Larian Studios have taken the heavy mantle of releasing a proper numbered sequel to the now 23-year-old Baldur’s Gate 2: Shadows of Amn. Baldur’s Gate 3 needs to be a special game to meet fan expectations, and Larian’s most recent live showcase of the game showed that special is exactly what they intend to offer, as a particular bear romance option left fans shouting out of excitement.
Larian Studios are not afraid to put their project in the limelight. Their latest live showcase, the last one before Baldur’s Gate 3’s launch day on August 3, lasted for seven whole hours. The most attention-catching six minutes of it all are easily the reveal of a very unorthodox romance option involving a bear.
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Recruiting party members along your journey is a standard trope in any RPG, but Larian has made this process a little more interesting in Baldur’s Gate 3. A druid you can recruit as a party member, named Halsin, has the ability to transform into a bear. While this can be helpful during combat for obvious reasons, it can be fruitful in other ways if you’re into that sort of action.
Larian’s demo showed Halsin is a potential romantic interest, and if you decide to engage the druid for some sexy time, you’ll have more options than one. The shapeshifter gets a little too excited and morphs into a bear. He’s quick to go back to human form and apologize in shame for losing control, but you will have the dialogue options to calm him down and get him to morph back into a bear for an alternative experience. You can still go for some casual human intercourse or completely bail out of the encounter.
The dialogue choices Larian made on stage were dictated by the live audience reactions and the online chat messages, so to even get to the end of this bear romance arc, the developer needed the support of the people. Saying the crowd went wild over the Halsin romance plot would be an understatement. The live audience was cheering, and the chat was more active than at any other time during the stream. No wonder: a bear romance in Baldur’s Gate 3 is an exciting option to have, whether you choose to go all the way or manage to contain the beast.
