Larian Critical - Blog Posts

larian writers, with hands placed on astarions shoulders like a proud parent: this is a thoughtful and touching narrative about male victims of abuse

fans: hey, thats fuckin sweet! do you have any more of these stories in your game?

larian writers, grimacing as they turn their heads towards wyll and gale: okay so, in our defense, it gets kinda murky when its a hot white woman doing it

gale stans: wasnt he groomed?

larian writers: but he liked it? his ultimate goal is to get back with her :)

wyll stans: isnt it kinda gross that the devil who owns his soul keeps blatantly sexually harassing him in front of everyone as a form of humiliation-based punishment?

larian writers and also whoever the fuck wrote that christmas animation (you motherfucker, when i fucking get you i stg): i know canon says otherwise, but he secretly wants her. dont you want her? you can fuck her if youd like

halsin stans: hey, so, uh-

larian writers, sprinting out of the room:

Again with poor Wyll:

I was randomly reminded of this scene the other day and how you have the option of talking Wyll down from wanting to kill Mizora. It's framed as a good thing, like you're steering him away from a dark path of digging two graves, but is that really what this is? I think he has every right to want to kill her (monster hunter that he is), not just for himself, but to protect anyone else she'd take advantage of and hurt in the future. I understand that what this line is saying is us telling him that he might do more good in taking on enemies as needed rather than putting all this time into a single target, but if that's the case I don't like how it's phrased.

I get that Wyll is the most morally righteous of the companions, and being driven by revenge isn't exactly a good thing, but he has every right to want it. She forced him into a slavery contract, directly violated his bodily integrity at least twice, supported the death of the most important person in his life, and has been mentally tormenting him all the while.

Wyll is absolutely the type to fight out of love and the desire to protect rather than to hurt and avenge, yes. But I still think it's really condescending to tell him "revenge is bad", when (to my memory), we never tell Astarion that wanting revenge on Cazador is wrong. And Shadowheart taking out the Sharrans is seen as a grim and unfortunate but necessary public service. Even with Karlach, I think the most we say about her wanting end Gortash is "let's wait and be smart about this" (if you're planning to kill him at all, that is). Either this is another example of Wyll not getting the same treatment as other characters (and dare I say, being reductive of his trauma), or I'm just projecting. Maybe I'm misreading this whole thing — let me know.

But telling him to "let it go" is kind of wild no matter how you look at it.

(to be clear I don't think murder and revenge are "good" things. But killing devils seems to be framed as like killing a monster rather than a person, and even then, killing people is commonplace in this game. I'm just saying the morality should be consistent.)

As patch 8 is going to be released, we are going to see new features and changes.

But Larian Studios still won’t give Wyll any content.

Larian knows people want Wyll to have more content but they’re actively ignoring them while liking people’s demands of having a Gortash romance.

Before anyone says “complaining won’t do anything”, it does anything.

For examples:

• Ascended!Astarion fans complaining about their Tav being afraid when Astarion kisses them. Larian changed Ascended!Astarion’s kiss to have Tav smiling after being treated like they were nothing.

Basically Larian threw out the whole entire point that Astarion is continuing the cycle of abuse that Cazador placed him through. Because they wanted to placate the Ascended!Astarion fans.

• Fans complaining about how Lae’zel is “too mean” when you first meet her after escaping the ship. Larian changed that to have her a bit nicer.

If there’s more let me know.

Larian has shown how little they care about Wyll and his story, heck! He’s the most integral piece of the story, but they don’t bother to give him content or fix the bugs that he has.

They don’t even bother to give Wyll a page that talks about him only without putting Mizora in it.

Larian can do better and they should be actively better but they chose not to do better.

So, I’m currently playing my Wyll Romance run in BG3 and I had no idea just how dirty they did my man! I want more! So much more!

I want to console Wyll when his father gets tadpoled. I want to stroll with him through the streets of the Gate when we first arrive there. I want to reassure him that his devil form doesn’t take away his worth. I want to sleep with him beneath the stars - give me a spicy scene! Not the PG13 shit you actually get.

Wyll had such a big story, yet Larian does nothing with it. Meanwhile Astarion, whose story is not elemental to the main plot at all, gets an abundance of extra scenes. And don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Astarion and his story, but seeing how little effort was put into the Wyll Romance Arc breaks my heart.

Honestly, there was so much potential. I want more Wyll content!

I just put some detailed, bulleted feedback in the Larian discord server. If you'd like a cheat sheet for ideas on what things to mention in your feedback be it in their discord, on the feedback board on their forum, through their report form (select feedback in the 'report type' drop down menu. Someone also suggested sending each issue as a separate feedback instead of all in one which is a fabulous idea), on twitter, or so on I will drop what I wrote below the cut. You are free to copy my homework and just change the wording a little if it makes sending feedback less daunting.

