I think i might have touched this subject before, but im really torn how many games handle sexuality of the characters.
I kind of hate how in many games every dateable character are main character-sexual. I feel like it robs the characters some depth when they dont care of the character is he/she/other. It makes the characters feel bland amd plastic.
But on the other hand games are a medium where player should be able to craft their own story and feel accepted, so devs should limit and hinder the player as little as they can. Especially when the real world can be so hostile towards the sexual minorities.
as an ace person we need less romance in games period. or at least the fucking ability to opt out, it’s always gooner shit anyway
They also need to stop placating to people’s sexual desires. It’s been breeding people into believing sex is the penultimate goal of relationships and romance in general.
It would also accommodate some Aces I know that just find the concept unappealing at best and repulsive at worst. Having to click through scenes you don’t wanna see to get to the good stuff is just annoying, and the impression that your relationship is only “complete” once you do the deed obviously also isn’t great.
Conversely, decoupling sex from romance could help destigmatise it, particularly in monoamorous games. You don’t need to be fully committed to someone to do the special thing with them (though obviously cheating when you are committed is a bad thing). People who do it more casually aren’t being irreverent about something sacred. There needs to be consent, there needs to be trust, maybe make the player “earn it” in some way, but normalise the notion that it’s a thing people can do.
Either way: make it an option, not an obligation.
It’s been breeding people
Perfect choice of words
They make good points until this bullshit:
But if video games are ever going to be taken seriously as an artistic medium, they have to grow up, and that means learning how to love authentically.
No. That take is horseshit. They don’t have to do anything to be taken seriously as art. They already are. If you can’t see it because it doesn’t tick some of your boxes that’s a you issue.
Some games are art. Some are money grabs or outright scams.
And that’s true for any “artistic” medium as well
Valid
You’ve gotta admit that there’s something satisfying about the perfection of the duct tape strip, and the fact that some bozo paid another bozo mega bucks for it.
I would actually agree with him in some level. Art should always be evolving, and it should be looking past its comfort zones, even past areas many others have failed, to do so.
It doesn’t need to be a form of “disqualification” as he says, but there IS value in applying change even just for its own sake.
BG3 romances seem shallow and kind of transactional because it is a mix of characters who don’t know each other having a whirlwind romance in a relatively short period of time. They are easily comparable to the majority of romances in movies and books with similar circumstances.
The other thing that is always going to make romances in games difficult to do in more detail is a lack of real world senses that play a huge part in attraction. Smells, tone of voice, flirting based on what is cutrently happening are either impossible or extremely time consuming to implement in a computer game. Like you could luck into picking the right cologne for a character or something, but that is along the same lines as picking the right voice lines.
Not saying it is literally impossible to do, but it really is a monumental task to implement relationships that don’t seem forced or obviously mechanical in a video game. If they did implement one perfectly, the randomness of real life would make it nearly impossible to have a romance as there are so many things that can easily derail a relationship forming including just not being in the mood to reciprocate affection because of some completely unrelated event!
B²G3 romances seem shallow and kind of transactional because it is a mix of characters who don’t know each other having a whirlwind romance in a relatively short period of time.
Add the sense of “we don’t know how much longer we have” and the general dramatisation of High Fantasy and you have one hell of an intense honeymoon phase.
After that, the game doesn’t really cover how your relationship plays out, aside from that short party epilogue. Sure, your shared experience may make for a strong start, but the arguments, the differences, the difficulties adjusting to one another while also grappling with the trauma of what you went through and the challenge of finding your place in this new world… there’s a lot left open that just doesn’t fit in this game’s frame.
BG3 dialogue and story is also crafted to be “over the top”, where everything is always stressful and everyone has some crazy insane magical high stakes backstory. Of course the romance, such as it is, isn’t going to feel realistic.
I think it also makes them feel more shallow because the characters are all “player-sexual” to use an industry term. Basically every character is into you if you want them to be.
I’d love to see more games have characters with preset likes and dislikes and how you’ve built and played your character will determine who will be interested (and who will shoot you down!)
The game already works this way I believe. There was a point during EA that each character was way too keen on the PC though. Gale in particular was a problem they had to go back and fix.
