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[Mike Laidlaw]

SPOILER WARNING! This post reveals all of the possible romance options that players will have in the game. If you want to keep the mystery alive until November, be forewarned. If you’re ready to find out now, keep reading!

 

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Let’s take a moment to talk about romance in Dragon Age: Inquisition, shall we?

 

It’s quite valid to ask, “Why reveal which characters can be romanced at all? Isn’t it better to leave the mystery and let players discover the romances as they play?” While some players understandably prefer to start games completely unspoiled, the truth is that DA:I is huge. The story takes a great deal of time to unfold, as do the relationships players develop with followers. As a result, you could play the game for a significant length of time before discovering that a follower isn’t interested.

 

Again, many prefer that kind of discovery. Many players also have no interest in romancing anyone, and we’ve designed each follower to have a rewarding story arc for players who choose to engage with them, romantically or not. We’ve come to realize, however, that for many players, romances are an incredibly important feature—one in which we’ve invested a great deal of development time—and they prefer a heads-up to having their hearts set on a particular character, only to end up disappointed.

 

To preface this information, a few words on our design goals for romances: First, we want to offer choice to our players. This doesn’t mean that all choices are available to everyone—it means that no matter what type of character you choose to play, more than one possible romance option will be available. This doesn’t guarantee that a player will find a particular character to be personally appealing—which could be the case even if every character in the game could be romanced by anyone—but it ideally lets each player know they’re not an afterthought in our development process.

 

Second, we want our characters to be internally consistent. Every major DA:I character has a story arc, personal goals, and thoughts on how your journey together has evolved; sometimes a romance arc doesn’t make sense for them, sometimes it does. Either way, we aren’t trying to justify why a character can’t be romanced—we’re looking at how a romance with that character would make sense according to the rest of their story, and why that romance will strengthen an interesting story arc.

 

Finally, a character being eligible for a romance doesn’t necessarily guarantee that they will be successfully won over. These characters have their own agendas and opinions, and the choices a player makes during the game have a definite impact on their affections. That’s intentional.

 

With that in mind, we now reveal who can be romanced by whom. If you’re not interested in having that kind of foreknowledge before going into Inquisition, consider this fair warning and proceed no further.

 

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Still here? Okay, then.

 

Here are our “core” romance options. They are available to players of any race, and fulfill our first design goal of providing multiple options to everyone:

• Cassandra is interested in male characters.
• Blackwall is interested in female characters.
• Josephine is interested in both male and female characters
• Iron Bull is interested in both male and female characters
• Sera is interested in female characters.
• Dorian is interested in male characters.

Two “additional” romance options were added to the game as a result of the extra development time DA:I received. They are more limited in scope, largely for reasons directly related to their story arcs, but are otherwise the equal of the other options:

• Cullen is interested in female elves and female humans.

• Solas is interested in female elves only.

This means that of our core cast, Varric, Vivienne, Cole, and Leliana are not romance options. While we know this may disappoint some fans who were interested in them, we don’t believe that they lose out, as each character engages in their own meaningful story.

 

We can’t wait for November, when you can finally meet these characters, help them tell their stories, and explore this enormous game with us.

 

Mike..

 

[David Gaider]

I would just like to say to Bioware:

 

Can we all agree that this would be a good way to go in announcing love interests for future DA games?

 

I would say it would have been better to do it all at once or not at all, and not announce ANY romances prior to release. Either that or simply not do romances, which gets tempting at times like these. Either way, I'm glad it's finally done, rather than leaving people to set their hearts on characters they haven't met yet only to be disappointed.

[David Gaider]

Interesting that Cullen (and Solas) are considered more limited in scope than the others.  In a Gamermd83 interview with Cameron Lee and (sorry, another dev whose name escapes me) the lady dev said she saw a folder with a heap of Cullen romance arc scenes and binged on them all.

 

If his romance is "limited" relative to the core cast, it makes me wonder just how big the core ones are?

 

Previous romances have been limited to what...one or two scenes?  A bit of dialogue nuance?

 

They are limited in scope only in that they are restricted to certain races. Hence the "otherwise, they are the equal of the other romances."

