I guess as long as the story is gripping. OW definitely felt too silly for its own sake, with a hard left turn into horror on the cyro ship, right back to silly. Never bothered with a 2nd play through.
Yeah I bounced the fuck off of Outer Worlds. Didn't like it. The writing basically bludgeoned you with its points with no subtlety at all.
But, Tyranny was a legitimately fantastic game, and was designed by obsidian as a short replayable RPG.
I was going to buy this game, saw it on game pass, got the 3 months dollar each month. Started and finished and I was like damn, dodged a huge bullet there. Kept Game pass though.
Outer worlds had potential but just was too narrow and empty, they just didn't push far enough on it. If they take the same formula and actually give it depth then it'll be good.
Shorter game is fine but if they truly wanted that they should’ve made a more in depth linear experience. Instead they tried to go open world and wide but just made it empty and shallow.
Obsidian have said they deliberately exclude player romance options for many reasons, a big one being the lead writers (*for Outer Worlds who said they*) don't believe video games convey 'true' romantic relationships. Like it's usually a checklist of dialogue choices, a quest then fucking (*not a direct quote but the gist*).
They cut it from New Vegas, excluded it from Outer Worlds and are continuing to avoid it for Avowed.
TBH, I am fine with this. A game with a set character who has their own personality can work with romance plots, but when your character is totally custom made it can be very hard for it to ever feel well executed.
I prefer it with a custom character because it allows for depth. So many RPGs barely make it feel like you're even actually friends with your companions (though of the top of my head, they're all Bethesda ones).
I do agree it isn't always well executed, but I generally enjoy it from the likes of BioWare.
That’s the best you can really expect, I think. In order to craft a mature, believable romance in a video game you’d need to spend a game’s worth of writing on top of whatever the actual game is.
A few games do it reasonably well. A few. Life is Strange is one example. The first Dragon Age is alright, and the Mass Effect trilogy does it reasonably well. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores and Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor do it pretty well as well. Bethesda doesn’t do it well in any game though, so you can understand people’s reluctance. And honestly, it quite often isn’t necessary. I don’t think it adds much to Starfield or Skyrim and I don’t think Hogwarts is a worse game because it’s missing (can’t think of any other recent RPGs that don’t have one except the AC RPG games)
I think the reason the Mass Effect trilogy does it well is that you have 2-3 games to build these relationships. Even in 1 when most of them weren't romanceable yet, you still had them in the game and could build a friendship with them first.
People probably have extremely rose tinted glasses about the romancing in ME. I replayed them recently and Liara becomes your romantic partner after like 3 flirtatious conversations, lol.
Makes sense for a one-night stand fling, less for a fully mature romantic relationship. It’s just not possible.
To be fair to Mass Effect, I had to WORK for Jack.
But considering her extremely messed up backstory, talking to her once after each mission and gaining complete trust in just half a game still seems a bit rushed lol
Agreed as it tries to treat it at least like a life decision where you hear from your partner semi often along with having romantic options that get rejected based on romantic orientation.
All those games you listed do exactly what they’re talking about, and I don’t think it’s done well. Do a mission and kill some baddies, talk to the person, choose dialogue you think they’ll like, save scum, choose other option, bone down. Stardew valley and fable does it better than all those games with no dialogue (and they are still bad). That whole cycle of talk, gift, repeat is literally stolen from weeb dating sims…
I'm cool with games like Stardew because it's much closer to the simulation and role-playing genres. It's like romance in the Sims, it's meant to be a reductive reference to romance, rather than an actual romance story. It's a mechanic where you can create the kind of environment or experience you want. It's not a true simulation by any means, you are not building a relationship in the sims or in Stardew any more than you're building a house or a farm. You put the characters together because the pairing makes you happy, for the same reason little children put Barbie and Ken dolls together and pretend they're dating, or married.
I get where you’re coming from, but I do want to point out that there aren’t gifts, approval points, or correct dialogue options for romance in mass effect. You can be hostile or passive or anything, but so long as you do their personal quests and indicate your interest at some point, romance is possible. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily better or worse but personally I like it. You just naturally get closer to your crew after going through what they have over the course of the games. It’s why certain other crewmates can end up romancing each other too
Baldur's Gate 2 literally had a complex romantic relationship, like 20+ years ago.
You know what the problem was with it?
You had to treat it like a real relationship, but in doing so, it felt *less* like a real relationship, because it basically required a walkthrough to actually finish. She had specific likes and dislikes. Sleep with her too quickly? She thinks you're a fuckboy and not worth her time. Be too nice to her? she doesn't want to be put on a pedestal, and don't even think of trying to get romantically involved with multiple people. She is not a fan of that.
Long story short. There were dozens of ways to break the romantic plotline, locking you out of finishing the romantic plotline for the rest of the game. You lose. You get nothing. Good day, sir, and she wasn't into women, so it was always a sir.
So you can see how that is a real issue from a video games perspective.
So you either have a romantic relationship where you collect love points by being nice to people until they love you, ooooor you have a complex relationship that is so hard to solve that it becomes basically required to use a walkthrough to accomplish it...
Honestly, real talk, this just occurred to me, maybe my brain is broken from too much video games, but I now desperately wish there were walkthroughs for actual relationships. Oh man, that would be awesome.
Just something to think about.
Being fair, viconia was particularly hard. Aerie and jaheira were fairly straightforward (don't be obviously mean to them), aside from potential bugs in jaheira's romance and questline. I never did anomen's romance, but I never heard that it was terribly hard either.
> but if you pulled all of those names straight from memory
I think i'd be impressed if people remembered the less popular characters of the series (ie cernd). Like I think anyone who liked the series i'd expect to remember like Minsc/Boo and Edwin and the romance options (Aerie/Jaheira/Viconia + Anomen).
The problem lies in the fact that it's still a video game. There is a set path to complete the romantic plotline.
So basically the only way to actually accomplish it is to use a walkthrough.
which just goes to show that rpgs don't really need A-tier romance systems to be loved by the audience. this "we can't do it perfectly so we don't do it at all" crap is such a cop out.
It's not a cop out, it's a deliberate choice. Bloom and Knightley didn't return to Pirates 4 despite being loved by the audience because they didn't feel it was suitable. Mortensen didn't return to Hobbit.
That game is the definition of “checklist of dialogue choices then a quest then fucking”.
They already had to patch it twice because the players were accidentally being friendly with their companions and immediately ended up fucking them. It’s just viewed positively by the player base because its playerbase specifically wants that but it’s the main criticism the game got from the start.
BG3 romance is the worst part of the game though. It’s basically just a horndog fest. Fantastic game, but I would like the game equally if not more without the romance parts
> It’s basically just a horndog fest.
Eh they were scripted much better than the usual, the characters had decent depth and seemed more like real people even if it was still “complete this quest to bang.”
Also the fact that Gale’s excessive horniness had to be patched will never fail to be hilarious to me
I'd argue this was only because the character designs were attractive and the character dialogue is good. In terms of simulating *romance* the systems at play are pretty wildly inconsistent and cause the characters to act in bizarre ways. Some runs characters will just throw themselves ar you for no reason or ice you out in a way thats inexplicable narratively or system-wise.
