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Game News Baldur's Gate 3 Community Update #7: Romance & Companionship, Early Access delayed to October 6th

Infinitron

I post news
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Tags: Baldur's Gate 3; Larian Studios; Sarah Baylus; Swen Vincke

Larian announced today that they'd decided to postpone the Baldur's Gate 3 Early Access release to October 6th due to some last minute stability and localization issues. A week's delay isn't a big deal, but it does give the new community update some room to breathe. A promised in the previous update, it's about romance and companion relationships in general. The update video's introductory Swen Vincke skit is pretty minimalistic this time. The bulk of the video is made up of a recorded segment with lead writer Sarah Baylus and cinematic director Jason Latino. There's nothing too revolutionary here. Companions will react to who you are, what you say and the things you do, with major interactions taking place in camp. There will be plenty of cinematics as your relationship with a companion evolves, including, yes, sex scenes, which you can see a few glimpses of in the video. I'll post it here along with the usual excerpt from the update itself:



Each of your companions have their own personalities, goals, and motivations. Bound by the shared problem of an Illithid tadpole buried in their head, they will join your party but you’ll all have to put your differences aside if you want to survive. The exact relationship you have with your companions, already marred by differences, will be shaped by who you are, what you do, who you side with, and what you say in conversation with them.

We’ve tried to create reactive systems all throughout the journey of a relationship; from the time of meeting a companion, to the potential romance with them. (Romance is a polite word we’re using for sex. But we’re not quite there yet, more on that in a moment.)

In Baldur’s Gate 3, a 5e D&D game, creating a custom character will immerse you in the story just as much as playing as one of the Origin Characters. For example, playing as a Drow Wizard will give you different dialogue options than playing as a Githyanki Warlock. These differences will also be present in your relationship dialogues. As you play the game, and you begin to make choices in combat, exploration, and conversation, you’ll be presented with situations and scenarios that are unique to your playthrough. Not too long into Early Access, you will be having an adventure so specific to your character, that no other player is going to see the exact same content as you.

Just as in real life, the sum of character is determined by many factors, and continues to be shaped by your actions and reactions to the world, and the party you journey with. Frictions may test the party’s resolve, and romances might test the party dynamic. Not only will characters have opinions about you, but also about each other, and other factions in the game. Will you pursue love with one companion to the detriment of another? Or will you side with a faction a companion detests, putting feelings to the side to achieve your strategic goals? As with life, many decisions will have to be made, not all of them easy, and not every outcome obvious.

Catch Gale at the campfire and you might find a lot of his bravado has been disarmed. Disarmed bravado is an opportunity for Astarion, a vampire. All of this sitting around may be a waste of time for Lae’zel. For you, it’s an opportunity to talk and interact with your party and followers on a more intimate level. But the conversation you have in the camp will also be a reaction to the day’s events, and what you’ve been up to in the world.

Through a mix of systems design, narrative writing, and cinematics, Larian is aiming to create three-dimensional relationships that feel as authentic as possible.

How intimate a character will be with you relies heavily on who they are, and who you become on your adventure. There are factions in the game you may side with, or revolt against. Your party will have opinions about that, and in multiplayer - once Origin Avatars have joined Early Access (not day 1) - the systems will technically allow you to have intimate moments with your friends. Talk about party dynamics!

The point is, no matter which race or gender you are, or which class you are, the levels of intimacy party members share will be defined by extremely in-depth, life-like evaluation of everything you’ve been up to together. We’ve tried to create an authentic, reactive relationship system where characters act and react like people. For better, and for worse.

On a totally unrelated note, Baldur’s Gate 3 has been officially rated M for Mature by ESRB, and that’s probably for the best.

This will probably be the final community update before Early Access is released, but that doesn't mean they're going away. According to the Q&A section, the next update is going to be about character creation.
 

a cut of domestic sheep prime

Guest
Each of your companions have their own personalities, goals, and motivations. Bound by the shared problem of an Illithid tadpole buried in their head, they will join your party but you’ll all have to put your differences aside if you want to survive.
Always nice to know your love interest has a brain eating parasite in her head.

It's the things we share that bring us together.

:love:
 

elverkongen

Learned
Joined
Apr 17, 2020
Messages
148
Glad they're pouring so much money into modeling and animating various forms of fellatio and cunnilingus. I was afraid for a second that Larian might surprise me by not being shit.

There must be some belligerently vocal minority calling for this kind of crap in games.
 

Tim the Bore

Scholar
Joined
Mar 20, 2018
Messages
109
Location
Potatoland
"Erotic" parts of D:OS 2 were some of the worst (and most horryfing) pieces of writing I've ever seen. So bad than even modern BioWare would be ashamed to put something like that into their games. And now Larian wants to visualize them?

As bad as it can be, humanity doesn't deserve such punishment.
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
408
They talk about 'life-like' intimacy but I doubt it'll be anything exciting despite the mature rating. If they wanted to go mature and more authentic, they'd have to have some characters that are sluts, rapists, homophobes, rape victims that will kill anyone that gives them a sultry look, religious celibates etc. But as Muds pointed out they'll take bioware's lead and make everyone bisexual and open to anything. They think it's ground-breaking player choice but it's just a different form of artificial blandness that takes away from their character writing.
 

buffalo bill

Arcane
Joined
Dec 8, 2016
Messages
1,004
have you guys watched the video? it is both painful to watch and unintentionally very funny

For instance:

funny.png
 

Cnaiur

Augur
Joined
Aug 25, 2014
Messages
184
You're mistaken, that's just Faerun's first physiotherapy, where a weary soldier can find relief after a lifetime of having to deal with non ergonomic armor and weapons.
 

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