If this is even remotely true pack it up, its over. Can I get my early access purchase refunded in full?
"Baldur's Gate 3 Has Everything: Polyamory, Bear F*******, Blood Sacrifice"
I watched the full stream. First of all, I think putting polyamory in the same sentence as "bear fucking" is just bad faith, and blood sacrifice happens in a lot of games and has nothing to do with any of that.
Second, now, the game doesn't let you have sex with animals. There's a character who can shapeshift into a bear, and during a romance scene he kinda loses control and turns into a bear before any contact is made, then he shifts back and apologizes and the player has the option to tell him that he likes/accepts it and asks him to shift back, and has to confirm about 3 times IIRC until it actually happens, and at several points has the chance to say various options of "No" or "Not now" and can still go all the way with that character in human form.
It's just freedom of choice. I personally don't feel any desire to go down that route, but if I'm not assaulted by a bear or bear form is the only option to have sex with that character (In which case I would still be free to decline), it doesn't hurt me that the option exists, because with the choices in the game I won't even ever see that path if I don't choose accordingly.
I'm not upset about the possibility that I can slaughter Jaheira either because I won't do it, so it doesn't affect me, period.
Was it necessary to add? There are a lot of Skyrim mods, many of them allow you to have sex with werewolves in their beast shape. Do I want that? No. Does that mean it should be forbidden for everyone? Not my place to decide that.
It's not sex with an animal, it's a thinking, feeling, consenting human shapeshifted into his other form and the scene had more of accepting the other person's true personality than some kink stuff. As I said, not my personal choice but also not what it might sound like.
As for multiple romance options, haven't we all either used mods or tried out what happens if you talk to this character and that character in the game until at some point a choice was forced on us and one romance locked in? And wouldn't many of us have wished otherwise because there's more than one interesting person in your party and you don't know if you want to do another playthrough soon?
If I could have, say, romanced both Alistair and Zevran in DA:O and both of them would have been okay with that, I would have done it.
And again, it's a choice the game offers, you can take it or leave it, and if you don't do it, the existing option will never harm you.
Swen Vincke said some interesting things in the stream, when asked about political message in the game, and also commenting on "dark and brutal" stuff they are showing. He said that the game can be dark and brutal, it offers that option, yes, but don't blame the game for it. You have a lot of other options to pick. The possibilities to pick the "evil" paths are all there, you can play an axe-crazy murder hobo. But that's not because it is a game for axe-crazy murder hobos. It's because you choose to go to that dark and brutal place.
Same thing he said about the message and all that. It's your personal choices that affect your path. You can give in to the temptation of the tadpole. You get the offer of power, and you can take it or leave it. Yes, there is a lot of temptation related to power. You can take that power, but power changes you, and you can go into the endgame insanely powerful but alone, because all your friends and allies are either dead or have left you as a consequence of your decisions.
Or you can refuse to use that power, take decisions that make some steps along the way more difficult, but gain a different kind of power through friendship, companions that support you and fight with you.
They may have fun goofing around with the evil options the game gives you, but those comments were actually very deep. It's an RPG after all. It gives you the possibilities.
And to those people who constantly complain about gray areas, "edgelord" characters and lack of "good" companions and "good" choices, I would like to say that too. What is goodness? Being thrown into an impossible situation, coming from a difficult background, working with what you have and struggling to get through it, trying to be not perfect but as good as the situation allows?
Or just being a one-dimensional comic style hero who can only decide to commit suicide because bearing the taint of the tadpole is dishonourable and he can't be the knight in shining armour now?
Seriously, all those "Larian characters" that some people in some places whine about, and the fact that the game supposedly rewards evil choices, that's just utter nonsense spread by people who haven't been paying attention or who think in black-and-white categories, not taking personal growth and change into account, or the fact that the existence of choices isn't good or bad, but that the purpose of an RPG is to allow you to play your role and make your choices matter, because they are yours to take, so the consequences are yours to live with.
I'm still not happy about the mute protagonist, the cutscenes look so awkward, and my hope that with an origin character the player would be voiced didn't turn true either. But other than that, after everything I have seen now about character customization, more sides of some of the companions, the impact of several different choices and some content spoilers of Act2 and combat details for example about Tactician mode, I'm really excited and can't wait to finally start playing.
