this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2026
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[–] snooggums@piefed.world 42 points 21 hours ago (3 children)

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!

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 12 points 17 hours ago (4 children)

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!)

[–] sem@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago

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 names Santa Claus, this game's romance system sucks."

[–] Katana314@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Paradachshund@lemmy.today 1 points 6 hours ago

I also would love to see this!

[–] snooggums@piefed.world 1 points 17 hours ago

Shallow and rushed, since it has to develop in a few dozen hours of gameplay with a limited number of NPCs!

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 21 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TachyonTele@piefed.social 2 points 17 hours ago (1 children)

But iwant my romance with the frog-lady to be realistic!

[–] Triumph@fedia.io 2 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

Do you mean the lady from WhoVille?

[–] Droechai@piefed.blahaj.zone 2 points 12 hours ago

I never managed to romance Auntie :/

[–] fishy@lemmy.today 2 points 17 hours ago

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.