Baldur’s Gate 3’s Inevitable Bear Sex Speedrun Is Finally Here

The Baldur’s Gate 3 sex speedrunning community has turned its attention to the game’s infamous horny bear after a previous tactic was patched out.

Developer Larian’s sprawling Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game has spawned a vociferous Sex% speedrun category in which players try to bed a companion in the quickest time possible. The current world record, set by speedrunner Mae, comes in at under two minutes and uses the previously established strategy of gaining enough early approval with Githyanki fighter Lae’zel that she agrees to spend the night.

Lae’zel was the perfect companion for this strategy because she was relatively easy to impress right at the start of the game by bullying a Tiefling in Silvanus’ Grove, an area players could leapfrog huge swathes of Baldur’s Gate 3’s opening section to get to in just a minute (check out our Lae’zel romance guide for more).

But Baldur’s Gate 3 Patch 4 changed all that by making Lae’zel harder to charm: “For Lae’zel to decide to romance you, you no longer only need to gain high enough approval from her. You must also have proven yourself worthy through your actions,” the patch notes said.

At the time, the Baldur’s Gate 3 sex speedrunning community was left in “shambles”, but it has now turned its attention to companion Halsin, a druid who can turn into a bear and have sex with you, if you say the right things.

Ahead of its August release, Baldur’s Gate 3 went viral after Larian revealed players could have sex with Halsin in bear form, and showed off a snippet of how that sex scene played out. Now, Baldur’s Gate 3 sex speedrunners have targeted Halsin as an alternative to Lae’zel, with the current world record set at 50 minutes 30 seconds by Weedmoder.

Weedmoder’s video of the run is well worth a watch, but in summary, we see the standard speedrunning leapfrog technique to quickly escape the Nautiloid, then we get the ‘Shadowboxing’ technique that involves stuffing Shadowheart’s corpse into a box (really). Weedmoder saves the Grove (which pleases Halsin) and progresses to Act 2. From there it’s a bit of a slog to the bear sex scene (we won’t spoil key plot points for those who have yet to make it that far).

“Basically, the goal is to complete Halsin’s romance questline,” Weedmoder said. “His romance questline is very long, requires you to go all the way to Act 3 and do a lot of extra stuff.”

The strategy here revolves around the somewhat vague rules of sexual engagement within Baldur’s Gate 3, with speedrunners trying to work out exactly which choices and encounters influence Halsin’s decision to have sex with the player character.

Just as the race to bear sex was inevitable, so is optimisation of the time it takes to get there. No doubt this debut world record will be broken multiple times in the coming months as speedrunners work out even faster ways to convince Halsin to do the deed.

In IGN’s review of Baldur’s Gate 3, which returned a 10/10, we said: “With crunchy, tactical RPG combat, a memorable story with complex characters, highly polished cinematic presentation, and a world that always rewards exploration and creativity, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the new high-water mark for CRPGs.”

For more, check out IGN’s comprehensive Baldur’s Gate 3 walkthrough.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].