Key Takeaways
- Avowed won’t let players romance their companions.
- The game’s director says that this is the best way for players to experience their companion’s stories.
- She adds that implementing romances into games is a “ton of work” since you have to make sure players who are just friends with that companion also get a meaningful story.
While it’s been a staple of BioWare RPGs since the 1990s, more and more games in the genre are embracing romance. As we saw with Baldur’s Gate 3, letting players hook up with their companions can prove to be wildly popular, and can perhaps become the most loved aspect of the game.
Obsidian, however, has largely ignored this trend. The studio has included romances in some of its games, but for the most part, everything is platonic. With Avowed, it won’t be any different, and game director Carrie Patel is confident that this is the right move for the game.
Avowed Director Explains Why There Won’t Be Any Romances
“It’s a ton of work,” says Patel, speaking to GamesRadar. “You want to make sure you do it right. And part of that is also you want to make sure that a player who opts not to romance but still wants to have a very deep relationship with those companions gets to have just as thorough and meaningful an experience on a friendship or ally path as [if] they went on a romance path.”
That’s why Avowed won’t include romances, as she puts it: “We felt that we could best tell our companions’ stories and our players’ relationships with them without the romance option.”
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Players expect specific kinds of romance systems in RPGs, and games need to move beyond that.
This isn’t too surprising, since Obsidian’s previous RPGs, such as Fallout: New Vegas, The Outer Worlds, and the first Pillars of Eternity, didn’t have romances either. Some games have, such as Neverwinter Nights 2 and Pillars of Eternity 2, but it’s hardly what comes to mind when you imagine an Obsidian RPG.
Even if Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2’s “romances” don’t really count, they’re great and you should play it.
Avowed is set to launch on February 18, 2025. It was delayed from its initial 2024 release date so it would have more breathing room outside of the stacked October and November launch window.
Avowed is a next-gen RPG from Obsidian Entertainment. It is set in the same world as the developer’s Pillars of Eternity series, and is played in first person. In the Living Lands of Eora, you must put an end to a mysterious plague.