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Updated: Sep 4
Spoilers: This article will contain spoilers for Final Fantasy X and X-2 |
On the optimization of intimacy and the architecture of affection in video games.
Romance has always been a central focus of art and human expression, evolving alongside the technologies and mediums used to express it. The earliest love poem, The Love Song for Shu-Sin, was a Sumerian ode to the king carved upon stone. Today, entire cottage industries exist in both film and novel form specifically devoted to exploring the various ways in which we love and make love.
However, digital technology has fundamentally altered how we view connection. Platforms like Facebook reduce living people to static avatars whose value is measured in likes, comments, and views, flattening human intimacy into systems on a screen. Where social media primed us to view real-world connection through metrics, interactive art has taken this systemization a step further. This reality now informs the very art we make, and few mediums have codified the mechanics of connection as explicitly as single-player role-playing games.
Credit: Nintendo
No other artistic medium carries with it the weight of interactivity in the way video games do. Because video games require participation in their experience to be fully realized, players must themselves perform the act of romance; it falls on us to court these NPCs, speak with them, take them on dates, and even initiate the act of sex between the player character and other parties. That active participation thus creates an intimacy with the player, fostering a connection with the person playing and the work itself.
Look no further than Baldur’s Gate 3 as an example. For all its achievements by way of roleplaying opportunities, narrative branches, and even gameplay variety, players focus on the relationships above nearly any other design element. A million articles and videos explain how to romance character X or obtain outcome Y, racking up hundreds of thousands of views each (or more). For these players, a companion’s independent thoughts, ideals, and agency are treated as obstacles to be overcome.
Games that espouse player freedom are especially prone to this, offering players many options to work from, and including dedicated systems for approval ratings and gift-giving to reach a desired romantic outcome. By this point, players have been trained to expect these mechanics where romance is part of the advertised experience.
As part of their critique on this mechanical reduction of love, writer Colin Munch says these games “have a fundamental issue: score points; win prize.” Say the right things, give the right gifts, or do the proper quests and the game rewards you with intimacy — special scenes to acknowledge your effort, or even activities to participate in exclusively. When things go awry, and the envisioned reward is not received, Reddit posts, comments, and blogs are sure to arise noting how the player did everything “right,” but they were not appropriately compensated. Shadowheart did not sleep with the player on the first night, and thus the entire playthrough has been tainted or outright ruined.
Credit: Larian Studios
The problem with gamification of romance lies in the fact that it becomes a series of inputs and outputs and — given enough space, learning, and knowledge — can be fully manipulated to serve user needs. This can be alleviated by players actively role-playing, but this is not how most people engage with the games, and there is an inherent friction to doing so.
Taking a character with defined ideals, personality, and preferences into an open choice quiz is difficult, as the choices may not always align with what you believe your character would do in every scenario. You have to compromise with the systems to move forward. More pressing is that many people are not so much role-playing a defined character as they are role-playing as a person who always gets what they want and/or expect from their actions; the power imbalance of the systems becomes the preferred mechanism of expression.
This transactional view of romance is demanded by subsets of entitled gamers who prefer the controllable admiration of partners, loathing women who have thoughts, ideals, and agency of their own. Gamergate and its long aftermath have shown just how much the reward for “being good” matters to many — there is no reason to be friendly, caring, or supportive if the romantic object can still say “no” at the end of it. Of course, this objectification is not solely the purview of the male incel cohort; they are simply the most vocal about their aims and reasoning.
Yet, as far as video game implementation goes, there may be no true way to fully de-gamify the act of courtship from its result. In truth, I find it hard to say that this is entirely dissimilar to the real world. The word “performative” is bandied about quite often when people make assumptions about how people’s words or actions may belie their true beliefs, but people do things and get reactions from others as a matter of course. In games, player actions mimic narcissistic behavior by design; we manipulate NPC variables and perform emotional gestures to extract benefits.
Gamergate and its long aftermath have shown just how much the reward for “being good” matters to many — there is no reason to be friendly, caring, or supportive if the romantic object can still say “no” at the end of it.
The crucial difference between real life and a video game lies in opacity. Real people are not fully known to us; there is no visible approval meter, no pop-up text announcing that someone agrees with your response, and no counter ticking up toward an explicit scene. There’s something so compelling and dangerous about the unknown in this sense. In order to form these connections, we must open ourselves up to others, leaving us vulnerable to harm. We must say and do the things that seem most right to ourselves, while understanding that doing so carries the risk of rejection. It is our empathy, not systemized feedback, that keeps real human connection grounded.