[Allan Schumacher]

So...uh...because Solas and Cullen were afterthoughts...how in depth is their romance?

 

Neither of these characters were considered afterthoughts in terms of romance.  Though I suppose YMMV depending on whether or not you like the romance.

[David Gaider]

Super thanks Mike for the comprehensive explanation and revealing Blackwall as the last LI. I have to admit I was pretty much convinced that Vivienne was going to be the next LI but Blackwall is an interesting choice and he is definitely on my list of potential LIs.

 

I also want to echo all the thanks to BioWare. You've provided 8 diverse and intriguing LIs.

 

When I originally heard that DA:I romances were going to have set sexualites, I admit I was worried, not because I don't like the idea of set sexualites but because I thought you might only have 4 LIs again and so leaving players with very limited options.

 

Once you announced that there would be 8 LIs, I became excited because I knew that there would be plenty of options for everyone. 

 

Thanks to Dorian and his wonderful facial hair, DA:I will be the first game where I'll be rolling a gay male and I'm really looking forward to it.

 

So thank you BioWare for creating characters that have intrigued me enough to try a new role playing experience. 

 

That's awesome to hear. Like Mike posted, I'm very excited for fans to finally meet these characters. I'm also happy we managed to swing still having at least two options for everyone (as before), yet also having greater diversity and representation. I think (and I hope people will agree once they play) that ultimately it makes for interesting variety.

[David Gaider]

Who else has David written in the romance field?

 

I've been a Dragon Age fan for nine months, so yeah. I'm still a nub.

 

Ever?

 

In order: Viconia, Aerie, Anomen, Aribeth, Aarin Gend, Valen Shadowbreath, Carth Onasi, Bastila, Alistair, Morrigan, Zevran, Fenris... and now Dorian and Cassandra.

[Allan Schumacher]

Kinda bummed that my only romance options are Cassandra and Josephine :/

 

I can understand that.  Unfortunately it's always going to happen to someone.  There are some that are bummed that their only romance options were Morrigan and Leliana, or Isabela and Merrill.

 

It sucks when it's you if you're really hoping for that but it's part of the challenges with creating content like this.

[David Gaider]

Enough argument about Traynor--take it elsewhere, please. This is neither the thread nor the forum for that.

[David Gaider]

How come there's so few female options for male inquisitors? I hate to say that I'm disappointed but I am. There's only two of them, Josephine and Casssandra. Everyone else is either male, or unromanceable for males characters. What's the deal?

 

You get as many options as everyone else (and as many as you've had previously), save the two extra options straight women possibly get (if they're playing elves or humans). Were you expecting more? No matter how many options we provide, there's no guarantee you'll find someone who appeals to you... even if you think they will/won't appeal right now, you haven't actually met them yet.

[David Gaider]

"Nice bonus" that makes the content done for one specific (straight of course) demographic twice as big as the content for others, since those are full fledged romance options, at least according to devs.

 

Yes. Full-fledged insofar as the writing goes, but each "combination" of race and gender means an entirely extra set of work for cinematics in full conversations. It's not just a switch we can flip because we want to. We only had time to add so much additional work, and these were the options that made sense for the characters and which made for good stories to tell.

 

I'm sorry you didn't get as many options as you'd like, or perhaps begrudge those who got options you didn't, but--if I'm to speak frankly--having fans unhappy they didn't get enough gay options in a triple-A videogame title is still a pretty big win in my books. I really hope you'll like the choices you encounter in the game once you play, regardless of what kind of character you end up choosing to play as.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm about to head home.  When I come back I'll be addressing a ton of issues with this thread.

 

Thread closed in the meantime.  Pray the mods find the reports before I get home.

[Allan Schumacher]

Just seems like there's not a lot of options for my player character compared to the previous games. I mean there's more overall romance options yeah  and it's obvious Bioware has put more work into them with story elements, it just feels to me like it's restricted the overall "choices" to me.

 

As I go through the thread I want to point out (since I see this coming up a lot).  You have just as many romance options as a straight man as you did in both DAO and DA2.

 

Equal options in DAO, More options in DA2 and double the options in DAI, I think our annoyance is justified.