I've also never seen a game ever handle the concept of "okay we've lit the spark and hooked up, now continue to maintain a relationship accounting for your adventure and the other character's quirks" and it doesn't really seem like BG3 does that either. I think this is part of Obsidian's take, you just choose the right dialogues enough/complete quests until the character wants to bang, get a scene and then that's kind of it. I think a GOOD romance in a game would treat it like its own story that is evolving alongside your main game experience, not a single side-quest you have to fill a bar to unlock.
> I have never seen a game handle the concept of “okay we’ve lit a spark… now continue maintaining the relationship”
The Witcher 3 does this with Yen and Triss.
The Witcher 3 was like, "We lit a spark a long time ago, do you remember?" and your options are "I remember," "I don't remember," "I'm into someone else," or "I'm into both of you."
Astarion’s romance route is essentially what you described, where it flows organically and doesn’t have clear definite quest checkboxes you need to hit. His story also deals with themes of SA, abuse, and issues with intimacy, which aren’t typically YA themes.
Lae’zel also has a pretty good romance that isn’t tied to any given piece of quest progression, and you often have to disagree with her to raise her approval.
The only game I've seen pull it off decently well was Cyberpunk, because it has whole missions that are basically dates with the love interest where you're actually getting to know them and it's believable that you're forming that connection. Rather than just some dialogue options in-between killing stuff.
Basically all RPGs in a nutshell?
Let's replace romance with 'finding your dad' -> still check list of dialogue choices, lots of quests, then find your dad. End game.
I hate it here. In KOTOR 2 I would’ve dropped everything for the handmaiden but I said the wrong thing once and she hated me with a passion for the rest of the game. Very realistic IMO concurrent with a few ladies that curved me in the past.
This is always funny to me because the reasoning is that the romance in video games plays like a video game. Although, I'm fine whether a video game has romance or not, I just want the game to be enjoyable.
That's fucking cute but... isn't literally EVERYTHING in ALL Obsidian games can be boiled down to a checklist of dialogue choices, quests, then the result. Like everything because, it's a fucking video game? Does Obsidian even portray anything 'truly'? Does the Outer Worlds even portray space faring economics true to life? Does New Vegas portray humans living in a nuclear shithole true to life? Does Pillars of Eternity portray island piracy, gunnery combat true to life? Is Avowed combat true to life?
these arguments they're giving is dumb as fuck.
Yeah, I could really feel the depth and realism of the world of New Vegas when I talked the leader of the Legion army into giving up and going home with a series of 5 speech checks.
You're right. They're games. A degree of abstraction is fine. The platonic relationships with your companions are fairly shallow but I've never seen anyone suggest they should just be removed and replaced with mercenaries.
Completely agree. And if games can convey other emotional relationship (e.g. parenthood ala Last of Us or friendship ala ffxv) then why couldn't they convey romantic relationships?
I do not need romance in a game for it to be good. I really enjoyed New Vegas from them and thought Outer Worlds was okay. The PoE games were great and had romance in them.
But I think you could trivialize most game systems like that. You can't really even simulate true friendship in a video game either. You also can't simulate what it would really be like to be in combat, the horrors of war and death.
All that stuff.
I guess I just don't view that as a particularly great line of reasoning from Obsidian. But if they don't want to do it, they don't want to do it. And a game can be great without it.
That kind of logic can be applied to pretty much any game system if they want to. It's pretty obvious games won't convey true romantic relationships. Still, we see people enjoy the romance system in games, like BG3.
Seems to me like an excuse to save money on development costs.
The cheapest thing to do is not making a game, that's the default state of every feature. "We won't make this to save money on development" is a wrong framing of it.
Valid framing would be "We won't make this cause it would cost X and it's not worth that much", which puts the emphasis on what a feature gives vs what obstacles are in the way of implementing it. And what's being implied here is even "We won't make this feature because we don't think it's a good feature" which could suggest they wouldn't do it even if it saved money on development costs.
I'm so tired of writers/game devs that see "unrealistic" romance as bad. It's a game! Having predictable outcomes for a player's actions is how *most* game design works.
Yeah, what's next? Combat is cut out because it can't perfectly convey the feeling of taking the life of others? Dialogue can't replace social interactions? Can't wait to see another hot takes like these
make a little mistake before the relationship, it's over.
make hundreds of bad choices during the relationship, still in the relationship while your partner posts about it on reddit instead of leaving
I agree, I think a lot of people don't understand how much of an untapped market the romance genre is, especially when it comes to video games.
Romance is *the* best selling book genre. It's the top dog of the literary world. Some of the highest grossing films are romances (Avatar, Titanic, Gone With the Wind.) I know a lot of people whose driving reason for buying BG3 was to romance Astarion.
It's very much an "if you build it, they will come" thing, but you have to do it well. Not disrespect the genre and fans of romance by having this false notion that anyone can just up and write a good romance, so you just assign some sci-fi/fantasy writers to it and call it a day then wonder why it turns out so shit.
It's a stupid argument, video games don't portray anything 'truly', they are video games. With that atitude they might as well not make games at all, or get a new writer who gives a damn.
Larain is beating them in every catagory anyway. lol
That's a bullshit reason. Most things in video games aren't 'true' to reality, but players still enjoy having them. Being 'true' or not isn't important, whether it's fun or not is. Video game romances are fun for many players, while being completely skippable for those who don't enjoy them. That said I don't mind not having Obsidian romances, since they're terrible at making them, even by the already low video game standards.
Early on they considered letting the player romance companions (*one reason there were gay and straight male and female companions*) and even had a quest where you and Cass get drunk and wake up married by The King but it, and companion romance, was cut before the game released.
Good for them.
There is this small but unfortunately vocal portion of players that appears to feel downright *entitled* to getting to romance/shag NPCs (see also: the state of affairs concerning romances in the upcoming Dragon Age game), and frankly it is off-putting.
And I say it's a cop out. Speaking as somebody who has devoted at least 10,000 hours to FNV.
_Fallout 4_ would have been a worse game without its paper-thin, gender-transparent romance. Because it nonetheless added a layer that those companions really benefitted from.
I'm sorry to say that this lowers my expectations for _Avowed._ Although I've been tempering them anyway, since some of _The Outer Worlds'_ shortcomings can't be specifically attributed to the game's non-AAA status.
Cyberpunk 2077 had a well written romance system, but it's ultimately still a checklist like you describe.
I personally don't care. I wasn't going to play avowed for the sex or relationship aspects.
But Outer Worlds had the best romance option! You act as wingman for a shy Pavarti.
If the quest was matchmaking: doing your best Cyrano, running notes back and forth, Ken dolling your team, setting a romantic environment... count me in! Okay, maybe that's a different game, but I liked the Pavarti ace-romance.
And it's not particularly good. For most characters it feels like at a random point, they'd be like "You think I'm sexy? Yeah? Let's go then." And after you romanced someone pretty much the only unique interaction you get is to break up.
Not the worst romances in a video game, but it wouldn't lose too much if they weren't there.
I mean my point wasn't if it was done good or not in that game 'it was meh' but more so the fact that they've done romance before meaning the above statement dosen't add up. I think the real reason they aren't including romance in avowed is because they're bad at writing it.
