The world of Dungeons & Dragons is full of horny people. Demons, devils, tieflings, satyrs, minotaurs, even dragonborn — there are people with horns all over the place. But, in Baldur’s Gate III, a new video game based on the rules and setting of the decades-old tabletop game, players found themselves inundated with characters who are the other kind of horny. (As well as literally horny — there are lots of devils in this game!) According to developer Larian Studios, the unabashedly amorous NPCs are a launch bug, in the process of being corrected.
Now to be sure, the fact that there are fully nude sex scenes in Baldur’s Gate III is part of its broader appeal. During a preview of the game back in July, developers gave the livestream audience the choice to romance one of the game’s Druid characters…who turns into a giant bear when he gets (ahem) excited. But even in a game that embraces the wide-open and often bawdy nature of D&D, the nearly immediate opportunities that the game gives its NPCs to show you what’s underneath their +1 Half Plate came off as a bit surprising. One columnist on Rock Paper Scissors called the game “relentlessly horny” shortly after release.
[Editor’s Note: Michael, I removed your bit about most people being less horny shortly after release. Don’t make me call HR.]
According to The Gamer’s interview with Baldur’s Gate III director Swen Vincke, even the most ambitiously amorous characters in the game aren’t supposed to be quite that thirsty. Apparently, the thresholds for the player character’s relationships with NPCs, the value which determines how much they like you, was set too low. This made them ready to jump into your bedroll just a few conversations after meeting, which is pretty forward for a game which might take you anywhere from 30 to 100 hours to finish. Yeesh, Gale, buy a guy a mug of mead first.
It reminds me of the infamous “Nuclear Gandhi” glitch in Civilization, where it’s possible for the pacifist leader to get a -1 in his aggression value, making him ready to rain nuclear wrath on his enemies at a moment’s notice. A glitch that, it turns out, is entirely fictional. Still, overly-lusty RPG characters are an interesting example of computer code being used to simulate human (or at least, humanoid) behavior…and sometimes getting the math wrong.
“It wasn’t supposed to be that way…especially Gale.” said Vincke, speaking of a hunky purple-robed wizard who’s become infamous since the game’s release. “We’ve fixed it since, at least for some of them.” Players who weren’t interested in seeing their party members, well, party, were happy to note that the game’s dialogue options are pretty big on clear consent before any especially raunchy episodes.
Still, if you’d like to experience the full, unbridled passion of the very pretty cast of Baldur’s Gate III, you might want to play it soon. After Larian Studios fixes all the bugs, you may have to wade into the world of mods to get them back to their original and unintentional hot-and-bothered state.
