Baldur’s Gate 3 Team Wasn’t Always On Board With Certain “Romance” Elements

To list all the things that made Baldur’s Gate 3 excellent would take far more than this article can contain. One of the easiest things to point out is that the party you construct, with characters like Astarian, Karlach, Wyll, Shadowheart, Halsin, Lae’Zel, and others is easily one of the best in the entirety of gaming. They’re rich characters full of backstory, and you’re almost compelled, in a good way, to learn more about them to see how you can help them. Plus, if you get to know them a lot, you can romance them, and that’s all the encouragement many players need to become “closer” with their party members.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is almost infamous for how “sensual” the game is, to put it lightly. There are plenty of “romance scenes” across the many characters, and you can even sleep with characters you wouldn’t expect or ones you just met, like in a certain brothel within the titular Baldur’s Gate. While the gamers were all for this, the team at Larian Studios wasn’t at times. During a roundtable chat with PC Gamer, Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke admitted that while he pushed to have these kinds of “mature things” within the game, it did make some of the staff “uncomfortable.”

However, he was able to win them over by making a certain comparison:

“We try to be as true to life as we could. Internally, in the studio, there were some people who felt uncomfortable, and we said, it’s a mature game, right? We’re going to treat it like what you would see on TV. A series I refer to often was American Gods, which I thought was really well done [in how] it treated mature themes and fantasy settings.”

He’s not wrong that there are plenty of “mature series” or films in which you can see full-on nudity and “sensual scenes,” and you could argue that given the closeness of the party and all they’re doing together, it would be odd if some of them didn’t try and romance one another. They even joke about it with the main character at key points when they’re all trying to relax and have fun.

Plus, and this is a key thing, the romance scenes, including some of the more “unusual ones,” like one with a certain shapeshifting bear, are all optional. You can go through the entire game without romancing anyone or anything.

Having that option, and having numerous romance options available, does make it feel more like “real life.” Even though, as of yet, we haven’t met a real-life-like Karlach.