Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear – Much ado about a transgender cleric

After more than 17 years, a new expansion for the RPG Baldur’s Gate, Siege of Dragonspear, has been released. However, it has received heavy criticism.

Some of this criticism is quite justified. Many bugs are pointed out and the multiplayer mode does not work as well as hoped. Apart from the fact that the multiplayer mode runs stably, there are also issues with the pause function that sometimes cannot be ended.

Shitstorm over transgender character

However, these issues are not the main reason why Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear is currently receiving poor reviews on Steam. In the game, you encounter the cleric Mizhena. During the conversation with her, it is revealed that she was born a man but feels like a woman and therefore lives as a woman. This sparked a real shitstorm among some fans of the RPG series. Political views have no place in the RPG classic.

There wouldn’t be anything against transgender people, but this topic shouldn’t be addressed in a computer game. Moreover, the dialogue is very poorly written. There is even a video in which a player kills Mizhena after she revealed to him that she is actually a man. The developers of Beamdog spoke out.

The designer who created the cleric Mizhena justified herself by saying that she no longer wanted to write about stereotypical, heterosexual, and white heroes. Diversity is important, just like in our world.

Poor reviews due to intolerance?

Trent Oster, founder of Beamdog, expressed disappointment that the game is apparently being rated poorly just because of intolerance. Those who like Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear should also leave a positive review. Otherwise, the game would only be seen in a negative light because of the intolerant views of some players.