NexusMods, one of the largest online repositories for modifying video games, removed an anti-LGBTQ+ mod pack on Monday that cut all queer and trans content from the popular (and extremely gay) roleplaying game Baldur’s Gate 3, even transforming one of the game’s major lesbian characters into a man.
As first reported by Dot ESports, Reddit user u/SignificanceNo2411 sounded the alarm on December 3 about a BG3 mod pack called “No Alphabets,” in a post to the Baldur’s Gate 3 subreddit that quickly garnered over 17,000 upvotes. One of BG3’s biggest selling points since its August release has been its wealth of LGBTQ+ content and options: Players can choose from multiple pronoun sets and customize their body and genitals, some non-player characters (NPCs) talk at length about their casually queer lives, and party companions can be romanced regardless of the player character’s gender. In my own game, I’m currently playing a transfem sorcerer who fell head over heels with the Internet’s new favorite muscle mommy Karlach; we’re in a T4T relationship, by which of course I mean “tiefling for tiefling.”
But all those gay candlelit dinners (and the surprisingly erotic sex scenes that follow) made one particular group of reactionary gamers Gigantic Mad. The “No Alphabets” pack’s release notes say the mod “ensures that the gender and sexuality of world NPCs match medieval status quo” — a truly wild thing to say about a game where you can fight a dragon by shapeshifting into an invisible panther on an adventure that began because a telepathic tadpole got shoved in your eyeball.
In reality, “medieval status quo” is just code for “no weirdos or queers.” According to its notes, in addition to removing pronoun options and a transgender symbol from the character creator, the mod changes BG3 NPCs who mention having a same-sex partner to instead talk about their totally heterosexual marriage. Trans characters, meanwhile, are altered in appearance and dialogue to conform to their assigned gender. Most of these characters are collectively referred to as “token deviants” in the pack’s notes. The only characters to escape are those deemed not “deviant” enough to change, like a sapphic couple who are left alone because they “do not advertise their relationship.” On the other hand, characters who aren’t explicitly queer end up in the crosshairs, too: one character was apparently changed to specifically remove her pink hair and nose ring.
[Warning: At this point, it’s hard to discuss the mod pack without remaining completely spoiler-free, so be especially careful beyond this point!]
This past week’s major update to the “No Alphabets” pack saw its creators make a bananas set of changes to Dame Aylin, a character who appears late in the game’s plot. Players who manage to navigate some tricky dialogue checks discover that the immortal Aylin is in love with tormented cleric Isobel, with a truly iconic reunion scene between the two that ends with Aylin abruptly dismissing the player so she can, ahem, “admire Isobel’s fulsome beauty.” (Her girlfriend, for her part, is mortified but amenable.)
For the “No Alphabets” crew, none of this was acceptable. They changed Dame Aylin into “Ser Aylin” — because evidently, the game’s actual gender-neutral honorific “saer” was too androgynous — and altered the character into a bearded man “to maintain immersion.” Ser Aylin even got new dialogue, which the modders said was generated by an “A.I.” program,, twisting the performance of Aylin’s actual voice actor Helen Keeley. The whole project is pretty grotesque, but especially so when it morphs the performances of actual actors into ammunition for their video game culture war.
By Monday, about 24 hours after the pack’s “Ser Aylin” update went live, NexusMods moderators had caught wind of the situation, removed the mod pack, and banned the burner account that uploaded it from the site entirely. (It’s not gone for good, of course; the pack is also hosted on far-right forums including RPGHQ, a site where users post similarly bigoted mods alongside sprawling anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.) In a statement following its removal, moderators said the pack was an obvious attempt “to skirt our community guidelines.”
“We are for inclusivity, we are for diversity,” NexusMods staff wrote. “If we think someone is uploading a mod on our site with the intent to deliberately be against inclusivity and/or diversity then we will take action against it.”
This isn’t the first time NexusMods has taken quick action to remove anti-LGBTQ+ content from their site. Just four months ago in September, moderators took down a mod for the science fiction game Starfield that attempted to remove “they/them” pronouns from character creation, but which only succeeded in making every character be addressed as “they” instead. (Great work, team!)
Game mods generally exist to add options for players. For instance, I modded my copy of Guilty Gear Strive so best girl Bridget can wear a comfy sweater. Marginalized gamers are no stranger to making mods to broaden play experiences, like the folks who added pronoun selection to Stardew Valley and the myriad projects that provide for disabled gamers. With all the time the “No Alphabets” crew spent on creating a working mod, they could have chosen to do something that adds to the game or the world at large, if only they weren’t stuck obsessively insisting that LGBTQ+ people were invented in the 1990s to make them upset. To use a little gamer lingo, it sounds to us like a skill issue.
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