But if there is no way to decouple this gamification from video game romance — at least for games that aim to offer interactable romances — how can games approach these themes and mechanics in ways that can ultimately be more fulfilling than another means of resource management?
There is always the option to make the romance a fixed point in the story and remove any way for the player to engage with it. This method allows for complete authorial control of the direction of the romance and surrounding narrative, providing a means for more fulfilling and realistic portrayals of romance. The obvious drawback is that it also completely omits player agency, which is the whole point and purpose of player-driven games. And while this could certainly be used effectively even within such a space, player backlash against “forced” romance is always quite strong, as the incongruity of the static love affair does not mesh well with the design ethos surrounding other mechanics or player expectations of the genre.
Furthermore, because romantic connection is a core aspect of human experience, removing it from choice-driven games altogether would be a mistake — even if current implementations remain imperfect. In reality, relationships blossom and collapse spontaneously, often under intense pressure. Critiques arguing that in-game romances must be unproblematic, such as Munch’s assertion that Mass Effect’s primary issue is the “appropriateness” of its relationships, overlook how human relational dynamics actually function.
Many games, especially recently, are specifically trying to combat this notion. Romances do not have to be clean or perfect to be meaningful or interesting. We can gain something from imperfect depictions. Art is, after all, a reflection of real human experience, but those experiences are shaped by the choices and thoughts each of us holds.
Ironically, games about player choice are often largely choice-agnostic. Your decisions may change a scene or two, or confer a unique reward, but events mostly play out the same way no matter what — the same quests, same story, and the same fights. How much of an impact does the loss of someone like Astarion partway through the game affect the meaning or direction of Baldur's Gate 3? What happens when we compare it to a relationship woven into the core of a game’s plot, like that of Tidus and Yuna from Final Fantasy X?
Even if he were romanced, Astarion’s death would functionally negate his existence to most characters in his world; he would never be brought up again, save for specific story beats that relate to him exclusively. By contrast, the relationship between Tidus and Yuna, and by extension Tidus’ eventual disappearance, become crucial plot points for Final Fantasy X and its sequel, Final Fantasy X-2.
Throughout their journey in the first game, the player experiences the tragic relationship through Tidus's limited perspective — unaware, for a long time, of the fatal sacrifice Yuna's pilgrimage demands. In searching for a way to avoid this fate for Yuna while still stopping Sin, discoveries are made that flip this dynamic. Tidus hides the revelation that he is a dream and will disappear after their quest from Yuna because he knows it could deter her from her mission. Once that mission is done and Tidus disappears, Yuna must reckon with life beyond Tidus, at least for a while. The lack of complete player control makes these revelations and emotional payoffs much more rewarding.
Single-player games with set narratives are much better at highlighting meaningful relationships, even beyond the romantic. The connection between characters can be shown more organically, with setups, payoffs, and fake outs appropriately curated. It becomes a question worth exploring rather than an answer already arrived at.
This is doubly true when the story and interpersonal relationships are more intertwined. Scenes between characters can inform events and reactions that happen later down the line much more easily than trying to weave them into a sprawling web of choices and consequences. In a structured story, the aforementioned opacity of character thoughts and feelings opens up space for possibility. Will they or won’t they? Will our characters come out of this happy and whole? What happens next?
The very best romance stories in other media and art share this quality, as well. Neither the audience nor the characters have perfect information, and that element of mystery surrounding character motivations or possible story turns creates a tension that knowing never could. While fully intertwining player romance into the story or world of a choice-driven game might be a tough ask, we can still emulate the feeling of an evolving love story through obfuscation.
Credit: Square Enix
But would gaming audiences at large be agreeable to this? Would more developers? Romance is a powerful hook for players to become invested, but not simply because the systems keep them mechanically engaged. The connections sprout from attachment to the characters’ personalities and appearances — their presence, their flaws, and their quirks. That same investment can be engendered even if the exact approval numbers or NPC disposition were clouded to a higher degree, or if individual choices were not so clearly cause-and-effect.
Such implementations would enhance our connections, add weight to our decisions, and deepen roleplaying opportunities. The focus shifts from meter management to acting in accordance with your character’s beliefs and attempting to understand another character’s desires.
Until games learn to embrace that ambiguity — allowing companions to act more unpredictably and hold more genuine ideals and boundaries — they will continue to be little more than a means to an end.
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