“For Lae’zel to decide to romance you, you no longer only need to gain high enough approval from her,” reads one entry for Baldur’s Gate 3’s fourth major patch. “You must also have proven yourself worthy through your actions.” Sounds reasonable enough, but there’s a catch: an entire speedrun category has been irrevocably altered. RIP Sex%.
Ever since prolific Baldur’s Gate speedrunner Mae reached one of the game’s sex scenes in just eight minutes, the game’s speedrunning community has driven that record down, and Mae took back the crown with a blistering 1:58 time just under two weeks ago.
The run relied on Githyanki fighter Lae’zel’s quite frankly appallingly low standards, with her first romance scene (R-rated, naturally) able to be triggered on completing her first personal quest step of bullying a Tiefling in Silvanus’ Grove. With magically-enhanced, maximum strength leaps, you could moon jump your way past every fight and straight into Lae’zel’s wiry strong arms in minutes.
“It is with immeasurable disappointment that I announce the Sex% speedrun has been patched out of Baldur’s Gate 3,” declared Mae in a post to YouTube. In an accompanying video memorializing the Sex% run, Mae notes that runners will probably develop a new route in this slower, less horny paradigm. The OG leaderboard will stand in mute testimony to the game we once knew.
Although it had devastating consequences for Sex% runners, this was likely a change aimed at the wider player base. User forestsavior shrewdly pointed in response to Mae’s original post that Larian likely “felt (or heard through player feedback) that Lae’zel coming onto you was a bit too easy to accidentally trigger in casual play.”
My colleague, Robin Valentine, lamented as such in his rumination on Baldur’s Gate 3’s sensual horndog nature. Robin wasn’t imagining things, because Larian later said that the companion approval rating threshold that determined when they started trying to smooch you had been tuned unintentionally low, and changed it in a patch.
I gotta say though, I’ve always liked how uncomfortable the companion come-ons can get. For me, this is the necessary price of Baldur’s Gate 3’s crew being a smorgasbord of sexual delights—you gotta deal with their feelings when you reject them. Whatever the case, I look forward to seeing the new, more languidly-paced Sex%. Sex% is dead, long live Sex%.
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