Baldur's Gate 2 added romance to the beloved RPG series in a move that was influenced by Final Fantasy 7, after the sequel's writing and design director was "scared shitless" by the JRPG, believing that "this is how a game should be."
During a recent discussion in celebration of Baldur's Gate 2's 25th anniversary with YouTube creator Slandered Gaming (below), BioWare veteran David Gaider – who worked as a designer on Baldur's Gate 2 – admits that "I did not want to write romances at all" in the RPG sequel, but was asked to by writing and design director James Ohlen.
"It was handed to me and I was like, 'James, I'm not a romance guy. Like, I'll give it a shot, I guess, but [are] you sure you want romance?' And he was like, 'Yeah, let's try it,'" Gaider explains.
Elaborating on this, current Beamdog CEO Trent Oster, who worked on modelling for the original Baldur's Gate game, explains that Ohlen "had played Final Fantasy 7," and Square Enix's game had left him concerned. "They had character interaction and romance, and he was scared shitless," Oster says.
"He literally said, 'Guys, these guys kicked our ass. This is how a game should be. We don't know what we're doing.'"
Oster continues, noting that Ohlen was "hard on everybody, but he was a humble guy, and if he thought something was better, he fought hard to get something better in the game." That extended to the RPG's setting, as Oster describes Baldur's Gate 2's setting as "kind of like a rollercoaster through some of the most great places in the realms" in comparison to Baldur's Gate 1, which is "kind of linked to one map."
Talking about the sequel, he adds: "You're in the Sahuagin city, and you're in the Underdark, you're just hitting all these high spots that you've always read about in books, and you finally start to hit some of these places and it was just awesome."
Needless to say, it all worked out in the end – romance has become an increasingly popular feature in RPGs, after all, and it's hard to imagine Baldur's Gate 3 without it.
