Baldur’s Gate 3 has now been officially released for over a year. During Pax West 2024, Larian CEO Swen Vincke spoke about the sudden social media success of the game due to the important bear sex scene and that they had an even more intense alternative.
Why did the game go viral on social media? Baldur’s Gate 3 was in Early Access for about three years. However, most players only became aware of the game through a very special live stream – because during this, the official channel of developer Larian Studios was banned on TikTok.
In the stream, the developers showed a scene where origin character Astarion seems to be having a hot night with a bear. The bear in question is the druid Halsin, who can be unlocked as a companion through the right choices in Act 1 and 2.
At Pax West, Swen Vincke, the founder of Larian Studios, said they almost showed an even more intimate sex scene.
The alternative would have gotten them banned not just on TikTok
Why did they show the bear scene? During the panel Baldur’s Gate 3: A Retrospective
the team talks about the sex scene with Halsin in bear form. Among other things, they discuss the backstory behind it, as well as how they came to show this particular scene.
Swen Vincke explains: There was actually a debate [about showing the bear scene before release], because we wanted the audience to choose, so we didn’t know what they would pick, and we actually felt uncomfortable about [the other scene].
Lead writer Adam Smith makes a joke that the non-bear scene wouldn’t just have gotten us banned on TikTok.
This leaves the question open as to how intense that other scene must have been.
Ultimately, however, Vincke becomes serious and explains that they chose the scene primarily because it represents the game well: the scene and the game are funny, sometimes risqué, and most importantly adult
. You can watch the entire panel on YouTube.
More intense than the bear? At least more explicit
What would the alternative have been? In Baldur’s Gate 3, there are quite a few sex scenes that could have been shown in the stream. Every companion you can romance has their own – sometimes even several or at least different variants.
The scene with Halsin, for example, can be experienced like in the stream with the bear form of the druid. However, you can also ask him to stay human. This version of the scene is actually one of the most explicit in the game. Presumably, it would have been the alternative to the bear scene.
Unfortunately, the developers do not get specific. It remains a hint that the other scene was even more explicit.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is still in development, by the way: Since the release, a total of six major patches have gone live. The seventh is now finally on the horizon and brings not only official mod support but also a bunch of new endings: Baldur’s Gate 3 will bring Patch 7 next week, which players have been eagerly awaiting for months.
