Just over a year ago, Larian Studios went viral with a scene in Baldur’s Gate 3 in which a character gets intimate with a bear. Now senior developer Baudelaire Welch has explained how the scene came into the game.
Which scene is it about? The special scene is one of the options for a hot night with the character Halsin. If Halsin joined you in Act 1 and you brought his storyline to a positive conclusion in Act 2, you can start a romance with him.
The sex scene with him has two scenarios, in one of which he transforms into a bear for the act.
About a year ago, Larian Studios went viral with exactly this scene: They showed excerpts of how the playable character Astarion engages in this very act. MeinMMO editor-in-chief Leya Jankowski also talks about this in the GameStar Talk:
Middle finger to the AAA industry: Baldur’s Gate 3 was no coincidence
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“Turning point in the history of video games” says the developer
What does the developer say? Baudelaire Welch is a senior developer at Larian, specifically he works as a senior narrative designer. During Develop:Brighton 2024, he spoke about the infamous bear sex scene. He specifically addressed the ever-growing community of fanfiction authors and readers:
Romance is one of the most long-lasting parts of a fandom you can create. People will be writing about a good romance in fanfiction for years to come. The character analysis in these debates will continue for a very long time.
Take the bear scene in Baldur’s Gate 3. Why did it resonate with people so much? That’s what it meant to me when I was involved in Baldur’s Gate 3.
This scene feels like a turning point in video game history, where the fanfiction community feels like it’s not a subculture, but the majority of the audience being addressed in one scene and the game as a whole.
Baudelaire Welch, 11.07.2024
The developer also states that Halsin was never meant to be a romance option. The overwhelming feedback from players in Early Access prompted Larian to make more of his character. They are also well aware that players have given Halsin nicknames like Daddy Halsin or Druid Daddy.
The Larian team has actively implemented fan feedback and thought about how they can actively address an essential part of the community.
Fanfiction: Fix-it-Fics and Alternate Timelines
What is fanfiction? This is one of the first times a developer has talked about specifically targeting the fanbase that writes and consumes fanfiction.
Fanfiction is a text that is based on existing stories. The authors are usually anonymous and have no official creative options in the work on which they are writing.
For many, fanfiction is an opportunity to rewrite established stories or explore other possible plot endings:
Sometimes these stories also come from the Internet: The book series 50 Shades of Grey was originally a fanfiction of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series. Most of the time, however, the authors and readers stay among themselves on one of the many possible platforms such as Wattpad, Archive of Our Own or Fanfiction.net.
Baudelaire Welch probably assumes that if Larian hadn’t put the bear sex scene directly into the game, some players would have written it themselves anyway. He’s probably right.
In fact, there is currently news on the more technical side of Baldur’s Gate 3. The tooltips in the game are not as accurate as you might think: Baldur’s Gate 3 has been lying to you for months, almost all tooltips are wrong