Baldur's Gate 3 simulates making peace with your ex
The Baldur's Gate 3 "no possibility left unpossible" choice-and-consequence train continues with the revelation that, if you break up with a lover in the game, you can slowly repair the relationship and spark a bit of your old chemistry. This might not sound earthshattering to anybody from outside the videogame world - what are you doing here? Run along and watch your silly non-interactive movies and TV shows - but it's quite novel for a fantasy RPG in the BioWare tradition. In my experience, at least, most RPGs only give you the build-up to a character romance, then flash-freeze the relationship post-consummation, perhaps because you've unlocked a sexy "loyalty" companion ability and the developers don't want to take it away from you. Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the few that thinks about how chemistry might come and go.
We have redditor WanderIntoWonder to thank for this titbit - they went to the trouble of breaking Shadowheart's, er, heart, then painstakingly raised the character's approval ratings back up (I say painstakingly - a loveless person might accuse them of speeding the process up with Baldur's Gate 3 mods and/or console commands) and discovered unique 'old flame' dialogue in the process. "You're a sight for sore eyes, even now," she says. Ah Shadow, we'll always have that little nook by the goblin camp.
Other Baldur's Gate 3 characters are sharing details of their own flings in the WanderIntoWonder thread. Sadly, it appears that there isn't necessarily bespoke ex-partner dialogue for all the game's companions. If you retain high approval with the character after breaking up, it seemingly just defaults to the standard comradely dialogue. It sounds like you'll need to artificially lower their approval -
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