Dragon Age: The Veilguard is home to a mystery skeleton love interest, but not the one fans had been hoping for

Emmrich commanding skeletons in a screenshot from Dragon Age: The Veilguard's reveal trailer. — (Image credit: BioWare)

It's good news and bad news for thirsty Dragon Age fans who want to give some love to The Veilguard's skeletons, as the RPG will seemingly let you smooch some of the bony friends, but not the one you might have been hoping for.

Ever since the official reveal of BioWare's upcoming RPG during the recent Xbox Games Showcase, Dragon Age fans have been predictably thirsty for the lineup of new (and familiar) faces appearing in The Veilguard. Romance will, of course, be a feature in the next installment – creative director John Epler says that "romance is a Dragon Age thing" and level design supervisor Brian Audette jokes that perhaps "we should have just given [the companions] Tinder profiles" rather than their own trailer.

With the confirmation that we'll be able to romance all of the companions, however, some fans have had one question in mind – will we be able to get flirty with Manfred the skeleton? Manfred is the "skeletal assistant" of Emmrich the necromancer, who himself will be a potential love interest for our Veilguard characters, but in a recent Q&A on the BioWare Discord channel (which you can watch below courtesy of YouTube creator Ghil Dirthalen), BioWare art director Matt Rhodes shut down the idea and arguably opened a whole other can of worms.

"I would say not that skeleton, but we're not saying no skeletons," Rhodes says when asked if we can kiss or romance Manfred, giving us more questions than answers.

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So, if not Manfred, then who? And in what context? Rhodes, unfortunately, didn't enlighten us any further, leaving us cursed to ponder for the foreseeable future. Apparently there'll be at least one skeleton out there in Thedas who we'll be able to get romantic with, though, so be sure to keep them in mind when planning your character's love life, I guess?

Dragon Age: The Veilguard is on track to release at some point this Fall on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC, so there's not too long to wait to find out who our mystery skeletal sweetheart is. For now, we can rest easy knowing that when it launches, we won't have to worry about any microtransactions.

If you're on the lookout for more games like Dragon Age, be sure to check out our recommendations for the 25 best RPGs you can play now.

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I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.