Sex sells. And this is true to just about anything.
This is because sex attracts attention. All around the world, male and female, young and old, are all hardwired into seeking sexually relevant information. This is why adding something sexual into a content can make the content more noticeable.
Because of this, sex is often used to entice impulse purchases.
And apparently, Larian Studios, the creator of Baldur's Gate 3 is using that strategy to market its game.
Before releasing it to Steam, the developer of the role-playing game 'Dungeons & Dragons' game revealed that players are able to have sex with their companions.
And they can do that even when they take the form of a bear.
In a gameplay preview of the game, the developer added an erotic scene that has literally divided the community.
In the game, players can play as a Druid, which has the ability to temporarily morph into a bear as their animal form.
And in the clip in question, the developer showed that players as a Druid in the bear form can have sexual intercourse featuring the character with their companion.
In the scene, a playable party member Astarion sneaks off to the woods with a Druid party member named Halsin for an intimate moment.
During the clip, Halsin briefly loses control of his abilities and transforms into a bear, leaving the player with several options.
Players could choose to comfort Halsin, or be freaked out by Halsin's lack of control, or choose to have Halsin change back into a bear and continue their dalliance.
But lead writer Adam Smith explained in a press release that they wanted to give players the freedom to choose, thus providing an array of options players can choose for these kinds of situations.
"Have you ever considered the joys and pleasures of sexual congress with a wildshaped Druid?" Smith said.
"Because at Larian, we have, and ultimately landed on the side of giving the people what they want: tender, consensual romance with a man temporarily transformed into a grizzly bear."
It should be noted that the scene involve two men who undress, the depiction of the two's penises, before they engage in lust.
While the scene is not to say that the game is an adult game or in any form, but despite the absurdity of the scene, all the developer wanted was to depict how two human companions can have sex (at least mentally).
The developer wants to give players of Baldur's Gate 3 the freedom they want in a Dungeons & Dragons game.
It's worth noting here, that players in the bear form can have sex with their companion, but they cannot make romance to actual animals, obviously.
Baldur's Gate 3 also has a thorough character customization.
Character identity is at the center of Baldur’s Gate 3, and its character creator allows customization of everything from players' protagonist’s appearance to their stats and background. Players can choose to become a hero, villain, or Ed Sharran, a simple bard traveling the roads of Faerûn with his trusty lute and a barely-concealed inner darkness that gnaws and festers, demanding release.
Because of this, the character creator provides a lot of room for expression.
For example, players have skin options, like freckles, vitiligo, scars; tattoo designs; heterochromia; lip makeup customization; accessories like earrings and piercings; horn color customization for Tieflings, and lots more.
In addition, players are also given an age slider where they can create an older protagonist, and body types.
Players can also change their genders.
A female character can be customized to have a penis, and a male character can be given a vulva.
Players can also customize their characters' genitals, by scrolling through the available shapes, and whether they prefer their characters to have pubic hair or not.
But again, sex sells, and sometimes, the weirder the 'better'.
The unique approach helped boost the game's pre-sales, ahead of its official release on Steam.
Following the release of the clip, Baldur's Gate 3's sales on Steam climbed and became one of of the few at Steam best-seller chart.
What's worth noting here, the openness of the scene seems to run contrary to the industry trend, which has generally pulled back from openly sexual content in blockbuster video games.
Previously, the most notable explicit sexual content include the ones introduced by Cyberpunk 2077.
The game contains nudity and sexual material, and that players can also select a gender and customize their character; customization can include depictions of breasts, buttocks, and genitalia, as well as various sizes and combinations of genitals.
In the game's character creation for example, players are allowed to customize their character's genitalia and other parts of the human body that are usually concealed.
Cyberpunk 2077 also displays nudity throughout various points in the game.
Read: Cyberpunk 2077, The Most Anticipated Game Of 2020, A Rare Nudity Acception On Twitch
Later, when the game is finally released, people began to realize that their character can literally 'bang' any of their companions, regardless of their sexual preference.
From Astarion, Gale, Lae'zel, Shadowheart, Wyll, Karlach, Halsin, and more, the "banging free-for-all" approach to romance, allows players to pursue something most games are shy of exploring: polyamory.
Every companion in the game is equal, but has different approaches. What this means, players can pick whoever they wish to be with, and have sex with.
But to do that they have to earn their companion's approval by doing, or not doing certain things, and then choose some naughty statements or say some nice words, to take the relationship to the next level.
While the approach is praised by many, some players said that the game's sexual approach makes the game seems to be fulfilling fantasies rather than experience.
Romance in Baldur’s Gate 3 feels more like fan fiction than inclusion.
After all, the game's lack of sexual preferences for companions eliminates the opportunity for genuine romantic disappointment and misses the chance for narrative-building.
Regardless, according to SteamDB, Baldur's Gate 3 has broken into Steam's top ten most played games.
Even after months later, the game managed to keep its pace.
In fact, speedrunnners, who are players who play games to break records on how fast a game can be finished, played along, creating an entire run category specifically for how fast players could bed a companion.
One of the top and fastest runners, who goes by Mae, said that it was initially a "joke run."
"I didn’t really feel any pressure to do well or anything," Mae said "It was to be funny and put it out there that, 'Hey, by the way, you can bang in like, eight minutes.'"
The category quickly picked up a following, and Mae as the record holder, managed to make a character have sex with another within just 1 minute and 58 seconds.
"In romance runs especially, I think it goes against the cliché of some dude assembling a harem of brainless women," Mae said.
"Especially in a game like this where, frankly, the companions have so much more emotional depth than anything we’ve seen previously in video games."
According to the developer, Baldur’s Gate 3 does make sex too prominent.
But according to Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of the video game company Larian Studios, said that making the characters horny was actually a bug, not a feature.
"The approval thresholds were too low when we shipped," Vincke said.
"That's why they were so horny in the beginning. It wasn't supposed to be that way. We've fixed it since, at least for some of them. We're still fixing a few."
But that bug, or feature, or both, does make Baldur’s Gate 3 deserve a unique title on its own.
At least to players and fans, Baldur’s Gate 3 is considered the "horniest game" of 2023.