Thirsty Mass Effect lovers, lovers, and lovers of misleadingly innocent euphemisms rejoice: you will be able to ‘romance’ (read: bang) all your companions in Baldur’s Gate 3. Also, you can make a Halfling in the custom character creator.
“All of them,” senior producer David Walgrave says, asked how many companions will be ‘romanceable’, and seeming surprised that I even had to ask. “You played Original Sin” – indeed, I did – “and you could bang anything there, as well. Lizards and skeletons, *pfft*, whatever!”
We saw several potential paramours at an hours-long demo of the game. They include a sardonic and constantly unimpressed half-elf cleric named Shadowheart (see header image), a smug wizard named Gale, and a violent Githyanki fighter named Lae’zel, who you can see receiving a mind flayer tadpole in the latest unveiled trailer. We saw slightly less of a warlock named Will who went about calling himself ‘the Blade of the Frontiers’, which seemed a little uppity. We ourselves were playing as a high elf rogue named Astarion, who also happens to be a vampire spawn. Ooh.
These all the origin characters of which we are aware right now, though developer Larian has said there are more yet to be revealed. As in Divinity: Original Sin 2, you can play as any of them, and the remainders will be available to join your party as companions.
Whereupon, you may bang.
You can also create your own custom character, and, as in Baldur’s Gate 3’s combat, the system closely follows the Dungeons and Dragons fifth edition rules. We saw Tieflings, Drow, and a Halfling in the character creator, though we assume you can make a character from any race in the core rules and perhaps even some from the supplements – given that Lae’zel is a Githyanki, and they’ve a lot of beef with the mind flayers that are the game’s main antagonists, we’d guess they’re in too, but that’s not confirmed yet. Again, Larian told us it has way more races in character creation that it’s saving for a later date.