Bear sex 'a watershed moment in game history', says Baldur's Gate 3 writer
You are, most likely aware, that Baldur's Gate 3 lets you have sex with a bear. Now to be fair, 33% of players have hair in their underwear, so it didn't scare its audience beyond repair. If you're wondering why I'm rhyming, it's because in constructing the above headline I may have quite possibly gone mad.
As reported by our friends over at GamesRadar, senior narrative designer Baudelaire Welch discussed the impact of the ursine-themed scene on the gaming landscape to a captive audience, via a presentation at Develop: Brighton 2024.
Specifically, Welch focuses their analysis on the traditional practices of both fanfiction and meme nonsense. Like it or not, both are a pretty big part of contemporary gaming culture nowadays—especially in a game like Baldur's Gate 3 where, well, everyone's hot.
Still, to see Welch say the quiet part out loud here is both refreshing and terrifyingly powerful. «Romance is one of the longest-tail parts of a fandom you can create,» they begin, rightly noting that players will constantly output fanfiction about a «good romance» in any title—and that debates over the specifics will keep the flames of interest stoked «for a very long time.»
Welch goes on to consider why the bear sex scene so thoroughly captured players' imaginations. To clarify something for a moment in case you've not played the game—the bear in question, Halsin, isn't actually an animal per se. He's a druid who can take a «wildshape» of various forms, which the D&D 5e handbook handily states conserves their mental statistics for the duration—which neatly tidies away any major ethical concerns here.
«This scene feels like a watershed moment in game history,» Welch declares, completely shattering the rest of my afternoon, «where the fanfiction community feels like they're not a subculture, but are the majority audience being catered to in a scene and in the game as a whole.»
I do have some complicated feelings about this all on paper. It would, in many ways, be easy to see
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