Do you mean the being shot down part? Cause the devs have said in interviews that they purposely made the characters player-sexual.
Yeah I mean the way you play your character, depending on the likes/dislikes of the companions does have an effect on whether or not you can romance them.
They are otherwise player-sexual in that they are all evidently bisexual.
Sounds like it’s a little more nuanced than I thought. In my play throughs it seemed like everyone was always ready to go!
Some games in the past were like this but people complained because “I want the goth baddie but I am not an 80 year old man with a white beard named Santa Claus, this game’s romance system sucks.”
Not just romance systems… Especially with younger crowd unless 100% of the content is accessible on a playthrough they will feel left out. Cosmetics, items, weapons whatever be it. Makes everything seem more shallow because of their fomo.
Part of me thinks the devs should just be more settled about having more relationships that don’t involve the player. You get 5 supporting characters, and character A, in their “relationship event” with you, admits that they have feelings for character C and want your advice because they don’t know how to express it.
I also would love to see this!
Astarion shot me down :(
Astarion has the best relationship narratives IMO, and was by far more satisfying than any other. He’s been broken for so long, forced to seduce thousands of people, never having any of his own choices. When you finally show him that he has that now, that when the REAL relationship with him starts.
🫡
Shallow and rushed, since it has to develop in a few dozen hours of gameplay with a limited number of NPCs!
There’s genres of games that are supposed to be relationship sims and nothing else. The relationships and characters are still hollow and would only draw in the loneliest people.
my favorite is fallout 4 after just watching your wife/husband get murdered you can almost immedeately start a harem of lovers 😂
Well back on the 2077s men were well known to be animals.
This is a really weird way to argue a weird point. I think, the main issue is, most games are closer to boardgames than movies. And the author places them too close to movies.
And you can build boardgames for romance, sure. But, unless the romance is part of the core game loop, it’s something that breaks the flow of the game. So it gets abstracted away, or the romance is expressed in terms of the core game mechanics. Which, in video games are often reaching the next scene, dialog trees or gaining stat points.
And, even if you think they’re closer to movies, then most video games are closest to action movies. And here the word romance isn’t used. It’s just renamed love interest and is often just the price for saving the world, but the core ‘mechanics’ are the same.
And most romances will start as fun flings full of hope, not with the nitty-gritty logistics. The logistics will come later, sure. But most Video-Games are set romantically in a few weeks of summer camp, so there is no need to figure out logistics just yet.
Open-World games, that have a character that travels around and meets people as part of their daily lives, sure.
But this argument would apply to games like the Elder Scrolls series. Not Cyberpunk 2077 in which the main character is dying and has only weeks left to live.
But, I do concede that most romances do fall flat once you’ve reached the top. You had your sex-scene and you may have your kisses, your hugs, the new greetings in dialogue, and the characters return to being cardboard in the background. I know it’s hard to implement, but still, it would be nice, if they could then play a larger role in, for example, the main story.
Very well put.
To touch on the point of “where do video games fit in media”; I am reminded of an old video that sticks with me, roughly shortly after the release of Elder Scrolls Oblivion, with Sir Patrick Stewart on the topic of covering games and whether they are art.
He put forward the framing of “who is telling the story” to classify where video games fall closest as art. You have four possible personas in storytelling/art: • the author • the director • the actors • the audience He then broke down who is telling the story: • in paintings and carvings, it is the artist telling all of the story directly through the media. • in books, it is a combination of the author and the reader, it is the author’s words that create the story through the filter and imagination of the readers mind.
• on stage, it is the actors that tell the story to the audience. • in film, it is the director telling the story through the performances of the actors who all filter the words of the writer.He stated how he marveled at video games because they represent a new media where the storyteller is the audience directly. Yes the writer lays out the possible elements, the actors, if present, influence how the characters are percieved, and the director pulls all of that together.
But it is the audience that creates the story in every run through every action they take in the game, and as such they are closest to books.
Insofar as romance and based on the above, I think that once the planned beats are played out it is up to the audience as the storyteller to create the rest of the romance.
The point about who is telling the story is interesting, especially in regards to ttrpgs.
