DA 4 Romances! New info for real this time!!! Zom-bangin'?

I have a romance related question for you guys.

How do you think Bioware compares to other games with romances? What do you think Bioware does the best (if anything) and what influence do you think they could take from other games?

Bioware was my introduction to romances in gaming. I remember stumbling on that little bit with Aarin Gend in NWN (and flirting shamelessly with Linu and Daelan lolol, even though they're not romanceable) and then I played Hordes of the Underdark and all of a sudden there was this fully-fledged companion romance with Valen the tiefling and that was such an awesome wtf-inducing moment for me! I thought it was so cool that in the midst of all this adventuring and dungeon-crawling, my character could fall in love and have a whole other emotional journey going on on the side. I rolled other characters and eventually went after Aribeth and Nathyrra too.

The great thing about Bioware romances is how they're not an afterthought. So many others lately have started including little bits of romance here and there, but in some games it's really obvious that it's not something the developer is into, it's kind of half-hearted. And it's not just the depth, it's the breadth. There are so many options, it's not "oh, you're a guy so here are these two women you can sleep with, you're a girl so here's this one guy, what are gay/bi people even??" It's so nice to be given that same respect and consideration.

As far as what they could learn from others, all I'd suggest is that the romances themselves could stand to feel more organic or tied in with the overall story. And that's not even a huge priority for me, as most of my favorite LIs are more respite-from-the-plot than bound to it.

Off the top of my head, the only games where I’ve experienced better romances have been in fully text-based interactive fiction. And that’s because of obvious, insurmountable differences between the two mediums.

I do want to see them take some (achievable) ideas from IF though. Less in the romance domain and more in terms of adding more bad ends. Not the brutal “dead man walking” bad ends like IF has. Those are fun in IF, where restarting is quick and easy, but would be quite obnoxious in an RPG.

However, I would like to see more quick failure states, on the level of collectible epilogue slides. For example, throw in some dialogue where you can straight-up insult a world leader, and get hit with a fade-to-black + a silly bad end slide. Nothing major, no “you made this decision 50 hours ago and now you’re fucked no matter what you do”, but just some shallow bad endings to show why the protagonist can’t always say/do super impulsive things.

I think it could make the PC feel more heroic, too, because we won’t just assume that we can survive every rash decision.

I don't care about pixel butt either (nor am I anti-pixel butt) but tbh there are something I love about animation, those little romantic gestures... part of why I love the Reyes romance. The surprise!kiss, the grabbing his hand and running, sharing drinks on a rooftop, another kiss, the dance... I love that stuff!

I like that BioWare clearly signposts which lines are intended to be romantic, but as far as romances go, the only thing I really want is for them to be as accessible as possible. I think good LGBT representation can be acheived outside of the context of being romanced by the player, and from my perspective as a player, having more accessible romances is many times more important than getting to gloat over straight people who didn't get the one they wanted.

I also wish they would stop separating us at the end of every game, it gets old.

As for non-Bioware romances, I thought MacReady from Fallout 4 and Andrew from Technomancer were both good for different reasons. I thought Andrew was particularly interesting because he has a shared history with the player character, and how you talk/respond to him can also serve to flesh out your own backstory.

Though probably a lot of RPG purists would hate that, lol.

I'll wait for CDPR to come out (lol) with their gay romances until I decide on who the biggest baddest bitch on the block is. Bioware is the king now, but none of the m/m romances or the romanceable gay/bi male characters have really spoken to me though, in a level where I would obsess over them. If any other gaming company is going to distract me with a great gay romance, then goodbye Bioware el oh el.

But yes, Bioware is king. I can't potentially say the same if we look at straight romances in video games, but the gay romances (the only thing I personally care about), there's yet to be any competition. 

Welp I just found out you can romance a dwarf pirate prince, a lizardman, a skeleton, a possessed bard and others in Divinity: Original Sin II. Thanks for namedropping that one Artemis - there goes my weekend.

YOU ARE WELCOME. I am living life over here. The possessed bard is a sweetheart and I love her so. Ifan is my man for all time. He is so beardy and grumpy and wonderful and also has a crossbow. And a wolf spirit thing that I never use, but it lets me call him wolf husbando.

(Seriously, the characters are fucking awesome, so well written. Excellent voice acting, too. And the romance... aieeee.)

I just find DOS2 very slow. I barely started and I'm already bored.

I have Lohse and Beast in my party and so far in Act 4 (I think... Arx?) I'm pretty good at avoiding ninjamances, though I did accidentally make Beast blush once... haha oops. With Lohse the lines are obvious... like telling her you really care for her, etc. I DO really care for her; I love her to death, but I know the game will interpret that as a romance starter.

Maybe she dreamed it and it was just so real

I like the romance-specific cutscenes (and quests) because that’s pretty rare. I think where Bioware really shines is that the romance feels fully integrated into the story and isn’t just a tacked-on extra, and romance cutscenes are just one aspect of that. Other characters comment on it, there’s ambient dialogue about it and other specific dialogue options, non-romance cutscenes can change depending on it. Like, for example: approval at Well of Sorrows changes based on romance, and if your LI is there with you and you drink from the well they will be fussing over you when you wake up. A smaller example is how some LIs will give you a nickname which they’ll call you by outside of romance-specific dialogues.