3 weeks ago
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With Valentine's Day being tomorrow, when's a better time to spotlight video game romance than now? Not every game has romantic pursuits, but plenty of our favorite RPGs allow you to wine, dine, and smooch your party members. (And then there's Baldur's Gate 3 and its super horny companions, including a bangable bear.) Other games let you watch their characters' romance evolve, for better or for worse.
As love is in the air, we want to spotlight games with some of our favorite romances. They include one of the best sci-fi trilogies of all time, an underappreciated BioWare adventure, and an all-timer co-op game.
Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Though the original Mass Effect trilogy is ostensibly a race to save the galaxy from imminent doom, it's really about choosing which of the Normandy's crew you want your Shepard to seduce and, hey, maybe even fall in love with. There's Liara, whose same-sex romance option with FemShep broke Fox New hosts' minds back in the day, and the dream of "little blue children." Thane is a personal favorite, as there's something so beautiful about him finding love again, however brief, after his painful life. And who could forget Garrus, who sets aside his calibrations for some quality time with Shep? Fans loved the sexy bird alien man so much that BioWare once made a body pillow cover so fans could snuggle with him. (Sadly, it looks to be discontinued.) See, the thing about Mass Effect is that you'll start playing it for the excellent third-person shooting and choice-based storytelling, and you'll walk away from it thinking about its bangable aliens for years to come. —Austin Manchester
Dragon Age: The Veilguard
Two BioWare games in a row? C'mon, this is a Valentine's Day blog. Of course BioWare is in here twice. Dragon Age: The Veilguard is the legendary RPG maker's latest sprawling game, and though it received mixed reception, it lived up to at least one aspect of the BioWare pedigree: the romance. You can form relationships all seven of your companions, including an Italian vampire, a posh necromancer, and an elf whose best friend is a baby griffon. The companions you don't end up forming relationships with can end up dating each other instead — a sign that you're not the center of the Veilguard's universe, and love will continue to flourish with or without your input. —Ari Notis
It Takes Two
OKAY, HEAR ME OUT. The “romance” at the heart of It Takes Two is a miserable one. Hazelight’s hit co-op adventure stars Cody and May, a married couple on the verge of divorce. They’re already at each other’s throats before being turned into pint-sized dolls and forced to work together to return to human form, rekindling their love in the process. It’s a terrible love story that forces a nonfunctional couple to stay together through the power of platforming, but its success as a romance story is on a meta level. It’s built for couples to play together, testing their teamwork and trust for one another. The awful love story even becomes a great way to talk about relationships with your partner. What makes a functional relationship? What are the boundaries? What do the dealbreakers look like? It Takes Two is inadvertently a great game about love, even if it arrives there by accident. —Giovanni Colantonio
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