 

I, to be frank, do not.  More on that below.

 

You have to realise why he's angry though, we are not used to experiencing this.

This is about as literal of a definition of privilege as I think there can be.  The idea that straight men are so often blind to the advantages they get is telling.  I hope, at the very least, it improves your ability to see things from the lens of a different person going forward.

 

Remember, You can't answer years of inequality with more inequality. That's why we're a little upset and to be honest it's entirely justified.

 

No, but if the story we create is going to be unequal, we're going to look at it from the greater picture rather than a single game.  Which, unfortunately, means that I think if we're going to give a group extra romance options, it's unlikely to be straight males because they have a history of receiving such content.  This, of course, overlooks the straight males that do not have issues playing other genders/sexualities in the game, whom likely aren't that distraught about this news at all.

 

Equality is not "all games always have the equal amount of romance options."  Equality is "The entirety of gaming in aggregate has reasonably equivalent representation."  That is, a situation where if our game had our breakdown, people wouldn't care because they're still getting their share elsewhere.  It's why I get upset at the term "representation" because in an individual game, straight men (of which I am one) being absent is not reflective of systemic representation issues.  Straight men are in all forms of media, with a variety of depictions as well (i.e. they aren't stereotyped).

 

I can understand that you're disappointed, and that it being a new feeling is a shock.  I consider this a good thing because I think it's very useful tool for your own personal growth.  That "ugh" feeling.  Next time some jerk on a different forum says "whatever straight men should be catered to because <reasons>," I personally ask you to take the moment to chime in to that person and say "I don't think so... it's a pretty crappy feeling to be left out."

 

 

 

Speaking more generally, as I may have hinted towards... if there's a group that I'd be most willing to "short change" (or better stated, since only one group is really benefiting here, I'd be most unwilling to focus on) it'd be the straight male group because within pop culture (games, movies, etc) they are already the beneficiaries of so much content.  So I do not consider it the same level of "inequality" to have them get less options than a different group, as opposed to those other groups.

 

While I fully expect it to be seen as empty words (since for all the talk of trying to focus more on LGBT representation, lesbians and gay men receive less than straight people), I do consider their cries for representation to have a much more solid grounding than some guys who, for maybe the first time in their gaming life, have to deal with the reality that sometimes not everything is going to fall their way.

 

I actually don't feel it's necessary for all our games to have precisely the same amount of options for all because sometimes a story/narrative may make sense, and in the case of DAI the alternative would be simply not doing that content instead, which is still unfortunate to anyone that would like that content.  I do, however, personally feel a bias towards giving straight male gamers the bonus at this time because of their lengthy track record of receiving the most focus and content.

 

So yes, I actually do feel that gay men and lesbians have a touch more reason to be upset... though if a straight man feels upset I won't begrudge them that feeling.  I do hope, however, that they can step back and realize the big picture regarding their disappointment and can better empathize with people that are not like themselves going forward.

 

Thread reopened.  Be excellent to each other.

[Allan Schumacher]

Great post overall but I wish you hadn't said this one. Not because of the options for different groups etc, I don't care too much about it. But I thought that the point of the characters are to fit the story, not to be some kind of social commentary. 

 

Personally I didn't like how the romances ended up being but I thought the reason was that the team did not compromise their vision for the characters to please the audience. If what you're saying is true and not just some attempt to reduce the amount of "privilege" posts, then there is a whole new set of considerations to make.

 

It isn't a social commentary.  But by the same token, nothing exists in a social or cultural vacuum.  I'm also speaking of my personal perspective on the situation, since I don't actually write any of the characters.

 

However, if we were to make a game and go "Hey we have 5 straight women to romance and that's it" it'd still behoove us to examine why it is that we made those decisions.

 

Part of the problem with relying exclusively on "how does it fit the story" is that stuff like that creates the imbalance that makes people upset in the first place.  I'm innately less aware of LGBT representation in other media, or people of colour and so forth.  I'm at a place now, however, where I notice it a lot more.  And I do think it provides a richer game experience to boot.

