Baldur's Gate 3 dev explains the "Realm of Naked Men" that's suddenly terrifying the RPG's community – apparently it "has many functions"

Update: Larian has explained why there are a bunch of naked men stood around in Baldur's Gate 3.

"The Realm of Naked Men, as the internet has dubbed them, has many functions," the developer explained to GamesRadar+. "Primarily, they are used as VO dummies. When you select your voice in the character creator, it needs to be assigned to a physical dummy character in order to play."

"So, one of these random naked dudes will pipe up from the shadows, playing samples of your chosen voice," Larian continued. "The other use is to have a physical avatar assigned to the player in the background, while the player creates their own Tav. A cruel fate, indeed. Thanks, Naked Men!"

There we have it. There was a reason for a gang of naked men on the outskirts of Baldur's Gate 3, and it was better than anything we could've asked for.

Original: Baldur's Gate 3 sometimes has a gang of naked men just off-screen, and we have no idea why.

Last week, one Twitter user first noticed that sometimes, in Baldur's Gate 3, you'll get accidentally teleported into a random space when using mods with Larian's game. That's all fine and well - you could reload your last autosave, after all - but you'll sometimes get teleported into random spaces surrounded by a crew of butt-naked men.

The same Twitter user resurfaced over the last few days with photographic proof of the escapade. It turns out that the crew of naked men are also just hiding slightly off-screen in Baldur's Gate 3's character creator, and they almost weirdly look like they're watching you as you mess with your custom character.

The council of naked men are judging your creation, or so it looks like. Even Larian has got in on the fun, acknowledging the weird discovery in the tweet below. There are eye-grabbing player-led discoveries in games, and then there's whatever the hell is going on here.

We can't quite wrap our heads around what's going on here. The council of naked men being just off-screen in the character creator sort of makes sense - you can imagine Larian swapping the models in and out with the one the camera is focusing on while the player is scrolling through body types, perhaps. 

But what about when the council of naked men are out in the open zones of Baldur's Gate 3? Is there something in the code that depends on a group of naked men being just out of sight of the player? We've all heard how games are held together by glue and prayers, but what about being held together by a group of naked men?

We've taken it upon ourselves to ask Larian just why there's a gang of naked men out of sight in Baldur's Gate 3. We'll update this article with any game dev wisdom about said naked men.

If you're getting a little tired of your own character in Larian's game, here's how to use the Baldur's Gate 3 change appearance feature.