Because today, video games are everywhere and are telling insanly emotional stories. And to gamers, the guardrails feel natural. After all, they have to be there and have always been there, so the suspension of disbelief includes ignoring that you’re (in ttrpgs terms) on railroads.
But, the old guard has played ttrpgs while video games were in their infancy, so they never expected the GM to give them a framework, in which they could do everything, and that still produces a story that would make J.R.R. Tolkien give standing ovations.
They, instead, assumed that with clever incentives, the players would themselves want to play and create the stories themselves. As you pointed out, the GM would simply offer tools for the players to tell their stories.
But, to tie this back into romance in video games: Sure, you can roleplay that yourself (if you write it down, you have created fanfic) but, like in ttrpgs, it’s not ‘your’ character and you’re not the GM.
Some groups might play that way, everyone being a quasi gm who can tell a part of the story freely and then handing the scene back to another player.
But in most groups, I think, players want to control only one character (themselves). To them it feels violating to either take away/control someone elses character or having your character be played by someone else.
And in video games, the only character you have is your main character. Thus roleplaying other characters is like taking away the GMs NPCs.
But, your point does work in games like The Sims, where, even though the dialog/romance options are limited, you can add back that level of meaning through roleplaying. Or in games like the elder scrolls, where the storylines aren’t intertwined. But Cyberpunk 2077 does pull your romantic interest into optional endings, so the characters behavior might then no longer align with your interpretation, because the game took back control of its characters.
So I have to roleplay romance in my role playing game? I don’t play role playing games to play roles! /s
Multidimensional choose your own adventure.
I just ignore all romance in games because even at its best; it’s cringy and makes me feel weird and uncomfortable.
Yeah, I really just wish it wasn’t in games since it’s almost always done poorly yet also the only way to get some backstory which feels forced and dumb.
And SO much resources spent on it that could be used for legitimate content- more story, better content, stability passes.
Nice, just like in real life
No. Because you see, and may not quite understand, real life is totally different than what is depicted in games. This is primarily because video games aren’t real, and therefore cannot reciprocate affection.
On the other hand, romance in the real world is life affirming. It is among the most beautiful things human beings are capable of. It is a gift and one I have been able to share with my partner for over 18 years.
Okay, so it’s a personal opinion based on experience. Cool, good for you. Glad that’s cleared up.
I’m pretty sure the majority of the entire planet thinks real world romance beats pretending pixelated characters actually give a shit about you.
But clearly your personal opinion is that of the minority- and is no less valid.
Idk man this comment was far cringier than any video game romance that I’ve ever seen.
When you grow up, it won’t be.
The opposite in fact. Sounds like a 10th grader wrote that.
Keep telling yourself whatever works for ya.
And you keep on being yourself Mr cornball
It’s kinda sorta not a game in many ways but dispatch did a decent job I thought.
You know how people build relationships in meatspace? Lore dumps.
“Thank you for coming. It was nice of your friend to help us meet.”
" I was there. I was there 3000 years ago … when Isildur took the Ring. I was there the day the strength of men failed. I led Isildur into the heart of Mount Doom, where the Ring was forged, the one place It could be destroyed! It should have ended that day, but evil was allowed to endure. Isildur kept the ring. The line of kings is broken. There’s no strength left in the world of Men. They’re scattered, divided, leaderless."
“…o-kay. Would you like to share some entrées or … Let’s order some drinks first.”
Yes, also meatspace romance is built not just on the pivotal but a whole lot on the mundane.
Romances are stupid shallow fluff that serve no purpose except to draw in lonely people. They’re idiotic and predatory.
Guilty as charged
For me, romances are just so they can carry shit that I find.
Pack mule romance. Love it.
One of the videogame characters I was most attached to was Agro the horse in shadow of the colossus.
Are you my girlfriend?
Lol, no, but I’ve been there. “Can you meet me at my apartment? I bought a dresser I need your ‘help’ with”
You listen to Shadowheart’s story in Baldur’s Gate 3 and, since you pass no judgment, fall in love.
Not that different than a lot of the relationships I had when I was young to be honest.
