The Curious Case of Halsin, the ‘Bear Man’ of ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’

Before Baldur’s Gate 3 was fully released, Larian Studios held its last “Panel From Hell”: a demonstration where developers let players know what they’ve been up to, and what changes would be made in the newest early access patch. This last panel showcased some final touches and announced minor things they thought players would be excited to hear—not least of all the addition of Halsin, the big elven druid we meet in Act 1, not just as a full companion, but as a full romance.

Though we didn’t get much time with Halsin in EA, many fans immediately started fawning over him, simply because … well, he’s hot. Big of stature and heart, Halsin ticks a lot of boxes for a lot of people, perhaps even more so because he wasn’t available to them at the time. I don’t know whether or not Larian was expecting people to drool over this bear man so much, but the devs certainly heard them once they did, resulting in a new direction entirely for Halsin.

And it’s. Well. It’s something.

“Needing” a big boy

I’ll preface my scruples with a similar example. When Dragon Age: Inquisition was released in 2014, developer BioWare decided at the last minute to make Cullen Rutherford, a highly popular side character who was going to have a more prominent role, a romance option. And while Cullen is one of the most popular romances in that game, there is a sense of dissonance between his romance and his character arc.

The romanced Cullen is a soft widdle teddy bear who’s never taken the time to figure out what the clitoris is, let alone where it is. His romance is very well-written and, at times, pathetically sweet—which contrasts starkly with the traumatized Cullen, who once enabled abuses against mages as a result of his own trauma, and who still grapples with whether or not mages “deserve” freedom. This creates a weird narrative dissonance when you’re playing as a mage yourself, because you never get a chance to challenge Cullen on his beliefs. This dissonance is mostly resolved with a, “Well, you’re not like those mages/Templars,” sentiment on both sides.

Even so, the romance still works because Cullen was already written to have a large role in Dragon Age with his own complicated arc that merited player involvement. Regardless of whether or not you romance the magic cop, you can help Cullen work through his traumas and overcome his addictions. You can get to know him, hang out with him, out-drink him—all of that. Even if, ultimately, the romance was written hastily, it still carries narrative weight to it.

The awkwardness of Halsin lies in the fact that he was never supposed to have either level of involvement in BG3. Halsin was just supposed to be a guy who helps you get from Point A to Point B. He was going to be like Volo, or Dame Aylin: powerful people who aid your cause and hang out with you, but don’t really go beyond that. In deciding to write him as a companion and romance, Larian suddenly had to step up and make him more of a character than was initially intended.

The result is a person who feels half-baked at best, and overly fanservice-y at worst. Halsin has three core traits: a love for nature that’s at odds with civilization; a love for bearish things, like honey and wandering; and a love for sex, sex, and more sex. The first trait was interesting to explore, and one I wanted to see MUCH more. The second trait is cute. The third trait is ultimately what got used the most, because Larian knew it’s what fans wanted the most.

And I mean, like … I don’t know if I’m one to criticize, because we definitely got it on like Donkey Kong, and I was hooting and hollering throughout the entire scene. But in a game where pretty much every main character is written so well, Halsin’s relative simplicity stood out—and not in the best of ways.

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We bare bears

You can flirt with Halsin as soon as he joins your camp for the first time at the Tiefling party, and he’s pretty receptive to it, albeit reticent, since he wants to stay focused on his job: lifting the shadow curse. In Act 2, your dynamic with him is pretty fixed up until you take care of this shadow curse, at which point he’ll fully join your party. This already makes Halsin’s role in the game feel stilted and awkward, since you could just forget to do this quest entirely (like I initially did) and he won’t really say a word of anything meaningful to you until you do.

But, once you do, he’ll start to open up, and he’s charming! Halsin’s got a backstory and everything. Yet this backstory is hardly expanded upon in favor of his rampant sexuality, which, to be clear, is not a bad thing. The guy likes sex, and he’s open about it. It would have been fantastic if they’d found a balance between Halsin’s actual sense of self and his sexuality.

Ultimately, though, they just didn’t cook up enough of a backstory to work with, which leaves a whole lot of sexual feelings that end up subsuming the bulk of his personality. This especially becomes funky when you learn that Halsin’s fascination with drow stems not from a preference, per se, but from his experience as a sex slave in the Underdark. This is a conversation you can only have if you pick the correct dialogue option from a dialogue tree that never opens up again. More to the point, he’s painfully blasé about the whole thing, and I’m still not sure how to feel about that.

All that said, this reddit comment offers a good perspective on that particular angle, as well as Halsin as a whole:

Yet this only came up because of a conversation surrounding the way Halsin was written and how he was portrayed, since many players hold the same reservations as I do. So, where does that leave us?

More than a himbo?

I write this article not because I think Larian did a bad job, 0/10 game, but because I love Baldur’s Gate 3 a lot. Therefore, it was a little startling to see that Halsin was ultimately less developed than even some side characters were.

I don’t think his horniness is the problem. I actually love that he’s a big, sexed-up lad and has an open philosophy regarding sex and relationships. It’s just irksome when that’s all a character is made out to be, especially when it feels intentional.

The Halsin I wish we could have gotten was a Halsin who, like the natural world he loves so much, had some balance. He’d have more of a quest beyond the shadow curse, and would have more involvement in the city of Baldur’s Gate, since he has such a problem with it. We’d get to bring Halsin to the children he seems so worried about, bring him to places that need a natural touch, and actually get to watch him work his Archdruid panache instead of just sitting back and complaining.

More to the point, this Halsin wouldn’t be a companion. We already have Jaheira as a druid companion—we really don’t need two druids. Halsin could just tag along for his specific quests and otherwise offer council when needed.

And, yes, he’d still be a horny lil guy who doesn’t believe in monogamy and just wants to do whatever (and whomever) he pleases. Like I said: balance.

(featured image: Larian Studios)