Summary
Baldur’s Gate 3is making a major change to romances after Larian Studios determined that the majority of the game’s companions are far too happy to throw themselves at the player. The developer disclosed the move alongside an explanation for what caused the issues withBaldur’s Gate 3romancesin the first place.
All10 companions inBaldur’s Gate 3are romanceable, as are several other characters that players encounter in their travels. But what many fans discovered shortly following the game’s early August PC release is that the vast majority of their allies were all too happy to declare their feelings for them within hours—and sometimes minutes—of being recruited.
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Larian Studios CEO Swen Vincke has now confirmed that this wasn’t what the Belgian developer intended. Speaking with TheGamer at Pax West 2023, Vincke explained that the companions' eagerness to start flirting with the protagonist was merely a result of a bug. Each character has a hidden approval threshold meant to determine when they’ll start making passes at the player, but all of those requirements were set too low at launch, theBaldur’s Gate 3bosssaid.
Larian already raised some companions' approval thresholds after becoming aware of this issue and is planning to update the rest of the cast in the near future. The move will make the process ofromancing characters inBaldur’s Gate 3somewhat less straightforward, which was Larian’s intention all along, with Vincke explaining that the developer wanted to mimic “real relationships” instead of delivering a comically lustful supporting cast. While the industry veteran did not elaborate on the extent of the romance fixes that Larian already rolled out, he did confirm that Gale was one of the biggest victims of this peculiar bug, which caused him to become instantly interested in the player.
And though the developer is now working to makeBaldur’s Gate 3relationships more realistic, the original romance bug already left a permanent legacy in the RPG’s online community. This is clearly reflected in the emergence of humorous romance speedruns that gained quite a bit of momentum within weeks of the game’s release. The current world record in the so-called “Sex%” joke category belongs to Canadian player maeeeeee, who recently managed to complete oneBaldur’s Gate 3romance in just over two minutes.
The remaining changes toBaldur’s Gate 3romances that Larian has yet to introduce will presumably be live by the time the game reaches the current-generation Xbox consoles in late 2023. That version of the RPG is still without a release date, having originally targeted 2024 before Microsoft allowed Larian to accelerate the port by omitting split-screen multiplayer functionality from the Xbox Series S at launch due to technical challenges.
Baldur’s Gate 3is out now for PC. A PS5 version releases on September 6, and an Xbox Series X/S version is expected to launch in late 2023.
