than 25 years, both digital and pen&paper, DMing and playing), I'm going to buy the early access to BG3 and I'm planning to play it on PC. Speaking about romance & companionship, I'd love to play it on couch co-op with my wife: is this option going to be available on early access? That would be lovely! ;-)

Warmest regards,
Nicola Testoni

p.s.
I'm loving the Divinity Original Sins series, and currently playing DOS2 in co-op with a friend in Paris. With other friends of ours we used to play D&D since 1994: we run weakly a campaign that lasted 14 years swapping our roles as DM and player. We are both thankful to you for letting us renew our friendship over the net through sharing high quality times through DOS2 and we are both eager to play BG3. I'm sure you won't disappoint us, so please extend our gratefulness to all the Larian team!

Local split-screen won't be available right away, unfortunately. To play multiplayer you'd need two devices playing over the internet. Split-screen is coming, though!

Dear Composer,
many thanks for your answer! We'll be waiting for split screen: in the meanwhile we'll find some other ways to play. The game obviously.

Yeah, the update seemed great, not so keen on the explicit sexual content though, that chart of poses seemed rather awkward.

I was hoping this would be family friendly enough to introduce DND to my little brother :'D I guess not.

Will we be able to get married?

I too would really appreciate a "PG" toggle of some sort. I don't really want to see any of that stuff myself, not to mention having to explain things if one of the younger members of the family walk by :P.

Also by having it be a toggle, the people that want it can have it, and those that prefer not having it (I'm honestly surprised at how many I saw in this thread, thought I'd be the only one lol) can skip it.

I agree. I would appreciate this too. Since we have a system of tags, it would surely be pretty straightforward to put a little check box somewhere in Character Creation that would give your character a no-romance tag, so that you would never need to be offended by this sort of nonsense.

Yeah because romance is nonsense. If only I had an eyeroll emoji here.

Romancing made up characters in a computer game? Well, yes, it is.

I expect yoiu';ll be able to turn down invites to sleep with someone so... umm.. turn em down?

That is not enough. You shouldn't even be asked. Imagine a workplace environment where people felt free to hit on their colleagues. That would be awful. Having unwelcome advances made standard in a game is really not acceptable in today's society given the difficulties we are seeing with sexual harassment. Having a toggle doesn't remove anyone's fun and benefits everyone.

I don't mind sex and nudity in games, they wouldn't do it if there wasn't an audience for it but I think it's time and money that could be better spent elsewhere, especially in a game like this. Like, you can put in the time and effort for sex scenes but can't put swords in scabbards?
It's a little unrealistic for there to be no romance, given the situation, but I think a fade to black would be just fine.
Although, with how bad the cutscene animations are, sex scenes could be hilarious.

There are a lot of interesting responses when it comes to romance in an rpg game. I personally do not mind having romance in an rpg game because you are role playing as the character and if you were living in this world, would you not be attracted to someone? Although Larian is creating Baldur's Gate 3, they did not create Baldur's Gate. This was originally a BioWare franchise. If anyone knows anything about BioWare is that they love doing romance. For Example, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, SWTOR and Baldur's Gate 2. As for the sex scenes in BG3 being explicit and some of you not liking that, all I can say is you don't have to romance them. That won't affect your gameplay, it never does. The only thing that does change with Romance is party banter and some of that is just hilarious, especially from BioWare. You realize how funny and nosey your companions are. I notice that BG3 has banter and I would love to see what my companions say when it comes to relationships. At the end of the day having romance in a video game is not a big deal. It always a choice, it's not forced.

.


You really need to get over yourself. Not everything has to revolve around you. If this is something that really disturbs you then its a good thing you are only playing early access.

Note your objections and move on to a new game. There is no need to insult the developers of the game over a personal bias that you may have of certain types of players and/or playstyles. That's just rude and inconsiderate.

+1

These subjects are always a matter of personal choice and perspective. Some players will jones for this content and enjoy it in their own ways. Others will abhor it and avoid it like a plague. However, forcing the choice, forcing individual views and perspectives is the bigger problem on the table here.

From what I have seen in the game, it is a choice to go down those paths. Sometimes it makes sense to choose it, and other times it does not.

For those who don't want sexual relationship in the game: Don't pursue it? The game doesn't force you to.

+1

Half-man... and half-elf! It's because she's a half-elf.

But in all seriousness, I never thought she moved or acted masculine at all.
Even if she was, I wouldn't mind as much unless it felt forced.

I seriously talked three sentences to the vampire elve and knew that he is attracted to my character. Thats really poor writing, sorry.

.. why?

Cause thats not at all deep, also unauthentic and unrealistic. When you put marginalized groups in a videogame they deserve better than "Look at me iam gay heeeey".
Besides that iam not the opinion that this character fits at all in that universe. He is 100% not forgotten realms

Or even though you have so many titles that's how you liked to play the games. Never had problems avoiding romances in the games that made it possible when I was in the mood for navigating the story without any other focus than to get the quests done. But then I also played the romances to see if there were any repercussions in the end of the story (that's what I hope, that in the endgame the different options: no romance, romance this or that other companion bring to different outcomes) like in Dragon Ages.


In a more general answer, I don't get all the moral backlash for scenes that are up to the player to disclose, and about romances in general. Like those are forced down our throat, you're not interessed in romance? Don't get there.

Furthermore on what basis does anyone, on basis of personal preferences, decide how Larian spent resources? It's few days I'm playing the game and I love what I see, re started few times and found new things I've lost, to this moment the storytelling seems captivating, you have a lot of options on how to achieve the first main goal, the companions have their storylines that are intriguing. There are issues but the studio seems focused on resolving them and so on.

