In a subreddit dedicated to Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios’ critically acclaimed Dungeons & Dragons–based role-playing game, a player posed an important question: “I know you probably heard this here more times than I can count but seriously, why is everyone so horny?”
There was a practical element to this query. In a different game, what is or isn’t horny is largely subjective (what you perceive as horny and what I perceive are probably different), but Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t operate on subtext alone. A major social aspect of the game is romancing party members, from the sharp-jawed blood-sucking Astarion to the mysterious Shadowheart. Shortly after the game’s release in August, players noticed that some party members—particularly the wizard Gale—were harder to discourage than others in the dating department. For some players, the especially amorous adventurers in their group were making it difficult to pursue the ones they wanted. Others found the aggressive flirting off-putting. As one player put it: “Gale telling me I’m handsome and sexy in the middle of a cursed shadow forest without any inputs from the player is kinda strange.”
Sex and romance were built into Baldur’s DNA, and Larian leaned into the game’s sexual nature early in the process. According to the BBC, the team even used an intimacy coordinator—professionals who help choreograph intimate scenes and ensure a sense of safety and comfort between actors and production—during recording sessions. There’s even a scene where you can have sex with a druid character … while he’s in his bear form.
Speedrunners were happy to play along, creating an entire run category specifically for how fast you could bed a companion. The top runner, who goes by Mae, told WIRED back in August that it was initially a “joke run.” “I didn’t really feel any pressure to do well or anything,” Mae says. “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, though Mae still holds the current top record with one 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 says. “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.”
Still, Baldur’s Gate 3 leaned in a little too hard, even for the developers. Game director Swen Vincke told TheGamer that characters being desperate to jump your bones 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.” The goal had been to create relationships that were more like those in real life.
Gale was the first character patched to keep his pants on. (He “wasn’t supposed to be like, instantly there,” Vincke said in that interview.) Earlier this month, another party member, Lae’zel, was singled out in the game’s notes for Patch #4. “For Lae’zel to decide to romance you, you no longer only need to gain high enough approval from her. You must also have proven yourself worthy through your actions,” Larian wrote. (Speedrunners within the community, including Mae, claim Lae’zel can still be romanced in the same ways.)
The speedrunning community currently has two different categories for its sex speedruns: Pre-Patch 4 and Patch 4+, though the latter has yet to clock any official runs.
Larian created a vast playground for players to explore. There is far more to Baldur’s Gate 3 than lusting after party members, whether it’s the game’s writing, actor performances, or complex combat. Even as Larian has patched out the bugs that made its cast especially lascivious, it’s the community that has carried on the horny torch, finding new ways to speedrun around changes. Players are the one thing you can’t patch.
With the game’s upcoming launch on Xbox, still expected sometime this year, a new wave of console gamers will soon join that community. The traditional sex speedrun may have reached its zeitgeist, but players are far from done. Earlier this month, a speedrunner named “weedmoder” achieved a new record for sleeping with the game’s beddable bear, finishing with a time of 50 minutes and 30 seconds. Their gift to the community was a tutorial of how they did it, posted online—a reminder that, for once, how long you last is all about how fast you finish.