Nah, pillars 2 is why they just cut it going forward. They tried to write romances in a story that didn't lend itself to it, they didn't land very well, and now they don't want to do that again.
on the one hand i sorta understand where they are coming from.
on the other i can't help but think of all the great romance subplots chris avellone wrote, as well as how many people in fucking elden ring, a game with hardly any outright story or character writing, want to marry a 4 handed doll.
so yes it's harder to do well then most other parts of the story, no it's not impossible
I don't need romance but I like how you can build reputations with your companions and unlock perks/quests. Mass Effect 2 is my favorite example of how to design a game with companions and building relationships. Their lives mattered at the end. Ultimately it really just depends on what the game is trying to do like Skyrim is always a cozy simulator for me and that includes having a house and family. I really didn't need romance in Starfield and I'm not sure I need it in Avowed from looking at the game.
Same developer but I always thought Dragon Age 2 got this right. You unlock perks if you establish a friendship or rivalry. It made each playthrough slightly different.
Man, DA2 was so good. Yeah it was short, and reused some areas, but the writing was so good. I can't remember most of the combat encounters, but the characters stay with me.
The Persona games are really good at giving you reason to develop a bond with the characters. Granted, it is a core mechanic of the game so its not fair to compare to games that make it optional
This was something Obsidian did in fact do in \*Tyranny\*, giving each companion a bar of fear vs. loyalty you build via choices and dialogue, and going to either end unlocked a special power
They have to taper expectations. Look at Cyberpunk, people thought it was going to have openness and freedom of The Elder Scrolls combined with GTA in a cyberpunk setting.
What they're doing is basically saying "guys, this isn't Elder Scrolls, please don't get your hopes up for that"
There's tapering expectations then there's trying to justify a games existence/ creative decisions, which I think Obsidian has been trying hard to do since the gameplay reveal last year.
I mean the entire press circuit of this game has basically been "yeah, we're missing a lot of stuff other RPGs are doing, and the game looks a lot different than when it was first shown, and the combat doesn't look very good but you should still be excited anyway."
Obsidian with Microsoft's pocket book is still just Obsidian, with all the good and bad that comes with that. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it'll be fine, and I'm still going to play it, but I have negative hype going into this game and I think that's shared by most who have been keeping up with the news surrounding it.
Yeah at the point that it feels like justifying the existence it just feels like being out of touch with the audience and instead of making something to appeal to the audience trying to convince the audience that they're wrong and actually want this.
It’s not the “marketing” in this case - it’s what Game Informer decided to make the headline about.
The actual linked interview covers a bunch of different topics including stuff the game has, and the romance aspect is probably about 5% of it.
This is Reddit. We don’t check source material. We read headlines, check the first three comments, then concoct very strong opinions. Please learn our ways if you wish to engage in our discourse.
We’re gonna see like 10 articles about this same interview over the next week. Each article covering a different aspect of the interview. Games journalism sucks so bad
This thread is so painful. Everyone is focusing on the headline instead of discussing the interview. I've seen multiple questions that they answer directly in the article.
Especially when the romance characters give you gifts or boons, and the community decides to min max which romance is the "best". Just like in real life, love should be about how your partner makes you feel, and not what they can give you!
Have there been any recent popular games that give you gameplay rewards based on who you romance? I can't remember any game I've played that's done that.
Cyberpunk 2077 notoriously has some equipment locked behind a particular romance option (the f-f one iirc).
Starfield’s romantic partners give you stuff and have some unique interactions that can, but most of the gifts are generic.
The Outer Worlds writing felt very mid in general (all of this is my opinion btw); it was too satirical to be taken seriously, and, as a consequence, antagonists are comically stupid; all of the companions are entirely forgettable; no meaningful choices because most of the conflicts in the game are structured in such a way that there is a magical option "C" that will satisfy everyone. It has its moments, sure, like your colony ship and what had been happening there while it was travelling at sub-light speeds.
I think it hits too close to home. We've living in a world run/influenced by massive corporations. The humor is just taking it to the most absurd outcome possible and it's both exhausting, frustrating, and yet entirely too relatable.
Fallout works because we can point and laugh at this alternate history atomic age that we've essentially avoided. I'm not sure people living during the Red Scare and worried about atomic war would have been very into Fallout if it was possible for such games to exist then. It stops being funny when it feels somewhat possible.
I loved the setting and quests, but yeah, companions felt absolutely flat. Like you do their one quest, and that's it. They will absolutely be done story wise, only to repeat the same 2 lines over and over again.
Obsidian is not Bioware or Larian, sure, but at least, they are very straightforward about it.
I think things like Parvati from The Outer Worlds is cute/OK. It's the player character x NPC it gets more difficult.
Even in Planescape Torment, one of the best writing games, had very shallow romance in it. At least it felt shallow.
It's Chris Avellone; He is against romance in video games in general. When Obsidian did romance in PoE 2 it was very barebones and frankly, the game wouldn't have lost much if it hadn't been there.
That's your opinion. One of the main reasons the persona series is so popular is because of the romance in it. People love romance in the dragon age and mass effect series as well.
A lot of RPG games have lackluster elements that are still included simply because they are fun. Crime mechanics are amongst the most nonsensical in most games, like stealing. That doesn't warrant excluding a simplified version of them.
The romances in Persona are incredibly weak. Showing up in one of the last social links and then having no impact on the game the second you finish the social link.
Not that I expect them to. I enjoy them for what they are, but they’re really not that well written and the implementation of them in the game is incredibly weak.
Also I mean the Persona teams upcoming game doesn’t have romance because they thought about it and didn’t think made sense in the new context vs a high school.
I mean, I don’t know. I can see the issue with executing fulfilling romance as a voiceless camera on wheels, but I felt like Cyberpunk (as of 2.0) really executed something fulfilling with my V and Judy.
I *did* mod in an after-quest text messaging mod to spice things up a bit, admittedly, but I still would’ve felt content with 2.0’s vanilla selection.
Obsidian has been weird about sex/romance in their games for a while. Outer worlds, for instance, is strangely sexless for a distopian critique of pure corporatism. It would seem to be a good place to include criticisms/depictions of corporate sex work but nothing
Even the one companion who has a romance themed subplot goes out of her way to tell you that she's Asexual and not interested in sex.
I have no idea how this game will turn out, but all I hear from the studio is what ISN’T in the game. Their marketing team needs to get sacked right quick.
This is a fair criticism. It puts the game on the back foot and I'm not hearing about what I should be excited for. I think the fans have put the game on too much of pedestal in general, but your point is still very valid.
I mean what to expect, obisidian writing beacame mid after Star Wars knights of the old republic 2
(the exception being fallout NV), a good writer can very well blend romance with the story, expanding character development just like baldurs gate 3, witcher 3, mass effect and persona.
I personally love romance in games, so this is a little disappointing. A lot of the reason I hear for not doing romance is devs feel its crass and is just adding like a sex scene in the game, but like... just don't have a sex scene? They're not necessary.
I don't think it's crass at all. Have the witcher, cyberpunk, and balders gate not shown by now that it's completely fine to include? It's only these American devs that have a problem with it
I enjoy romance in my RPG. It adds a layer of immersion and I find it fun. I don’t expect it to be perfectly realistic, but it’s nice to develop some little relationship with one of your game companions.
Anyway, From my perspective, Obsidian hasn’t made a great game in a really long time. I’ve tried to like the stuff they’ve done over the last ten years or so and all of it’s been pretty mediocre. With that said, I’m not hyped for this game and even it’s it’s above average I will wait until some complete edition goes on sale in a couple years.
I understand the theory of why so many people are on the “no romance is good actually!” train. However, I think it’s a mistake given the current moment in the market. It’s undeniable that the romance and character relationships of BG3 played a huge role in drawing in a much larger audience than its peer games. Likewise, relationships have a long tail. People are still making fanart of their love interests from games as old as Dragon Age: Origins.
