Baldur's Gate 3's bear sex scene was such an 'upward turn in momentum for the game' that its animator called his mum to show it off: 'She was like, that's weeeird!'

Baldur's Gate 3 is resoundingly, terrifyingly, bone-quakingly popular. Why? Well, there's its deep and rewarding RPG mechanics, its cast of fascinating characters, and the historically high score it got in PC Gamer's Baldur's Gate 3 review. But mostly it's the bear sex.

Even before it released, BG3's red-hot bear scene—the bear is actually a transmogrified Halsin, in case you forgot—had already gone viral. Which makes sense. It is, after all, quite a unique scene as videogame romances go, and Larian was so proud of it that they made sure to show it off. To everyone. Including their mums.

At a recent BG3 retrospective PAX Panel, cinematic artist (and bear-scene animator) Matt Davis revealed that he showed the scene off to his mother the day after it was first revealed in a pre-release Panel From Hell video. «I remember her words: She was like, 'That's weeeird!'» which is probably also what my mum would say if I tried to show her a scene I had tastefully rendered of a fantasy man getting down with a bear. «Very supportive, though,» Davis clarified. That's what mums are for.

The fact the scene featured in BG3's pre-release marketing apparently came as a surprise to Davis. «What makes it even better was: I had no idea that it was gonna get shown at that Panel From Hell.»

David said he remembers being at Larian's Dublin office and watching the Panel From Hell go out on the day of launch. Pointing to writing director Adam Smith, Davis said «You were on stage and like, 'We've shown you one romance scene, now let's show you another!'»

Per Davis, everyone else in the office expected something relatively sedate and polite: Gale's romance, perhaps. But that wasn't what they got. «I immediately knew… I turned [and] I just said, 'They're doing the beeeear!'»

Reader, they were, indeed, doing the bear.

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Which turned out, of course, to be a peerless bit of marketing. «It signified a