There is of course more to it, but this was actually a key factor in my own marriage lol
Well, I listen to Shadowheart’s story and since I’m a warlock who pacted with an evil master just because I wanted to do cool tricks, I felt I shouldn’t judge. (Also she is a ride or die goth girl).
Though the frog lady is the best.
As a Durge i’m always like “tell me more, i’m intrigued.” She loves that answer.
“I’m horny and they’re hot” leads to a lot of shallow “understanding” of someone’s shitty behavior.
One of my favorite video game romances takes place in the Legend of Heroes: Trails series. When first described on paper in a quick summary, it’s something some people might roll their eyes at, but it’s built very well.
Something that had to be nailed down early about it was, it really couldn’t be optional, based on “relationship score”, or even happen on its own time. One of the best scenes in this duology centers around a huge character reveal, which puts forward the confession of love all at the same time; while that relationship had been a slow tease through individual scenes, it suddenly became a huge, very important part of this large conflict.
I definitely think for better relationships in games, we need a lot more focus on characters, and we need to stop viewing the relationships as rewards; sadly I don’t have many further ideas than railroaded stories, but I think there’s probably more options out there.
Trails in The Sky are so good. The franchise lost me mid-Cold Steel, unfortunately it became something else and I wasn’t the target audience.
We need videogame romances where you are both so enamored with each other; every answer is stupid and cringe but to them it’s the most romantic thing ever. Also the sex is silly and awkward and kinda gross, but they both have fun, a good laugh and enjoy it.
I heard about a very silly, cartoony game that applies this as a basis: Buster Jam. The two leads are in a relationship, but it doesn’t affect their lazy heroic dynamic in any way. Funny to have a villain remark “…you and your GIRLFRIEND…” and not get corrected.
Gamers aren’t ready for that level of realism.
Dialog wheel: “You are cuter!”
“No! You are cute”
“You are the cutest!”
You are my cutie pie!
Party rolls a D20 to avoid dying of cringe
There comes a point where it is too real, and when the loading screen comes up and you see yourself in the reflection of the screen, that’s going to create a really negative experience for a lot of people, not just gamers.
Which is why everyone should just play on anti-glare screens! They aren’t reflective enough for that to happen!
May I recommend Haven then
Haven Gonna check it out!
Or, and maybe I’m the weird one here, we shouldn’t include romance in games. We absolutely shouldn’t have the players’ avatars involved in those romances. Games are escapist fantasy, and I don’t believe it’s helpful to allow anyone to experience romantic things in an escapist context - that should be constrained to the real world.
Then again, I think the only game I’ve played with a narrative that I really appreciate anymore is Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. So maybe I’m just old and jaded.
God I hate this type of argument about arts and entertainment. The logical conclusion of “this can be unhealthy for some people so nobody should make it” is “dumb everything down for the lowest common denominator.”
I don’t believe it’s just unhealthy for “some people”. I think it’s unhealthy for everyone, and for our society as a whole. Simulating romantic relationships with fictional characters is a bad idea, because it dulls our sense of the real thing, and removes the need to intact with real people. It removes the ability to fail. A video game can’t be true enough to life that one mistake can ruin a relationship, because even if that’s the case, the player can reload his save. It becomes too comfortable and too safe.
As far as dumbing things down… is Civilization (as a series, let’s not split every hair here) dumbed-down? How about Doom? Beyond All Reason? Factorio and Mindustry?
I’m not saying that games shouldn’t make us feel. I don’t even hate the idea of a romantic story involving characters who are not the PCs (or linear “romances” like Final Fantasy 8). I’m talking about the “Romance Options” that became prevalent in games because of Mass Effect. The player’s avatar should not be involved in player-driven romantic relationships.
Love in the Ultima IV sense? sure. Love in the Mass Effect/Dragon Age sense? No.
I think this essentially gets at the same point of criticism: Do it properly or don’t do it at all. If you want romance, then write a romantic story with real love and loss that allows players to experience these feelings through their characters, but not shallow “romance options” like the ones that are included in so many games nowadays and that feel like the equivalent of reading two pages of a character’s diary.
I am ok with having transactional vg relationships. I mean, if I could marry in factorio I would probably automate it and have an exponentially increasing number of partners.
not what’s meant when they say “the factory must grow”, but let them cook
