Baldur’s Gate 3 Used ‘Intimacy Co-Ordinators’ to Help Actors Feel Comfortable During Romantic Scenes

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Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian employed specially trained intimacy co-ordinators to make sure actors felt comfortable during romantic scenes.

In an interview with the BBC, actors Jennifer English and Devora Wilde, who play half-elf cleric Shadowheart and githyanki warrior Lae’zel respectively, praised Larian for employing the intimacy co-ordinators. “I never felt ‘yuck’ in a recording session at all,” said English. “And I’ve got quite a low ‘yuck’ threshold.”

While intimacy co-ordinators are now commonly used in film and TV productions, Larian said it reckons it’s one of the first studios to use them during the development of a traditional video game. While 2022’s Immortality used an intimacy coordinator, that game is more an interactive film video game than a traditional video game.

There’s no word on whether they were used for Baldur’s Gate 3’s now infamous bear sex scene, though.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a sprawling open-ended Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game from the makers of the Divinity: Original Sin series. Larian announced it had brought the PC version release date forward a month, from August 31 to August 3, in order to avoid a clash with the likes of Bethesda’s upcoming behemoth Starfield in early September. The PlayStation 5 version, meanwhile, is delayed slightly to September 6, and the Xbox Series X and S versions are without a release window (more on Baldur’s Gate 3’s Xbox hold-up here).

Speaking to IGN, Vincke said the developer is seeing a standard playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 take 75 to 100 hours. However, players who want to “do everything” should expect to double that figure.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.