There was a time not too long ago, when you couldn’t walk five feet in your favorite RPG without falling into some companion’s bed – and we mean that more literally than figuratively. Nowadays, though, it feels like romance in video games is an increasingly rare feature in RPGs and action adventures, when it doesn’t really have to be.
Plenty of studios either avoid it entirely or keep it at arm’s length, you know, a little flirt here and there and a fade-to-black, that’s really all we can expect lately. Thinking about the romance in Cyberpunk 2077, for example, which showed a mature and sometimes even sensual approach to this whole topic, we can’t help but wonder why that is.
Even more refreshing to hear that romance is firmly on the table for The Blood of Dawnwalker, the upcoming vampire RPG from Rebvel Wolves. When asked directly, The Witcher 3’s former lead quest designer Mateusz Tomaszkiewicz didn’t at all dance around the hot topic – his answer was a simple, yet confident “Of course.” Nice!
He added that players can expect romance options and the ability to build relationships with certain characters, which is good to hear. It’s the kind of statement that instantly tells you what sort of RPG Rebel Wolves really want to make: One where character bonds aren’t just a side quest, but kind of a huge part of the core roleplaying mechanics. We’ll see how that plays out, eh?
Why is Romance Such a Big Deal in RPGs?
At the end of the day, we can answer that question quite simply: Romance in video games are an interactive emotion, as simple as. A good romance arc isn’t just picking the heart dialogue option anymore; games like the aforementioned Cyberpunk, The Witcher 3, or certain BioWare games showed that games have surpassed the immature “press X to boink” mechanic of earlier titles.
Romance in video games is an accumulation of choices you made, trust you earned, and sometimes real vulnerability – even in the face of imminent danger, which begs the question, how many of these relationships we’ve had in RPGs were just trauma bonding, but that’s a different story for another time, we think.
Games can track and react to your choices in a way movies can’t, which makes this medium arguably the more powerful vehicle for such stories. It changes how you read the scene, treat your follower, and, yes, it raises the stakes immensely. It also makes the quiet moments matter just as much as the boss fights, considering how much you could potentially lose.
In darker games, such as vampire stories, for example, romance has some extra…let’s say, bite, since immortality, hunger, temptation, and secrecy are intrinsically baked into the genre already. In a game like that, a relationship – which might even be forbidden, who knows – is a true tension generator, testing your character, your morals, and your priorities more than any other choice might, which, let’s be real here, how is that not cool?
So why are many developers still not including options like that in their games?
Why so Many Devs Shy Away From Romance Options in RPGs
There are practical reasons romance gets cut, and they’re not small or even negligible, so we get it – if you’re a smaller studio, that is. Ubisoft, Bethesda, BioWare? Yeah, you have no reason not to anymore. We’re sorry.
Let’s talk about some of the core reasons why we think most devs shy away from romance options in their role-playing games:
It’s expensive in every department
This might be the biggest one, because romance rarely is a single quest line; it’s usually a web of branching scenes, bespoke dialogue, extra cinematics, additional voice recording, and animation work that can’t be reused elsewhere. If you’re already fighting for budget on combat, traversal, and core story beats, romance can look like a luxury.
Branching can explode out of control
Players want romance in video games to feel personal, but personalization multiplies complexity. If your game supports different genders, body types, backgrounds, moral paths, and major story outcomes, a romance has to survive that without turning into a glitchy mess – or feeling like it ignores what the player has done.
Developers fear backlash from multiple directions
Romance in video games, or rather their underlying systems invite scrutiny. Some players complain if the writing is too tame. Others complain if it’s too explicit. Representation choices can spark debate. Even when a studio does everything thoughtfully, romance can become the loudest part of the conversation, sometimes drowning out the rest of the game.
Tone and pacing are hard to balance
In a tight action adventure, romance can feel like it slows momentum if it isn’t integrated well. Studios sometimes avoid it simply because they don’t want the game’s rhythm to be “save the world… now date night.”
All of that makes romance one of the easiest “optional” features to remove when schedules tighten, which is exactly why we notice when a team commits to it anyway.
Romance Can Be Part of What Makes an RPG Feel…Human
Okay, we admit it – not every game needs romance, and sometimes it can feel out of place, or even worse, out of character. We get it. But when an RPG is about character, choice, and consequences of said choices, cutting a relationship often makes the world feel flatter and less realistic than it should, in our opinion.
So, when we heard that Rebel Wolves is treating romance as a natural piece to their formula instead of a risky feature to hide behind vague marketing, we rejoiced. Well, at least a little. If Blood of Dawnwalker is what we expect, and delivers relationships with confidence and maturity (no collectible cards, people!), it could land in that sweet spot where romance feels like true roleplay, not a silly mini-game.
Let’s hope they pull it off, because maybe the dark season has made us feel a little gloomy – but we sure could use some heartwarming stories to brighten up these dark, dark days.