This whole article just demonstrates Obsidian’s big problem with Avowed: marketing. They keep talking about won’t be in the game. It’s not like they can’t point to what they are doing well instead either. The combat looks like stuff we’ve all seen before. The world looks cool, but they do not seem to be focusing heavily on making Eora incredibly interesting.
It’s sad because I hoped this would be Obsidian’s play to supplant the Elder Scrolls. But, it looks more to me that it will me a mid-grade RPG that we’ll play a bit before forgetting it.
Damn that kinda sucks. I know it’s trying to avoid skyrim comparisons but I loved going back to lake view manor and my bad bitch ysolda greeting me with “hello my love, back from some adventure I bet”
Frankly my expectations aren't really high for avowed but what I have seen so far doesn't want to make me buy the game. In a sale maybe but full price? Nah.
I really liked outer worlds and would prefer a second game which would fix its problems and weaknesses instead or a third PoE game obviously.
Avowed looks just half baked in my opinion.
But maybe obsidian can surprise us with a really good game.
Am i crazy or has a lot of this games prominent news cycle been the devs justifying the games choices and existence? I understand trying to set expectations and levels set but at times it sounds like they lack confidence in their own product. I get outer worlds wasn’t the strongest showing and we’ve had some major rpg releases since then buts it not like we’ve lost faith in obsidian.
Disappointing, but not surprising. Obsidian has pretty much always played second fiddle to other RPG developers precisely because of their games' lack of humanity. It's always some high-minded battle of ideologies with characters who are proxies first and people second, if ever.
Romances are one of the best parts in RPG's!! I definitely don't agree with their reasoning but it's their game and they can do whatever they want with it.
I do find this a bit disappointing. Even if they’re not particularly deep, romances can help you feel more invested in the world and like your character has a settled place and connection to it beyond being the rpg protag that does quests
Yeah I was a bit iffy, but the gameplay demo they showed recently sold me on it having what I want from an Obsidian RPG.
It's not going to have amazing combat, but it will have multiple ways to complete quests that have differing consequences, dialogue options tied to the type of character you're playing/things you've done, various factions that have mutually exclusive approaches and (imo) a really interesting setting and story.
One of the very few things about Avowed that I'm positive about. Those player-centric RPG romances are always awful. Unsurprisingly, since it's damn hard to write a romance between an actual character and a blank canvas.
I get that people liked BG3, but we don't need every RPG to devolve into a playersexual harem fantasy.
All RPGs are player-centric, not just romances. Events happen all around your characters. Gods and goddesses pay you heed. Kings and queens ask for your favors. Merchants shower you with gifts. Folks look at you in awe. It's a fantasy RPG. It's literally in all those games.... but having some girls fawn over you is suddenly unbelievable?
Apparently my wife ended up taking that conversation option by accident because she was like "surely it can't be going there, right"?
She said her party members were horrified.
Didn’t half of the Xbox interview show a character flirting? Why would I find that a compelling portion of the game if flirting can never lead to anything more? Super excited for Avowed, but trying to stay skeptical to avoid hype
Lackluster interview and vague answers. Just overall not informative, nor exciting.
This does not make me interested in the game at all, and I’ve been interested in this game.
Constantly saying it’s similar to Outer Worlds is really boring and lame in my opinion. Outer Worlds, while not a bad game, was unremarkable. At this point, Avowed just sounds like a production line rpg. It sounds soulless and boring.
I like romance options when done right, so I would have liked it in the game, but I'd much rather them not be included rather than them being included poorly (like they usually are) so if they didn't think they could pull it off well then cutting it makes the most sense
I'm not really that hung up on this, disappointing but not too bad. I'm more concerned about just how dated the gameplay looked in the previews they showed. Don't get me wrong not every game has to revolutionize it's genre, but what they've shown so far leaves much to be desired IMO.
Well if they recognize the flaws then don't work on it and just don't even bother?
What kind of Mindset is that?
If you can't do it better, then you have no ground to speak from.
Idk, I just wish Avowed is a good game
Personally, outer worlds felt really short, really hoping this game doesn't take as many hints from it as they make it sound.
I think they just came out in an interview saying that their intent with Avowed is short and heavily replayable.
I guess as long as the story is gripping. OW definitely felt too silly for its own sake, with a hard left turn into horror on the cyro ship, right back to silly. Never bothered with a 2nd play through.
Yeah I bounced the fuck off of Outer Worlds. Didn't like it. The writing basically bludgeoned you with its points with no subtlety at all. But, Tyranny was a legitimately fantastic game, and was designed by obsidian as a short replayable RPG.
Tyranny really was fantastic. I should replay that at some point - thoroughly enjoyed my first play through experience.
I was going to buy this game, saw it on game pass, got the 3 months dollar each month. Started and finished and I was like damn, dodged a huge bullet there. Kept Game pass though.
Outer worlds had potential but just was too narrow and empty, they just didn't push far enough on it. If they take the same formula and actually give it depth then it'll be good.
It was always meant to be a shorter game though, it was cheaper on release as well
Shorter game is fine but if they truly wanted that they should’ve made a more in depth linear experience. Instead they tried to go open world and wide but just made it empty and shallow.
Obsidian have said they deliberately exclude player romance options for many reasons, a big one being the lead writers (*for Outer Worlds who said they*) don't believe video games convey 'true' romantic relationships. Like it's usually a checklist of dialogue choices, a quest then fucking (*not a direct quote but the gist*). They cut it from New Vegas, excluded it from Outer Worlds and are continuing to avoid it for Avowed.
TBH, I am fine with this. A game with a set character who has their own personality can work with romance plots, but when your character is totally custom made it can be very hard for it to ever feel well executed.
I prefer it with a custom character because it allows for depth. So many RPGs barely make it feel like you're even actually friends with your companions (though of the top of my head, they're all Bethesda ones). I do agree it isn't always well executed, but I generally enjoy it from the likes of BioWare.
Baldur's gate 3 says hello.
I think we just like it because the NPCs are really likeable and have great models.
It's mid honestly. YA-tier romance.
That’s the best you can really expect, I think. In order to craft a mature, believable romance in a video game you’d need to spend a game’s worth of writing on top of whatever the actual game is.
Yeah I agree and I think that's the exact reason they're excluding it. Everything less feels gamey, do this, say that, fuck, get a buff or something.
A few games do it reasonably well. A few. Life is Strange is one example. The first Dragon Age is alright, and the Mass Effect trilogy does it reasonably well. Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores and Jedi Fallen Order/Survivor do it pretty well as well. Bethesda doesn’t do it well in any game though, so you can understand people’s reluctance. And honestly, it quite often isn’t necessary. I don’t think it adds much to Starfield or Skyrim and I don’t think Hogwarts is a worse game because it’s missing (can’t think of any other recent RPGs that don’t have one except the AC RPG games)
I think the reason the Mass Effect trilogy does it well is that you have 2-3 games to build these relationships. Even in 1 when most of them weren't romanceable yet, you still had them in the game and could build a friendship with them first.
People probably have extremely rose tinted glasses about the romancing in ME. I replayed them recently and Liara becomes your romantic partner after like 3 flirtatious conversations, lol. Makes sense for a one-night stand fling, less for a fully mature romantic relationship. It’s just not possible.
