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Avowed doesn't have romance options in the traditional sense, despite featuring a massive(ly sexy) fishman companion played by Garrus' voice actor. There is one companion you can confess your love for at the end, but otherwise, Obsidian Entertainment's newest RPG takes a notable swing away from Baldur's Gate 3's horniness and the game's director has now stood behind the decision post-launch.
Avowed game director Carrie Patel told IGN that "obviously, there are skillful ways to do it," but romance in roleplaying games has the potential to "undermine that core experience" because players will often try to cheese and minmax relationships. Patel didn't want players to pursue every possible conversation and hoard gifts "in the hopes of maximizing a relational meter of some kind."
Some developers get around this in clever ways. Mass Effect 2's Mordin and Dragon Age: Origins' Morgana will tell you to go away if you bother them too much - don't ask me how I know - but it's definitely true that courting companions can often feel like checking off a quest checklist, rather than getting to know someone spontaneously. It's a problem Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, and Dragon Age Inquisition's lead writer David Gaider even contended with.
"My hope with players and their companion relationships in Avowed is that they would feel natural, and players would get out of them exactly what they want and exactly as much as they put in," Patel said, before explaining that she wanted the act of befriending Avowed companions to feel like having a "fluid relationship" where you might be hanging out at camp, say, and decide to strike up a conversation just because you enjoy talking to someone - not because you want to get into someone's pants. It's "the sense that you're getting to know some new friends, and sometimes you're challenging them, sometimes they're challenging you."
As Avowed joins Fallout: New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity in Obsidian's portfolio of great RPGs, the studio aims to outlive us all by making it to its 100th birthday in 2103