[Allan Schumacher]

Allan I can't help but feel you are painting all straight men with the same brush. I agree that in the past straight males, mainly whites, have had more privileges than others, that's a given, but I think it goes too far when straight males of the present are compared to straight males of the past. I firmly believe the only way to solve inequality is to have no inequality at all.

I feel that straight males of the present are still very, very much the beneficiaries of copious amounts of catering and focus in popular culture. And it's not like I'm talking ancient history when I make reference to the past. I confidently state this as I'm a member of the group too.

As for equality, the only way to truly be equal with romances is to not have romance content. Because even if we had gone 2/2/2 precisely it'd still mean that some people would be unhappy. Some would be unhappy with the choices they have available to them. Others would be unhappy because they felt one particular group received subpar romances, and so forth.

Further, mandating that we specifically have something like 2/2/2 is also a mandate that is also restrictive in that, for example, it'd prevent us from doing something with say, Solas, which I think is a very interesting aspect of his character.
 

Maybe instead of saying "this group needs to get less" we should all be saying "this group needs to get more." I do realize Solas and Cullen were later additions and initially everyone was in fact equal. I would have done the same thing in your shoes. That is to give an opportunity where more people can have more options. Solas and Cullen just happen to be heterosexual. It's obvious there was no malicious intent when deciding who the LI's would be.

 

It may not have been as clear as I had intended, but I actually did try to reframe it when I said.  That said, it's all a matter of perspective.  In pretty much every case one person's reward can be seen as another person's penalty.
 
 
 

I would just release the LI info at the same time.

 

I, personally, probably wouldn't release them at all.  But I know there's a sizeable group of people that don't agree with me on this perspective.

[Allan Schumacher]

Where I can understand where you are coming from and what you are saying its still a weird thing to say as it comes down to (over simplifying) "You are the one who out of everyone else should be 'punished' this time, because of how society has been structured and that fact that our industry focusing on you made you feel this way' which seems a bit mean. It should not be your focus to punish anyone based on the past and the structure of society.

 

Yes you say we got the same amount as DA:2, though I guess I was under the impression that everything in DA:I would be bigger and better and when 8 romances were announced I thought that everyone would have a lot more. I suggest you focus in the future on giving everyone more rather than taking away from one group, You must hurt like me because I hurt before is a bit childish to be honest. 

 

I'm not saying that straight gamers should be punished.  I'm saying that if I were to grant an additional perk to a group, I'd feel an inclination to give that to someone that doesn't typically get that extra piece of content.

 

But like I said, one person's reward can always be interpreted by another as a different person's punishment.

[Allan Schumacher]

Second, will you please stop stating straight males have a bunch of privilege, because I am straight male of color, and I am not seeing a lot of diversity or privilege being shown my way in the gaming community. I still remember when some of you guys(representatives of Bioware) when people complained about not having their family members matching their character's skin color in Origins. Where was your high moral social standing then? I cannot count on how many issues about racial diversity come up on the forums, and instead of defending the person asking for diversity, you close the forum down after the person has been blasted a bunch of times. If sexuality diversity is the only battle you are going to fight that is fine, but don't lecture people on privilege in gaming.

 

I don't think we had a moral high standing with the colour of skin of your parents and your Warden.  I think it's an excellent example of white privilege, in that case.  I remember seeing people calling us out on it and going "Oh.... huh... I didn't even realize."  I don't remember the reaction (I didn't interact much on the forums, but in all honesty I wouldn't be surprised if I did respond defensively if called out at the time) of BioWare representatives at the time.  I know in DA2, an effort was made to actually make sure that the Hawke family was consistent with their skin colour.

 

And yes, I admit that I am still learning and the degrees of interserctional privileges I still need to improve upon.  My perspective is that your concern is more along the axis of racial privilege as opposed to privilege based on sexual orientation.  Am I mistaken in this impression?

 

Please feel free to point me to threads regarding racial diversity where we've closed them down, so I am better aware of them so as to not make that mistake in the past, and so that I can pass them along to Jessica and the rest of the online staff to ensure that further transgressions don't occur in this regard.  Feel free to PM me or respond her, which ever you would prefer.  I'm unaware of any, but that could simply be my being blind to it and would prefer to be more aware of it going forward.

