Baldur’s Gate 3 companions weren’t supposed to be so horny

It turns out that Baldur’s Gate 3 companions weren’t supposed to be so horny after all, as Larian Studios CEO has revealed it was initially just a bug, not an intentional feature.

Larian Studios’ CEO and Baldur’s Gate 3 director, Swen Vincke, has clarified that the game’s unusually eager-to-please characters were not a design choice but rather a programming bug.

When Baldur’s Gate 3 was released, players quickly noticed that the characters seemed unusually eager to jump into bed with them. So eager, in fact, that a new speedrunning category emerged, tasking players with seducing the Githyanki companion Lae’zel in record time. The latest record? A staggering 2 minutes and 4 seconds.

But as it turns out, these romantically aggressive companions weren’t an intended feature of the game. Vincke recently clarified that the characters’ low “approval thresholds” were actually a programming error.

“It wasn’t supposed to be that way. We’ve fixed it since, at least for some of them. We’re still fixing a few of them,” Vincke said.

Larian Studios had intended for the game to simulate real relationships, where companions don’t instantly fall for the player. “It was supposed to simulate how real relationships are,” Vincke explained. “There were a lot of people that enjoyed it. But it was too fast.”

However, the bug led to characters acting in ways that would be considered “problematic” in real life, according to Vincke. While some players found the accelerated romances amusing, others criticized them as unrealistic and potentially troubling.

Among the characters, Gale, the eloquent wizard, was notably impacted by this bug. Originally designed to be a complex character with nuanced relationships, Gale would instantly romance players due to the programming error. Players can now expect a more realistic courtship process with him and other companions in the game.

It remains to be seen if Baldur’s Gate 3 will uphold its title as one of the horniest RPGs of all time now following these changes.