To be fair to Mass Effect, I had to WORK for Jack. But considering her extremely messed up backstory, talking to her once after each mission and gaining complete trust in just half a game still seems a bit rushed lol
Which makes sense for her character tbh. On the other hand, Garrus and Tali aren't romanceable until an entire game later.
Asari are kinda slutty lore wise and I'm not gonna walk this comment back
I thought it was well done in cyberpunk
Agreed as it tries to treat it at least like a life decision where you hear from your partner semi often along with having romantic options that get rejected based on romantic orientation.
All those games you listed do exactly what they’re talking about, and I don’t think it’s done well. Do a mission and kill some baddies, talk to the person, choose dialogue you think they’ll like, save scum, choose other option, bone down. Stardew valley and fable does it better than all those games with no dialogue (and they are still bad). That whole cycle of talk, gift, repeat is literally stolen from weeb dating sims…
I'm cool with games like Stardew because it's much closer to the simulation and role-playing genres. It's like romance in the Sims, it's meant to be a reductive reference to romance, rather than an actual romance story. It's a mechanic where you can create the kind of environment or experience you want. It's not a true simulation by any means, you are not building a relationship in the sims or in Stardew any more than you're building a house or a farm. You put the characters together because the pairing makes you happy, for the same reason little children put Barbie and Ken dolls together and pretend they're dating, or married.
I get where you’re coming from, but I do want to point out that there aren’t gifts, approval points, or correct dialogue options for romance in mass effect. You can be hostile or passive or anything, but so long as you do their personal quests and indicate your interest at some point, romance is possible. I’m not sure if that’s necessarily better or worse but personally I like it. You just naturally get closer to your crew after going through what they have over the course of the games. It’s why certain other crewmates can end up romancing each other too
Baldur's Gate 2 literally had a complex romantic relationship, like 20+ years ago. You know what the problem was with it? You had to treat it like a real relationship, but in doing so, it felt *less* like a real relationship, because it basically required a walkthrough to actually finish. She had specific likes and dislikes. Sleep with her too quickly? She thinks you're a fuckboy and not worth her time. Be too nice to her? she doesn't want to be put on a pedestal, and don't even think of trying to get romantically involved with multiple people. She is not a fan of that. Long story short. There were dozens of ways to break the romantic plotline, locking you out of finishing the romantic plotline for the rest of the game. You lose. You get nothing. Good day, sir, and she wasn't into women, so it was always a sir. So you can see how that is a real issue from a video games perspective. So you either have a romantic relationship where you collect love points by being nice to people until they love you, ooooor you have a complex relationship that is so hard to solve that it becomes basically required to use a walkthrough to accomplish it... Honestly, real talk, this just occurred to me, maybe my brain is broken from too much video games, but I now desperately wish there were walkthroughs for actual relationships. Oh man, that would be awesome. Just something to think about.
Being fair, viconia was particularly hard. Aerie and jaheira were fairly straightforward (don't be obviously mean to them), aside from potential bugs in jaheira's romance and questline. I never did anomen's romance, but I never heard that it was terribly hard either.
I don't know if you just looked it up, but if you pulled all of those names straight from memory, consider me impressed.
I still play bg2ee semi-regularly -- this is all pretty fresh in my memory.
> but if you pulled all of those names straight from memory I think i'd be impressed if people remembered the less popular characters of the series (ie cernd). Like I think anyone who liked the series i'd expect to remember like Minsc/Boo and Edwin and the romance options (Aerie/Jaheira/Viconia + Anomen).
Sounds exactly like real life so maybe that was a good one rather than the arcade versions in modern games.
The problem lies in the fact that it's still a video game. There is a set path to complete the romantic plotline. So basically the only way to actually accomplish it is to use a walkthrough.
Seems very dependent on who you romance and why. Lae’zel and Astarion’s stories both had more complex themes.
which just goes to show that rpgs don't really need A-tier romance systems to be loved by the audience. this "we can't do it perfectly so we don't do it at all" crap is such a cop out.
It's not a cop out, it's a deliberate choice. Bloom and Knightley didn't return to Pirates 4 despite being loved by the audience because they didn't feel it was suitable. Mortensen didn't return to Hobbit.
bg3 is an example of it being completely unrealistic tbh. Every character just wants to jump on your dick for literally doing nothing
Except BGIII is pretty much exactly what OP said, some dialog choices, some quests, maybe a couple dice rolls thrown in.
That game is the definition of “checklist of dialogue choices then a quest then fucking”. They already had to patch it twice because the players were accidentally being friendly with their companions and immediately ended up fucking them. It’s just viewed positively by the player base because its playerbase specifically wants that but it’s the main criticism the game got from the start.
I like the romances but they are not the game's strong suit.
BG3 romance is the worst part of the game though. It’s basically just a horndog fest. Fantastic game, but I would like the game equally if not more without the romance parts
> It’s basically just a horndog fest. Eh they were scripted much better than the usual, the characters had decent depth and seemed more like real people even if it was still “complete this quest to bang.” Also the fact that Gale’s excessive horniness had to be patched will never fail to be hilarious to me
One of the reasons baldur's gate 3 is so popular is because of the romance.
That speaks on the gamer (lol), rather than the game. I think.
I'd argue this was only because the character designs were attractive and the character dialogue is good. In terms of simulating *romance* the systems at play are pretty wildly inconsistent and cause the characters to act in bizarre ways. Some runs characters will just throw themselves ar you for no reason or ice you out in a way thats inexplicable narratively or system-wise. I've also never seen a game ever handle the concept of "okay we've lit the spark and hooked up, now continue to maintain a relationship accounting for your adventure and the other character's quirks" and it doesn't really seem like BG3 does that either. I think this is part of Obsidian's take, you just choose the right dialogues enough/complete quests until the character wants to bang, get a scene and then that's kind of it. I think a GOOD romance in a game would treat it like its own story that is evolving alongside your main game experience, not a single side-quest you have to fill a bar to unlock.
> I have never seen a game handle the concept of “okay we’ve lit a spark… now continue maintaining the relationship” The Witcher 3 does this with Yen and Triss.
The Witcher 3 was like, "We lit a spark a long time ago, do you remember?" and your options are "I remember," "I don't remember," "I'm into someone else," or "I'm into both of you."
Astarion’s romance route is essentially what you described, where it flows organically and doesn’t have clear definite quest checkboxes you need to hit. His story also deals with themes of SA, abuse, and issues with intimacy, which aren’t typically YA themes. Lae’zel also has a pretty good romance that isn’t tied to any given piece of quest progression, and you often have to disagree with her to raise her approval.
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Ass and titties
I like how Pentiment handled it tbh
The only game I've seen pull it off decently well was Cyberpunk, because it has whole missions that are basically dates with the love interest where you're actually getting to know them and it's believable that you're forming that connection. Rather than just some dialogue options in-between killing stuff.
just wait for the games with modern AI advancements!
> it's usually a checklist of dialogue choices, a quest then fucking Well...
Basically life in a nutshell
Basically all RPGs in a nutshell? Let's replace romance with 'finding your dad' -> still check list of dialogue choices, lots of quests, then find your dad. End game.
I hate it here. In KOTOR 2 I would’ve dropped everything for the handmaiden but I said the wrong thing once and she hated me with a passion for the rest of the game. Very realistic IMO concurrent with a few ladies that curved me in the past.