[Allan Schumacher]

I don't believe not liking your choices makes them unequal. Equal is having the same amount of choices with a relative amount of content. Not personally liking them is just an unfortunate situation for an individual.

Wouldn't that depend on why you don't like the choice? Some don't like the idea of Dorian because they feel he is flamboyant and stereotypical. They resisted the very notion of him being a gay LI on the grounds that many were predicting he would be based on how he looked. By the counterpoint there are plenty of gay men that are also "Woohoo!" to him being a gay love interest.

If someone thinks that our lesbian romance options are downright disrespectful (as some have told me because we baited them with Cassandra), or if they feel that Iron Bull is just another promiscuous pan/bi character, are the complaints about representation and fairness that these people bring forward invalidated because other people feel it's fine?
 

While you wouldn't be able to do that specific thing with Solas, it would free up resources to do any amount of new things with the existing romances or friendship paths. There are other ways that could be folded back in to make the game better. It might be losing out in one place, but it could be a gain somewhere else. The great thing is that everyone would get the same chance at enjoying the use of that extra content, especially if it went into creating more friendship path content. When the resources can't be evenly distributed for romances, I think it would be great if it could be seriously considered how character relationships could be expanded outside of romantic relationships.

It's much more likely that Solas' writing budget would still be allocated to Solas, whether it be romance or otherwise. I'm skeptical that it would lead to much (if any) improvements on other romance content for other characters.

[Allan Schumacher]

I am really quite ... shocked at what I am hearing from Allan.  I mean.. its not good.  I am so disappointed with Vivi not being the last romance option. It was like a good balance.  I hated how Leliana wasnt, and this news just made it worse.  However. to hear that if he or they were to short-change groups it would be straight males just to teach them a lesson or because they have been catered to is the most insulting thing I have ever heard from bioware reps.  You are labeling us because of past men.  I really do not think that straight males are being catered to in today's world. Today's world is much more accepting. But to punish us with those reasons is showing a very bad side to you. We aren't all the same. 
 
I agree that if anyone has a better right to be truly upset, it would be the gay/lesbian people. I mean, with those beliefs I am not sure I want to support Bioware anymore, no matter how good the game is. I mean I even wanted to possibly work for Bioware in the future, but with people like this... It really makes me reconsider.

At no point did I say that I would short-change straight males to "teach them a lesson." I'm saying that if I had a preference to allocate some extra content, I'd prefer to give it to people that don't normally get this type of focus.

To draw an analogy, I'm more inclined to go through extra effort to get food for a person that rarely gets food, than for someone that typically already has enough food to sustain themselves.

I'm sorry that you feel this is unreasonable and that it sours your look on our company and so forth, but if it's what you feel you need to do then by all means do what you feel is best for yourself.

[Allan Schumacher]

Initially I did not mind at all about the romance options, never cared for them and when I look at the romanceable character list, I was like "Eh, we straight men still have two options so okay."
 
Then I saw this post and I just had to respond to it because it is frankly, nonsensical, especially the straight male privilege thing.
 
I am from Southeast Asia and in that area, there is no such thing as "straight male privilege". There is "work your arse off, get a good education and a good job" privilege. As a man here, you have to do the trio to make it or break it in life. If you are a woman, you have the option of not doing the three things, getting married to some rich old man and having a good life.

In most cases here, straight white men still have to work hard themselves. The idea of privilege isn't that life is easy street. People place far too much focus on the financial aspect when they hear the term privilege. Here's an article, though written in context of the US so there may be some regional differences, regarding heterosexual privilege: http://itspronounced...xual-privilege/

Note that it refers to relatively straight forward things that people may take for granted, such as openly expressing your affection towards a loved one without judgement. If I kiss a man.

With respect to how much privileges and rights a woman has in your area, I'm not as informed and there could be a whole host of other intersectional aspects that I'm completely unaware of. The idea that they just need to marry some rich old man and have a good life, however, is something that some people think happens en masse even here. I'd need to see more information to form a genuine opinion on the matter.


