Baldur’s Gate 3’s speedrunning community has focused on completing a variety of challenging missions to match the game’s massive scale. Along with traditional goals such as completing the game as quickly as possible, a small community of players took on the less traditional feat of romancing party members as quickly as possible. And, as it turned out, a close relationship develops most quickly with one of the party members – the sarcastic Laezel.
However, the recently released fourth patch for Baldur’s Gate 3 resulted in a catastrophic change that disrupted BG3 speedrunners. Since the patch, Laezel has raised her standards significantly and is now not that easy to wind up.
Before the patch was released, speedrunners had fun competing to see how quickly players could get close to Laezelle. The world record was 1 minute and 58 seconds, set by user maeeeeee, who managed to complete the game’s intro, get to the camp, and do all the dialogue with Laezelle in less than two minutes.
Hidden in the patch log at number 4 is a new detail dedicated to Laezel, which reads: “In order for Laezel to choose to enter into a romantic relationship with you, you must prove yourself worthy through your actions.”
While there are some disappointments among speedrunning fans, most of them are happy about it, and some even praise Larian Studios for making the changes, as they believe that they are more in line with Laezel’s proud character as a warrior. Going forward, players will have to demonstrate more of their strength and determination to win her over, which means spending more time with her and being a more reliable and honorable suitor.
However, the romance-focused speedrunning community will continue to work and will likely find another character. Perhaps it will be a bear.
