Can NPCs Fall In Love? | Extra Credits Gaming

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Starting off with a picture of Mass Effect is strange because Garrus and Tali date if you don't date one of them yourself

In some of the older Harvest Moon games, every romantic interest comes with a rivalry in the form of another available bachelor/bachelorette. If you take too long to build a relationship with someone, you will end up watching them make relationships with each other. If you dont try to form a relationship at all, it is possible for all of the romantic options to end up with someone else.

Time spent planning party hookups in Fire Emblem: 20 hours. Time spent planning the actual battle: 3 minutes.

The best thing about this video is how that goblin went from killing the dwarf, to consoling him, and celebrating his relationship.

Dragon Age, especially Dragon Age 2 and 3, have multi-faceted romances and party NPCs can have romantic entanglements. In DA2, Fenris and Isabella, two romanceable party members, can have a physical romance and Aveline, a non-romanceable party member, has a series of side quests to help her marry a local guard. In DA3, Sera, a romanceable NPC, can date Dagna, a NPC at the player's base. Also in DA3, Iron Bull and Dorian, both romanceable party members, may date each other. In DA2 and DA3, the returning companion Varric is non-romanceable but has a long-time entanglement with a woman that we get to learn a lot about should the player be Varric's good friend. I'd definitely give a shoutout to the series for that in and of itself. Relationships are key to many player experiences in Dragon Age and it paid off in organic ways.

This concept can support Aromantic and AroSpec people who may not have any interest in the player getting a relationship but could very much enjoy helping others find that in their play through.

In dating Sims, players often "sample" characters, basically interact with each before romancing one. So what if characters were programmed to form relationships with each other at set times. They only don't get together if the player starts dating them first. Otherwise the character will reject the player if they are already dating. It would make the dating pool feel more dynamic, and capture the feeling of not wanting to miss your chance.

I had no idea that 1999 Harvest Moon N64 was so ahead of it's time. I've skipped all the dating sim games where I assumed this was normal XD

I think the best example of this is Pavarti in Outer Worlds. Her companion questline involved the Player helping her overcome her low confidence, worries about her asexuality, and a few other things to help land her an awesome date. The player was super involved in it at every step of the planning, but overall it reinforced the idea that she and the rest of the companions have lives going on outside of the Players journey.

Personally, I don't much care if the NPCs in a game have their own relationships or not. But I do think more works need to be willing to show a relationship not work out without maximizing the amount of drama that breakup results in. Like, it's okay to show a couple break up and still be on good terms with each other. You don't have to always make them hate each other afterwards.

What I love so much about Bioware, and Dragon Age specially, is that they do this perfectly. Companions aren't just there for the player. They are their own characters with their own goals. They join you and stay with you because their characters wants it. Not some weird contrived reason. And Dragon Age also does inter-companion romance wonderful. Isabelle-Fenris, Iron Bull-Dorian, and Sera-Dagna, are all relationships that happen natural without the player. That was something I was missing when I was playing BG3. They didn't feel as real as Dragon Age's companions.

This is one of my favorite parts of Fire Emblem. Pairing off my army into badass battle couples who give eachother tangible boosts when near each other feels great.

I feel that Outer World character Pavarti is a great example of NPC romance with is not directly related to the main character. Althought is completly scripted makes for a nice character development and interesting side-quest.

The closest thing I can think of is "I was a Teenage Exocolonist." With the parings of Cal and Tammy, and Anemone and Vace.

I think Fire Emblem does this well, though technically every unit is the player character

This was my biggest gripe with Baldur's Gate 3. Namely - Wyll and Karlach should hook up if certain conditions are met.

Speaking of Baldur's Gate, the very first one had the shameless flirt, Coran, who hits on almost every female NPC you recruit. The relationship doesn't develop in-game, but in BG2, you discover that he and one of the other NPCs you could recruit into your team ended up together. I won't say any more so as not to spoil the story, but it was kind of amusing to have that happening in the story of the games. He won't flirt with the PC or Imoen though, so I guess certain lineages are off limits.

This. All my votes for this. The story opportunities where two NPC's could start various types of relationships with or without any of the Player's input sounds amazing. Just having two crewmates that could be married, dating, broken up, bitter enemies, or hardly aware of each other's existence outside of missions seems amazing for giving a playthrough more depth. It also makes the choice of who you take on a mission more interesting. Sure the Tank and the Geek make for the best technical choice, but what if they just broke up and you just don't want to deal with their drama.

I be honest if the companions in BG3 had romance outside of my character I would do anything in my powers to have Lae'zel and shadowheart end up together XD