That is, good to have personal positions on things like romance, sex scenes and so on, but always to remember that they are just personal opinions and that the games are all made in a way that almost anykind of gameplay is satisfied.

Yeah, sadly everyone wants to copy the Mass Effect "by the numbers" romances for whatever reason.

I want to believe that as the game goes and the longer you commit, the less other companions will be inclined to try and steal you from your current relationship.

Seems romance is the main topic here.

1) I feel like all characters are just as eager and just as liberal with their sexual preferences. That's awkward. Why is everyone (almost) throwing themselves at my feet disregarding of gender and relationship dialogue unlocked? Also, if anything Gale seems more interested in hitting on Lae'zel. Why are all the party members so low maintenance and why are all the party members just as open minded in regards to race, gender, previous interactions?

2) As mentioned previously in this thread. The sex scene (I've only seen Minthara

1) Agree

2) Well you did all the jobs for her you killed many good people and kids as she asked, so yeah you seem to like her alright. Sex also doesn't have to be because of everlasting love, sometimes it's just a night of fun.

lol, hilarious that the chaotic evil path gets the full blown content. Interesting

What I find interesting is you can hack and slash your way to winning by killing anything and everything in your way and no one has an issue, show a tittie and people lose their minds.

Personally, I like diversity and would like a whole lot more to do then the continual mass murder that seems to make up most games today.

How about going back to games like Quest for Glory where you had the ability to talk your way out of fights and sneak around issues etc! So far this game has a little of that and I am hoping for a lot more.

And sex, seriously what is the harm? Put it in and let those of us that are adults make up our own minds whether we are tired of murdering and would like to see something pretty instead.

How is it that people in the 21st century still think like their puritan ancestors of centuries gone by? Careful, don’t show them a phone, they will kill you for witchcraft (after all murder is fine)!

Really!?! People get mad about everything. "People are making white male characters! Heresy"; "Lariam hates white males, did you see their statement? Talk about a way to alienate your playerbase. I know what game i won't be playing!" "They show breasts but where is the love for the female players?" (Like guys with muscles or 5% body fat don't have their shirts off constantly in media, and if you've listened to women talk, they Abso-fricken-lutely objectify us) "Oh my goodness it's X-rated! Seriously, kids might play this!" What're these people, Tipper Gore? Grow up. We have women running around naked on the news at protests, or just sitting there with their legs spread in front of police in the former "Chaz zone". Don't you dare show a noodle or naked female bum in BG though. Don't you do it. Oh, you want to light 9 year old goblin kids on fire and toss them into the Underdark a mile below? Sure, that's fine. But no female bums, or human kids. Torture any other race or adult though, that's fine. Also, if there is romance, it should be written by someone who's at least written a thesis on the mating rituals of Infernalkin and Mountain Dwarves. It should have gone through peer review for accuracy and formal discussion as all this simplistic connect the dots for a little loving is just not up to par. Pft, I think we all work hard enough for relationships in real life, I honestly don't want _that_ in my rpg. Make it a fun mini-game of sorts. This isn't a girlfriend simulator, and honestly, I don't want one (A girlfriend sim, I have a real one here and she's enough work)

I hope the romance scenes that are in the game so far (that I've seen while playing) are a severly cut back version of what we will see in the final product. I'd absolutely prefer mature romance scenes to a hug, kiss, fade to black. CDPR will let you sleep with a guy with boobs, and show it all, but this game is already getting flack and they've show nothing in the actual game. The violence would receive an "M" warning if it was a TV show. The romance scenes are PG at most so far.

I must play the most unlucky player ever, because noone seems to be interested romantically. Not one bit and I have companions that have a ""very high" affinity (or what its called).

Lol Same.

"38 years of gaming and a degree in critical literary theory give me enough experience to know exactly" never read anything like this before, first time, really honestly, no one ever claims this.
That said I have 39 years of gaming and a degree in super critical literary theory at the school of doesnnotexist.

So I am also in favor of skipping such scenes, last thing I want it to get a cut scene with nudity and have my wife catch it. That will be the end of my playing this game for sure. I am not here for romance, I am here for the adventure. Sure keep the dialogue, but give me the option to skip the scenes before they even play.

You don't have to romance a companion, or a npc.

For those of you who think it's too Risqué.. It's optional for a reason, Just because it's not YOUR option doesn't mean it isn't someone else's option. Gate keep your own table. I am personally looking forward to this masterpiece.

Good update, hope they refine it and add more.

All the complaints are easily fixed with a checkbox for G, PG, or R ratings. Just click the box for G or PG, and fade to black before the real fun begins if people don't want to or can't enjoy that aspect of the game. Some of us like it as it is an RPG, and we're not one-dimensional.

I'll just leave it here

Topics like this make me laugh. Because there are always people complaining about the sex in it.
The excessive violence and gore, including the slaughter of a bunch innocent people(including children) isn't the end of the world. But GODS DAMN THEM! if they show a boob. I'm not even hating, because no lie, that tickles me.

What tickles me is that yours is the typical defense to the argument. Instead of saying that it is wrong, you point out what you think is another wrong, but do anyway. It makes me wonder why so many people feel the need to see pixel boobs all while trying to divert attention towards something they themselves do, but feel is worse.

So who is this character? Is that a PC or the NPC that was discussed in the hidden part of an earlier post?

This is our drow waifu Minthara

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=709318#Post709318

https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=697736&page=1

Romance is great and all, you guys all always so passionate (pun intended) about it, but what about the little things, like not screwing the toothpaste lid back on? You see, it's the little things.