Larian hope to have future companions spend less time jumping straight into your bed, and more time with each other
With Baldur’s Gate 3 and its gang of rowdy adventuring mates in the rear view mirror, Larian are hoping to improve a couple of aspects of how they handle companions going forwards – a process that’ll likely kick off in Divinity. In particular, the development of deeper relationships between party members and a more subtle build to the moment when the player’s relationship veers into deeply horny territory are on their list of learnings.
That’s the answer senior writer Kevin VanOrd game when asked what narrative improvements he’s keen to pull off in today’s Larian AMA, which also saw the studio provide an update on how they plan to handle using generative AI.
“Firstly, to have more interaction between companions – not just with more and better banter, but to have them develop deeper relationships with each other, just as they do with players,” he wrote. “Secondly, to ramp up player friendship and romance more subtly, so relationship building feels natural.”
It’s nice to see the studio not simply hand-waving the first part away, especially given all the praise Baldur’s Gate 3 rightly got for the regular little chats its companions have at various points throughout your roaming with them. While that banter’s great, it can still sometimes feel like the distances between each of your buddies’ tents in camp aren’t bridged all to often, unless Minthara fancies having some fun with Gale while the two are out and about.
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Then there’s the sometimes rapid progression of the player’s relationships to seriously sexy states perhaps a tad too quickly. It’s not something I recall being too bothered by, possibly because I was keen to spend hours giggling at bear sex after seeing clips of that cutscene or because I’m a bloke and therefore the concept of such things lasting more than two minutes is beyond me. There’s also the matter of BG3 sex speedruns taking off as their own form of bonkers entertainment, something that might not have happened if you had no choice but to still be courting deep into the final act.
On the other hand, having such bonds feel as genuine and human as possible is something I can’t knock people for desiring, and Larian for striving to deliver. Who knows, maybe the luxuriously-rendered lovemaking BG3 boasted will become even more beloved if you’ve got to work a bit harder to reach such points of climax.
There we go. I’ve lowered the tone last thing on a Friday. Merry weekend.