Baldur’s Gate 3 showed clips of a bear sex scene a month before its release. TikTok even banned the official game account on the platform for this, which only fueled the game’s popularity. Now, content director Ben Maltz-Jones from Larian Studios has commented on the incident
.
What scene is it about? The scene discussed at the Game Developer Conference is part of the unlockable sex scene in Baldur’s Gate 3 with the druid Halsin.
Once you have won him over as a member of your group, you can romance him and unlock a love scene with him in Act 3. As a druid, he can transform into animals and gives the player the choice of being intimate with him as a human or in bear form.
During the livestream Panel from Hell: Release Showcase
, about a month before the release version of Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian showed clips of the scene in question. Since no explicit act is visible in the video, there were no issues on most social media platforms.
However, TikTok subsequently banned the official Larian Studios account:
What did the content director say? During the Game Developer Conference, colleagues from The Gamer had the opportunity to speak with Larian’s content director Ben Maltz-Jones. He mentioned the livestream and the bear scene during the conversation.
According to Maltz-Jones, the specific scene did not go down well on TikTok: What works on TikTok? Not bear sex. They hate it.
He also stated that sharing the scene was explicitly against TikTok’s content policy, which explained the ban.
What were the consequences of the scene? As mentioned above, the livestream led to an immediate ban on TikTok. However, this again caused Larian Studios to go viral for their audacity in making bear sex possible in their game.
Baldur’s Gate 3 was already known prior to this but was regarded more as a niche game: Due to its turn-based combat system, its closeness to Pen & Paper “Dungeons & Dragons” and the fact that it is the third part in an already older series, it likely went under the radar for many players.
Due to the uproar surrounding the TikTok ban and the thousands of possibilities illustrated by the scene, the game suddenly gained popularity:
Just before the release, the player numbers were still around 4,000 per day. The game celebrated its previous peak since release with 875,343 concurrent players according to Steam Charts – and that, after the team expected a maximum of 100,000 players.
In the meantime, Larian has continuously added fresh content for Baldur’s Gate 3. Even now, many are still playing and facing new challenges. For example, one player completed the challenging Honour Mode without attacking even once: Complete Honour Mode with 2 buttons and no attacks – Here’s how the build works
