A ton of new details (and gameplay footage) have emerged on the upcoming Baldur’s Gate 3 since yesterday, and amid that deluge of new details, there’s one piece of info that quite a few will be curious to know. As is the case with any choice-driven and story-focused RPG, there are many who are wondering if there will be romance options with characters in Baldur’s Gate 3– and, of course, there will be.
“Whenever you are making important decisions or even side decisions, they will react to it,” executive producer David Walgrave told Twinfinite in response to a question about romance options. “They will start reacting to other people in the party as well. The encampment moments are also very important. You can select who to talk to, and in the camp, there will indeed be romance.”
But, keeping in line with their past work and everything else that we’ve heard about Baldur’s Gate 3 so far, it seems like Larian Studios are looking to take things quite far with the game’s romances. As opposed to having a mechanical system that just hands players romances based on arbitrary goals, Baldur’s Gate 3 is instead going for a much more organic approach, one that brings about much more complexity.
“We don’t want to make it into this romance system which is, ‘I earned this person.’ We want it to feel more real,” senior writer Adam Smith told VG247. “We want to have jealousy. We want to have just great joy in it, as well. But yes, we don’t want it to be a case of, ‘you brought me the gift that I like the most, so you got +50 affection.’ It’s much more based on how you deal with them, and the things you do. So when I say, ‘everyone’s romanceable by everybody else,’ that’s not in every playthrough.”
Baldur’s Gate 3 has also been confirmed to feature a turn-based combat system, similar to Larian Studios’ own Divinity: Original Sin titles, and dissimilar to the first two Baldur’s Gate games. Read more about why it’s going with that approach through here.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is currently in development for PC and Stadia, but according to Larian, it’s unlikely that it’ll be releasing on current-gen consoles as well. It’s also been confirmed that the game will enter early access later this year.