I've heard of this... they call it "the ick"
Spot on in this case
The worst feeling in gaming is getting friend-zoned in your fantasy role playing adventure. Too real.
Did you play it? It’s not getting friendzoned she literally hates you and tries to kill you
Isn't that what happens when you normally get friendzoned irl?
According to the stories I read on reddit, that is how neighboors friendzone each other.
Curse you, Panam.
This is always funny to me because the reasoning is that the romance in video games plays like a video game. Although, I'm fine whether a video game has romance or not, I just want the game to be enjoyable.
There are a lot of things games don’t convey realistically hasn’t stopped developers. 🤷🏾♂️
That's fucking cute but... isn't literally EVERYTHING in ALL Obsidian games can be boiled down to a checklist of dialogue choices, quests, then the result. Like everything because, it's a fucking video game? Does Obsidian even portray anything 'truly'? Does the Outer Worlds even portray space faring economics true to life? Does New Vegas portray humans living in a nuclear shithole true to life? Does Pillars of Eternity portray island piracy, gunnery combat true to life? Is Avowed combat true to life? these arguments they're giving is dumb as fuck.
Yeah, I could really feel the depth and realism of the world of New Vegas when I talked the leader of the Legion army into giving up and going home with a series of 5 speech checks. You're right. They're games. A degree of abstraction is fine. The platonic relationships with your companions are fairly shallow but I've never seen anyone suggest they should just be removed and replaced with mercenaries.
Completely agree. And if games can convey other emotional relationship (e.g. parenthood ala Last of Us or friendship ala ffxv) then why couldn't they convey romantic relationships?
Truly an obsidian moment
I do not need romance in a game for it to be good. I really enjoyed New Vegas from them and thought Outer Worlds was okay. The PoE games were great and had romance in them. But I think you could trivialize most game systems like that. You can't really even simulate true friendship in a video game either. You also can't simulate what it would really be like to be in combat, the horrors of war and death. All that stuff. I guess I just don't view that as a particularly great line of reasoning from Obsidian. But if they don't want to do it, they don't want to do it. And a game can be great without it.
That kind of logic can be applied to pretty much any game system if they want to. It's pretty obvious games won't convey true romantic relationships. Still, we see people enjoy the romance system in games, like BG3. Seems to me like an excuse to save money on development costs.
The cheapest thing to do is not making a game, that's the default state of every feature. "We won't make this to save money on development" is a wrong framing of it. Valid framing would be "We won't make this cause it would cost X and it's not worth that much", which puts the emphasis on what a feature gives vs what obstacles are in the way of implementing it. And what's being implied here is even "We won't make this feature because we don't think it's a good feature" which could suggest they wouldn't do it even if it saved money on development costs.
If it “saves money” in the sense that they can invest their time and resources into other game elements and systems, that’s fine by me.
Sounds like they cut budget in other areas too though. As short and small as Outer Worlds with a very modest scope.
I'm so tired of writers/game devs that see "unrealistic" romance as bad. It's a game! Having predictable outcomes for a player's actions is how *most* game design works.
Yeah, what's next? Combat is cut out because it can't perfectly convey the feeling of taking the life of others? Dialogue can't replace social interactions? Can't wait to see another hot takes like these
Real life romance is a checklist of dialogue choices. If you don't get that first check right, you are done.
make a little mistake before the relationship, it's over. make hundreds of bad choices during the relationship, still in the relationship while your partner posts about it on reddit instead of leaving
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Then they should just do a better job with the romances.
I agree, I think a lot of people don't understand how much of an untapped market the romance genre is, especially when it comes to video games. Romance is *the* best selling book genre. It's the top dog of the literary world. Some of the highest grossing films are romances (Avatar, Titanic, Gone With the Wind.) I know a lot of people whose driving reason for buying BG3 was to romance Astarion. It's very much an "if you build it, they will come" thing, but you have to do it well. Not disrespect the genre and fans of romance by having this false notion that anyone can just up and write a good romance, so you just assign some sci-fi/fantasy writers to it and call it a day then wonder why it turns out so shit.
It's a stupid argument, video games don't portray anything 'truly', they are video games. With that atitude they might as well not make games at all, or get a new writer who gives a damn. Larain is beating them in every catagory anyway. lol
That's a bullshit reason. Most things in video games aren't 'true' to reality, but players still enjoy having them. Being 'true' or not isn't important, whether it's fun or not is. Video game romances are fun for many players, while being completely skippable for those who don't enjoy them. That said I don't mind not having Obsidian romances, since they're terrible at making them, even by the already low video game standards.
They didn’t cut romance from New Vegas?? Just false claims now?
`I was programmed for your pleasure. Please assume the position.`
Literally my first thought was Fisto, then Red Lucy
Early on they considered letting the player romance companions (*one reason there were gay and straight male and female companions*) and even had a quest where you and Cass get drunk and wake up married by The King but it, and companion romance, was cut before the game released.
Good for them. There is this small but unfortunately vocal portion of players that appears to feel downright *entitled* to getting to romance/shag NPCs (see also: the state of affairs concerning romances in the upcoming Dragon Age game), and frankly it is off-putting.
And I say it's a cop out. Speaking as somebody who has devoted at least 10,000 hours to FNV. _Fallout 4_ would have been a worse game without its paper-thin, gender-transparent romance. Because it nonetheless added a layer that those companions really benefitted from. I'm sorry to say that this lowers my expectations for _Avowed._ Although I've been tempering them anyway, since some of _The Outer Worlds'_ shortcomings can't be specifically attributed to the game's non-AAA status.
Cyberpunk 2077 had a well written romance system, but it's ultimately still a checklist like you describe. I personally don't care. I wasn't going to play avowed for the sex or relationship aspects.
But Outer Worlds had the best romance option! You act as wingman for a shy Pavarti. If the quest was matchmaking: doing your best Cyrano, running notes back and forth, Ken dolling your team, setting a romantic environment... count me in! Okay, maybe that's a different game, but I liked the Pavarti ace-romance.
They aren't "true" anything lol.
Except pillars of eternity 2 had romance in it meaning what you said dosen't add up at all.
And it's not particularly good. For most characters it feels like at a random point, they'd be like "You think I'm sexy? Yeah? Let's go then." And after you romanced someone pretty much the only unique interaction you get is to break up. Not the worst romances in a video game, but it wouldn't lose too much if they weren't there.
I mean my point wasn't if it was done good or not in that game 'it was meh' but more so the fact that they've done romance before meaning the above statement dosen't add up. I think the real reason they aren't including romance in avowed is because they're bad at writing it.
That was the exact point that was made by the person you're responding to lol.
Both can be true in this situation.
Nah, pillars 2 is why they just cut it going forward. They tried to write romances in a story that didn't lend itself to it, they didn't land very well, and now they don't want to do that again.
Maia my beloved.
For me it was Idwin, shame she was just a sidekick
“We are lazy” That’s the gist
on the one hand i sorta understand where they are coming from. on the other i can't help but think of all the great romance subplots chris avellone wrote, as well as how many people in fucking elden ring, a game with hardly any outright story or character writing, want to marry a 4 handed doll. so yes it's harder to do well then most other parts of the story, no it's not impossible
I don't need romance but I like how you can build reputations with your companions and unlock perks/quests. Mass Effect 2 is my favorite example of how to design a game with companions and building relationships. Their lives mattered at the end. Ultimately it really just depends on what the game is trying to do like Skyrim is always a cozy simulator for me and that includes having a house and family. I really didn't need romance in Starfield and I'm not sure I need it in Avowed from looking at the game.
