Baldur's Gate 2 writer was unconvinced anyone would care about romance in an RPG: "People don't come here to romance, they come here to fight s**t and battle dragons"

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Hear me out: date the dragons

Baldur's Gate 2
(Image credit: BioWare)

Decades before today's RPG fans began to hunger and, indeed, thirst for romanceable characters, Baldur's Gate 2 writer and Dragon Age narrative veteran David Gaider says including romance at all felt both uncertain and rare.

Speaking to PC Gamer magazine, Gaider describes the development environment on Baldur's Gate 2 and shares an amusing anecdote featuring Baldur's Gate lead and fellow BioWare veteran James Ohlen.

"The whole romance thing was just an experiment, like James had no idea that anybody would even like this," Gaider recalls. "We were writing these long stories, and they were cool, but romance? It was like, ‘People don't come here to romance, they come here to fight shit and battle dragons!'"

Even on a mechanical level, romanceable companions proved challenging. Related issues, complicated by triggers and turning points in personal vs romance quests, were apparently common – so common that, "By the end of the project, James put a sign on his door saying, ‘If it's about Jaheira, don't knock,'" according to Baldur's Gate 3 designer and writer Lukas Kristjanson, who worked directly on Jaheira's quest.

Austin Wood
Austin Wood
Senior writer

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his position is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional feature, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.

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