The bear scene was one of the reasons why Baldur’s Gate 3 became so famous. But hardly anyone knows how it came about. Now the developer explains.
How did the scene come about? Most of the scenes in Baldur’s Gate 3 were performed by real actors and transferred into the game using “motion capture” technology. This means that the cut scenes in the game are first acted out by real people and then receive a digital enhancement, just like in the movie, so that the game characters can be seen.
The famous bear scene also made its way into the game this way. Probably, there wasn’t a real bear in the Larian Studios film studio, but two actors likely portrayed the intimate moments.
However, the whole process was much more professional than one might think. The performance director of Baldur’s Gate 3, Greg Lidstone, has now revealed what the shooting of the scene was like and what he was thinking at the time.
In Baldur’s Gate 3 there are particularly few limits regarding partner search:
Lidstone: “There’s a bear in the scene!”
What does the performance director say about the scene? Lidstone was asked about the scene at the Game Developers Conference.
He describes his thoughts as follows: “What has happened in my life that has led me to this point? There’s a bear in the scene! […] No, we made a very conscious decision.” In the past, he has participated in games where it was like in the “Wild West” when it came to letting actors perform difficult scenes.
To ensure that everyone has a pleasant experience, Lidstone decided to involve “intimacy coordinators.”
What are “intimacy coordinators”? They are professionals from the film and television industry whose job it is to choreograph scenes with sexual content or other sensitive content and support the actors.
This is to ensure that the personal boundaries of the actors are protected and that they feel comfortable. The risk of boundary violations is to be minimized or avoided with the help of “intimacy coordinators” (via kmkb.de).
What was their role in the scene? Lidstone continues:
“We wanted someone there to keep an eye on things and ensure that the actors feel safe. […] So we had a Zoom call with the intimacy coordinator [Enric Ortuno] and talked with him, and he was gracious, and we just felt that he would be there for the actors and that he was confident enough to call me out if I made wrong decisions.”
The intimacy coordinator also had the task of protecting the actors from the performance director and making the shooting comfortable for them. We have elaborated on the role of intimacy coordinators in Baldur’s Gate 3 in an article: Baldur’s Gate 3 values intimate scenes so much that they even hire professionals from film & television
