BioWare is certainly taking relationships in its games seriously. The developer has only recently revealed a gay male character in Dragon Age: Inquisition, and has now revealed that its future games could include polyamorous and asexual relationships as well.
Speaking at the GaymerX convention, BioWare’s panel revealed that such relationship options didn’t exist in previous Mass Effect and Dragon Age titles solely because of scripting issues. They further said that the option of asexual relationships is a popular fan request and that the developer is currently looking into it.
David Gaider, Lead Writer of Dragon Age, said that future games could include romance failures as well.
We have often talked about there’s something to be said about how maybe we don’t need to have romances be automatically successful [and give them] more failure conditions. You could actually fail a romance and then you’d actually need to work a little harder to get through it, and it’s not just saying, ‘Do you like me?’ Okay, that means we’re going to start the romance and we’re automatically going to get to the end. That is something we’ve considered as well.
Interestingly, BioWare’s panel also mentioned the possibility of including in-game relationships that depend on factors other than race and gender, such as, characters’ political views.
While this all sounds good, it’s the execution that matters. As long as BioWare nails it, I see no issue with them including various relationship options.