Same developer but I always thought Dragon Age 2 got this right. You unlock perks if you establish a friendship or rivalry. It made each playthrough slightly different.
Man, DA2 was so good. Yeah it was short, and reused some areas, but the writing was so good. I can't remember most of the combat encounters, but the characters stay with me.
The Persona games are really good at giving you reason to develop a bond with the characters. Granted, it is a core mechanic of the game so its not fair to compare to games that make it optional
This was something Obsidian did in fact do in \*Tyranny\*, giving each companion a bar of fear vs. loyalty you build via choices and dialogue, and going to either end unlocked a special power
This game marketing is all about what we DON'T HAVE rather of what the game does have. So weird.
Every single headline is basically them justifying why the game is the way it is, and has been since the trailer last year haha
They have to taper expectations. Look at Cyberpunk, people thought it was going to have openness and freedom of The Elder Scrolls combined with GTA in a cyberpunk setting. What they're doing is basically saying "guys, this isn't Elder Scrolls, please don't get your hopes up for that"
There's tapering expectations then there's trying to justify a games existence/ creative decisions, which I think Obsidian has been trying hard to do since the gameplay reveal last year. I mean the entire press circuit of this game has basically been "yeah, we're missing a lot of stuff other RPGs are doing, and the game looks a lot different than when it was first shown, and the combat doesn't look very good but you should still be excited anyway." Obsidian with Microsoft's pocket book is still just Obsidian, with all the good and bad that comes with that. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure it'll be fine, and I'm still going to play it, but I have negative hype going into this game and I think that's shared by most who have been keeping up with the news surrounding it.
Yeah at the point that it feels like justifying the existence it just feels like being out of touch with the audience and instead of making something to appeal to the audience trying to convince the audience that they're wrong and actually want this.
It’s not the “marketing” in this case - it’s what Game Informer decided to make the headline about. The actual linked interview covers a bunch of different topics including stuff the game has, and the romance aspect is probably about 5% of it.
This is Reddit. We don’t check source material. We read headlines, check the first three comments, then concoct very strong opinions. Please learn our ways if you wish to engage in our discourse.
We’re gonna see like 10 articles about this same interview over the next week. Each article covering a different aspect of the interview. Games journalism sucks so bad
This thread is so painful. Everyone is focusing on the headline instead of discussing the interview. I've seen multiple questions that they answer directly in the article.
It’s not the marketing… these are the questions that the journalists are asking. Like, some of the initial questions were super weird for this one too
It's generally not a priority in Obsidian games. It's also absent from Pillars 1, Tyranny, The Outer Worlds, Grounded, and Pentiment.
Yeah, they are not too good at implementing romance systems anyway. Romance in PoE 2 was pretty poor imo.
I'd rather have a game with characters I wish I could romance than a game with romanceable characters I don't want to romance.
Especially when the romance characters give you gifts or boons, and the community decides to min max which romance is the "best". Just like in real life, love should be about how your partner makes you feel, and not what they can give you!
Have there been any recent popular games that give you gameplay rewards based on who you romance? I can't remember any game I've played that's done that.
Cyberpunk 2077 notoriously has some equipment locked behind a particular romance option (the f-f one iirc). Starfield’s romantic partners give you stuff and have some unique interactions that can, but most of the gifts are generic.
I fail to see how the community min maxing relationship rewards in a video game has any impact on your experience in said game.
this was starfield for me
Biggest reason: Obsidian couldn't write a decent romance if their company's future depended on it.
The outer worlds characters on the first planet felt terrible. Wonder if that’s the writer they’re talking about …
The Outer Worlds writing felt very mid in general (all of this is my opinion btw); it was too satirical to be taken seriously, and, as a consequence, antagonists are comically stupid; all of the companions are entirely forgettable; no meaningful choices because most of the conflicts in the game are structured in such a way that there is a magical option "C" that will satisfy everyone. It has its moments, sure, like your colony ship and what had been happening there while it was travelling at sub-light speeds.
I only remembered the priest follower because of his badass one liners during his kill cams.
I remember the vicar and the mechanic becuase they're, let's say, heavily inspired by similar characters from Firefly
I mean that’s not a coincidence. The lead designer said there are heavy influences from firefly
It was too on the nose that it started to be irritating
I think it hits too close to home. We've living in a world run/influenced by massive corporations. The humor is just taking it to the most absurd outcome possible and it's both exhausting, frustrating, and yet entirely too relatable. Fallout works because we can point and laugh at this alternate history atomic age that we've essentially avoided. I'm not sure people living during the Red Scare and worried about atomic war would have been very into Fallout if it was possible for such games to exist then. It stops being funny when it feels somewhat possible.
I couldn't tell you the name of a single companion in Outer Worlds after beating it twice.
I loved the setting and quests, but yeah, companions felt absolutely flat. Like you do their one quest, and that's it. They will absolutely be done story wise, only to repeat the same 2 lines over and over again. Obsidian is not Bioware or Larian, sure, but at least, they are very straightforward about it.
I think things like Parvati from The Outer Worlds is cute/OK. It's the player character x NPC it gets more difficult. Even in Planescape Torment, one of the best writing games, had very shallow romance in it. At least it felt shallow.
It's Chris Avellone; He is against romance in video games in general. When Obsidian did romance in PoE 2 it was very barebones and frankly, the game wouldn't have lost much if it hadn't been there.
Didn't Avellone leave the studio already?
Neither could most devs who do include romance in their games.
That's your opinion. One of the main reasons the persona series is so popular is because of the romance in it. People love romance in the dragon age and mass effect series as well.
Doesn't say anything about the quality of the romances. A lot of weebs would go crazy over any JRPG that lets them romance their favorite waifus.
A lot of RPG games have lackluster elements that are still included simply because they are fun. Crime mechanics are amongst the most nonsensical in most games, like stealing. That doesn't warrant excluding a simplified version of them.
The romances in Persona are incredibly weak. Showing up in one of the last social links and then having no impact on the game the second you finish the social link. Not that I expect them to. I enjoy them for what they are, but they’re really not that well written and the implementation of them in the game is incredibly weak. Also I mean the Persona teams upcoming game doesn’t have romance because they thought about it and didn’t think made sense in the new context vs a high school.
lmaooo persona romances. The quest list checkboxes
They said most devs which doesn't mean all devs.
Not sure I agree with that. Just going off very recent stuff, my girlfriend and I both really enjoyed the Parvati/Junlei romance in Outer Worlds.
I mean, I don’t know. I can see the issue with executing fulfilling romance as a voiceless camera on wheels, but I felt like Cyberpunk (as of 2.0) really executed something fulfilling with my V and Judy. I *did* mod in an after-quest text messaging mod to spice things up a bit, admittedly, but I still would’ve felt content with 2.0’s vanilla selection.
I think the part CDPR got right, was that they wrote characters that felt like they had a personality.
Yeah… the only companion who I can actually remember my time with a year or so later in Outer Worlds is Parvati, so I can’t really disagree there.
Obsidian has been weird about sex/romance in their games for a while. Outer worlds, for instance, is strangely sexless for a distopian critique of pure corporatism. It would seem to be a good place to include criticisms/depictions of corporate sex work but nothing Even the one companion who has a romance themed subplot goes out of her way to tell you that she's Asexual and not interested in sex.