Hi! Firstly, I will say that I love Wyll very much. Many people do! He has far more devoted fans than you may realize :sparkling_heart: However, we are now 6 patches and 17 hotfixes in and the issue of Wyll’s content disparity still has not been addressed. This is especially notable after the romance-themed Patch 6 which did not even address the major disparity in romance content for arguably the most romantic character.

To break down what I mean:

Despite multiple patches, Wyll still lacks the same level of content as other characters in terms of overall dialogue time (several hours less than Karlach who was added later and has still received new scenes and content beyond epilogues, kisses, and idles). This has yet to be addressed.

He is the only character without a single romance greeting while most if not all other characters have several.

In the epilogue (which was created after the game and thus cannot be excused as “ran out of time to finish him” as other players have tried to suggest about the main game) Wyll is the only origin companion who cannot be hugged or kissed while you can do one or both to all other characters.

Wyll only has two romance scenes compared to all other origin companions who have 3+

He is the only romanceable character lacks a sex scene (or equivalent non-sexual romantic scene to fill this gap)

Wyll is unable to make his own choice in the climax of his story.

Wyll has the least reactivity among the main origin companions, both as a companion and as an Origin character.

Wyll still suffers from bugs that have yet to be addressed and fixed

Despite other character appearances being tweaked between EA in the full game as well as in subsequent patches, Wyll still wears the default warlock outfit which wasn’t even recolored like Gale’s wizard outfit was.

In line with the above, Wyll’s appearance as a devil does not match what is described in his dialogue (claws, more ridges, etc.)

The only updates that have been made to Wyll are the ones that affect all characters (kisses and epilogues) so, to clarify, this is not what I or any others giving feedback are referring to. We are referring to the above issues that have been present since the full game was released.

He is arguably one of the most important characters to the story, one of the most romantically inclined protagonists, and he has one of the most interesting stories. I believe many more people would see this were he given the proper updates and adjustments to bring him up to the content levels of other companions.

It is especially rare that a black character has the chance to play the role in fantasy media that Wyll has been given (heroic, romantic, the center of intruige, witty and charming, and so on), but it is unfortunately common for black characters to get sidelined in writing and for this reason I believe it's all the more important that these things are addressed. He is an important character to many people and would be a wonderful breath of fresh air for the genre if given more time and care.

All of this has been a pretty big topic of discussion on various social media, especially since Patch 6 was released, and I would be more than happy to share those posts (particularly those from social media sites Larian isn’t on) if requested so that a wider range of organic feedback and interest can be seen. If you have any further questions you are free to contact me about it! If you would like more detailed suggestions on what might be done to improve and update his story and integration, myself and especially the many talented and passionate Wyll writers and enjoyers out there would be more than happy to contribute.

Thank you very much for taking the time to read this!

Being a Halsin fan is....a unique experience in that you're frequently prone towards running into all sorts of taunts and insults from being called "mentally ill" for liking him because people assume you're into his "deviant behavior" to hearing that there's only "7 romances" because he doesn't count, to hearing that he's a sex pest, constant reminders of how players kill him in a feedback or fan thread about him, him being seen as fit for only being left as "Orin bait" by a few Astarion fans (who hate him because they see him as a sex pest) when I'm meanwhile turning Astarion down only to run into Astarion canonically admitting that he sees Tav's denial of consent as a "dire mistake to be corrected":

Or, frequently running into complaints as to why he's there when Jaheira is around for the Druid role (he was around first so it's clear why they're not acknowledging that).

"He's just fanservice that didn't need to be there! Why can't we have Alfira?!"

"We could have had a werewolf instead of him?! Wasted opportunity!" (Fans datamined that and discovered that Helia was dropped long before they added Halsin so it wasn't a toss up between them that fans think)

"He's a cheater trying to get you to cheat!"

Ironically, another fan found a post that not only was this wrong, Shadowheart and Astarion approve of the player sexually harassing a married NPC:

His point and click lines have still not been fixed despite requests to address them for months now.

Requests for more depth from his days in Early Access has not happened.

Pleas to Larian to please fix the writing that has him making fans uncomfortable has only just now been addressed but the damage has been done.

I see all these moments that get other characters amusement and affection while seeing Halsin vilified for stuff that doesn't even happen. I see acknowledgement that Gale's Weave scene was a bug, Wyll's dance scene where you couldn't avoid him trying to kiss you as "not a big deal" (until they were corrected) and I agree, that's exactly what they were: unintended side effects of poorly thought out writing/coding/scripting.

And yet, Halsin's presence has to be justified every step of the way.

There is so little sympathy for this character. So little sympathy for fans of this character. It even feels like Larian wrote him off when their attempt to make him a companion backfired.

I'm not even sure why fans want more romances added when this one ended with such hostility. I'd rather they fix and expand on the current romances like Wyll's, Minthara's and, yes, Halsin's (he does count as a romance).