People Send Pictures of Bears to Baldur's Gate 3 Boss's Son
He didn't expect this scene to attract so much attention.
Baldur's Gate 3 is still floating on hype waves attracting over 800,000 players at the same time. Larian's marketing team sure managed an impossible feat with its campaigns, but the one stuck in everybody's heads in the sex scene with a bear. How many memes are there about it? Countless. Did the studio's head Swen Vincke expect it? Not really.
Before we delve into the consequences, here is some information if you missed this juicy piece of content for some reason. Before the Baldur's Gate 3 launch, Larian published some promotional footage, which included a sex scene with a druid transformed into a bear. This made audiences explode with excitement and creative surges, so now the studio will probably never recover.
"We wanted a scene people were going to talk about, but we wanted to show that this was a cinematic game, with characters that have depth to them. The bear's obviously a druid, and he has a story. He's been around for hundreds of years. He's lived with bears for part of his life also, so that's where the bear thing comes from. It's interesting when you start thinking about it, what it meant for him living with bears, right? Because there's also horny bears in the world," Vincke told PC Gamer.
The team wanted to show that the game is also fun: "It shone a light on the entire game in a very summarized beat, so in that sense, it was a good one to pick." Yes, it was.
However, he didn't expect the full force of the reaction it would inspire. His 17-year-old son got caught in the middle. "Dad, people are sending me pictures of bears from everywhere," he'd say, and while you could feel bad about him, this was certainly what Baldur's Gate 3 needed just before release.
Naturally, romance doesn't end with bears in the game, and it offers a nice variety of partners for everyone. I must say I was pleasantly surprised by my companions' initiative. It's nice to finally not try to lure a potential romantic candidate first and just receive their affection, makes me feel less like they've never even considered my character as a prospect. But I know there are some who dislike this "eagerness" (just like those who accused Anders of forcing his kisses on them in Dragon Age 2.)
"Fantasy and romance have always been intermingled with each other, and now being able to show things [with better cinematics], it makes it more engaging," Vincke said. "We wanted them to be player agency-driven, so you feel like 'I got into this romance situation because I engaged with that person and did these things, I listened to them and understood them.' It makes for better storytelling because there's more emotion."
These romantic conquests have their role and make roleplaying even more fun. "You get great conflict there, and that creates the most engaging storytelling you can have in certain moments. Or if you have multiple party members that are romantically interested in you facing off against each other, that also creates great drama." By the way, I've heard party members can also just agree to form a throuple with you and someone else you fancy if it fits them, although I haven't tested it yet. Still, it's something not many RPGs explore.
The level of detail in human (and other) interactions and pieces of personality you can find even in the characters' underwear is amazing. Although Vincke said making story expansions for the game would be challenging, what we have now is already impressive.
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