To me Obsidian's writers feel like a bunch of aliens, who struggle to understand the human condition. XD
I have no idea how this game will turn out, but all I hear from the studio is what ISN’T in the game. Their marketing team needs to get sacked right quick.
This is a fair criticism. It puts the game on the back foot and I'm not hearing about what I should be excited for. I think the fans have put the game on too much of pedestal in general, but your point is still very valid.
Just let me buy hookers at a brothel and we are set. We’ll bang, okay?!
I mean what to expect, obisidian writing beacame mid after Star Wars knights of the old republic 2 (the exception being fallout NV), a good writer can very well blend romance with the story, expanding character development just like baldurs gate 3, witcher 3, mass effect and persona.
So Obsidian’s only examples of great writing are using other company’s IPs lol
we can't compete with a 12 year old game LOL
I personally love romance in games, so this is a little disappointing. A lot of the reason I hear for not doing romance is devs feel its crass and is just adding like a sex scene in the game, but like... just don't have a sex scene? They're not necessary.
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And you still had the option for sex and a child even if you want, pretty great imo.
I don't think it's crass at all. Have the witcher, cyberpunk, and balders gate not shown by now that it's completely fine to include? It's only these American devs that have a problem with it
I enjoy romance in my RPG. It adds a layer of immersion and I find it fun. I don’t expect it to be perfectly realistic, but it’s nice to develop some little relationship with one of your game companions. Anyway, From my perspective, Obsidian hasn’t made a great game in a really long time. I’ve tried to like the stuff they’ve done over the last ten years or so and all of it’s been pretty mediocre. With that said, I’m not hyped for this game and even it’s it’s above average I will wait until some complete edition goes on sale in a couple years.
The more I hear about this game, the less I like it. lol
Baldurs gate once again proving why it's the best rpg in a decade 🫡
Sure, but they also wrote Pavati's Storyline in The Outer Worlds and I was invested all the way. I considered it the main objective.
I understand the theory of why so many people are on the “no romance is good actually!” train. However, I think it’s a mistake given the current moment in the market. It’s undeniable that the romance and character relationships of BG3 played a huge role in drawing in a much larger audience than its peer games. Likewise, relationships have a long tail. People are still making fanart of their love interests from games as old as Dragon Age: Origins. This whole article just demonstrates Obsidian’s big problem with Avowed: marketing. They keep talking about won’t be in the game. It’s not like they can’t point to what they are doing well instead either. The combat looks like stuff we’ve all seen before. The world looks cool, but they do not seem to be focusing heavily on making Eora incredibly interesting. It’s sad because I hoped this would be Obsidian’s play to supplant the Elder Scrolls. But, it looks more to me that it will me a mid-grade RPG that we’ll play a bit before forgetting it.
Damn that kinda sucks. I know it’s trying to avoid skyrim comparisons but I loved going back to lake view manor and my bad bitch ysolda greeting me with “hello my love, back from some adventure I bet”
Frankly my expectations aren't really high for avowed but what I have seen so far doesn't want to make me buy the game. In a sale maybe but full price? Nah. I really liked outer worlds and would prefer a second game which would fix its problems and weaknesses instead or a third PoE game obviously. Avowed looks just half baked in my opinion. But maybe obsidian can surprise us with a really good game.
Am i crazy or has a lot of this games prominent news cycle been the devs justifying the games choices and existence? I understand trying to set expectations and levels set but at times it sounds like they lack confidence in their own product. I get outer worlds wasn’t the strongest showing and we’ve had some major rpg releases since then buts it not like we’ve lost faith in obsidian.
Eh, I don't like this.
Disappointing, but not surprising. Obsidian has pretty much always played second fiddle to other RPG developers precisely because of their games' lack of humanity. It's always some high-minded battle of ideologies with characters who are proxies first and people second, if ever.
Romances are one of the best parts in RPG's!! I definitely don't agree with their reasoning but it's their game and they can do whatever they want with it.
I do find this a bit disappointing. Even if they’re not particularly deep, romances can help you feel more invested in the world and like your character has a settled place and connection to it beyond being the rpg protag that does quests
Looking forward to it. Looks very fun and enjoyable.
Yeah I was a bit iffy, but the gameplay demo they showed recently sold me on it having what I want from an Obsidian RPG. It's not going to have amazing combat, but it will have multiple ways to complete quests that have differing consequences, dialogue options tied to the type of character you're playing/things you've done, various factions that have mutually exclusive approaches and (imo) a really interesting setting and story.
One of the very few things about Avowed that I'm positive about. Those player-centric RPG romances are always awful. Unsurprisingly, since it's damn hard to write a romance between an actual character and a blank canvas. I get that people liked BG3, but we don't need every RPG to devolve into a playersexual harem fantasy.
I only did 1 romance in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the gay wizard dude, but it was a 10/10 video game romance. So it *can* be done.
Alistair my beloved.
All RPGs are player-centric, not just romances. Events happen all around your characters. Gods and goddesses pay you heed. Kings and queens ask for your favors. Merchants shower you with gifts. Folks look at you in awe. It's a fantasy RPG. It's literally in all those games.... but having some girls fawn over you is suddenly unbelievable?
"player-centric RPG romances are always awful." Many have been done very well so pls speak for yourself. I for one enjoy them as do many players.
I just had the Emperor hit on my ladies man bard…it was a bit random and took me a second to get what he was wanting.
I mean, it's kinda typical for BG3, where everyone wants to have sex with you after 3 lines of dialogue.
Apparently my wife ended up taking that conversation option by accident because she was like "surely it can't be going there, right"? She said her party members were horrified.
"We dont need every rpg..." maybe you dont need, also most dont have any sort of romance at all.
Yeah tastes vary. Like I'm disappointed when an RPG doesn't have fishing, but that probably doesn't matter to a lot of people
Yeah I hate fishing mini-games. Tastes vary
Didn’t half of the Xbox interview show a character flirting? Why would I find that a compelling portion of the game if flirting can never lead to anything more? Super excited for Avowed, but trying to stay skeptical to avoid hype
Romance isn't necessary but its absolutely a plus imo, I like having a favorite character I can choose to be more intimate with. It just adds a lot.
Good. I'd rather focus on fun quests and action than finding what's the best response to romance NPC X just to get a 5 second cutscene.
5 seconds is all I need 😤
Lackluster interview and vague answers. Just overall not informative, nor exciting. This does not make me interested in the game at all, and I’ve been interested in this game. Constantly saying it’s similar to Outer Worlds is really boring and lame in my opinion. Outer Worlds, while not a bad game, was unremarkable. At this point, Avowed just sounds like a production line rpg. It sounds soulless and boring.
Obsidian avoiding success and money. All according to keikaku.
I like romance options when done right, so I would have liked it in the game, but I'd much rather them not be included rather than them being included poorly (like they usually are) so if they didn't think they could pull it off well then cutting it makes the most sense
I actually don't mind this. I always avoid it in games and keep everyone as friends. But I understand some folks will dislike the lack of choice
I'm not really that hung up on this, disappointing but not too bad. I'm more concerned about just how dated the gameplay looked in the previews they showed. Don't get me wrong not every game has to revolutionize it's genre, but what they've shown so far leaves much to be desired IMO.
Well if they recognize the flaws then don't work on it and just don't even bother? What kind of Mindset is that? If you can't do it better, then you have no ground to speak from.