As you state, though:
 

Even when it comes to homosexuality, Southeast Asian nations are far more accommodating for female homosexuality as opposed to male homosexuality. Many nations here allow female homosexuality but penalize male homosexuality with caning, fines and prison sentence (Singapore and Malaysia do this). So yep, you can be a lesbian just fine but gay, LOL nope.

It sounds like your life is a bit easier if you're a straight man rather than a gay man. Which is an example of straight privilege. By being straight, you exempt yourself from being caned, fines, or imprisoned. So, all things being equal it sounds like a man in your region would likely face less challenges in life if he was straight rather than gay.

Do you not agree? Because it seems like that is what you are saying.

 

I also find it odd that you mention that straight men have to be content for being "short-changed". Most of us here are not the ones who direct these media and publish them. Most of us if not all of us here do not actively hunt down gays or lesbians or hate them. Most of us are just minding our business, living our lives in peace and play games for the fun of it. Most of us if not all of us do not play video games to feel some form of superiority or to oppress anyone else. Above all else, most of us do not have male ancestors who in their past, went out of their way to create problems.

Do you disagree with the notion that, in general, entertainment is built with a tendency to have straight content often to the outright omission of gay or lesbian content?



It's important to note that even though I think straight men have privilege in much of the world, that does not mean that straight men don't have to work hard, nor does it mean that the life of a straight man cannot be worse than the life of a woman or a gay man.

[Allan Schumacher]

I believe you did use the word shortchange a certain group.. That clearly is a negative type of way

Are you referring to the following quote:

if there's a group that I'd be most willing to "short change" (or better stated, since only one group is really benefiting here, I'd be most unwilling to focus on)

I guess it wasn't clear but the use of quotation marks, followed up by the parenthetical remark immediately following, was that I was intending on reframing it to be a bonus for one group, rather than a penalty for another.

[Allan Schumacher]

I understand the analogy, but i feel that the motives are not the same. One is saving a life. This case is just based on inequality. Two wrongs don't make a right. I liked the step forward towards catering to more sexual preferences. The DA team specifically, as long as it is more realistic and not like DA2 everyone is bi stuff. But to fully admit to creating more inequality just to counterbalance... thats like saying "oh this guy killed my family so I should be able to kill his, innocent or not. "

First of all, I find it exceptionally disrespectful and offensive to take a world where FOUR people happen to be bisexual and dismiss it as "everyone is bi stuff."  As though the mere existence of such a small number of bisexual people in your party is somehow unrealistic and world breaking for you.

The "two wrongs don't make a right" leads me to this, as you were willing to dismiss my analogy on your own whims - it's video game content that makes up such a small piece of the overall content. To then use an extreme analogy such as murdering some guy's family after dismissing mine as not being relevant because it was about saving a life while romance stuff is "just based on inequality" strikes the conversation as no longer being intellectually honest.

[Allan Schumacher]

I think BioWare should reveal the love interests before the game ships, and all at once. Or at least within a couple months of one another.

Trust me, you don't want me to spend *two years* infatuated with a character and then learn while playing that they're gender gated. After all, if BioWare didn't tell us anything, I'd go in assuming all-bi again.

You can say that I'm stupid. You have no idea how foolish I felt when I learned Cassandra was straight. She's probably the only time I assumed a woman would be available to me. Looking over my old posts, I'm embarrassed.

But learning months in advance is so much better than while playing for me.

 

Well, one of those cases where I can appreciate that what I may want to do might not be the best course of action for the fanbase or for the project, perhaps.

[Allan Schumacher]

Further, if removing those two "extra" romances would have meant a return to the all Bisexual format, i would have gladly made that sacrifice.

It wouldn't.

[Allan Schumacher]

Im only stating what you previously had implied Allen.

You're of the opinion that the game would have had 6 bisexual romances? Because if so you are mistaken.

[Allan Schumacher]

Once again, im only stating what you implied several weeks ago.

 

Whether or not thats true, i dont know. But i most certainly got the idea from things you said to me and others.

 

You mean before you knew there were 8 romances and everyone assumed 6?

 

If we did all bisexual romances, you'd have 4.  Let it be stated in no uncertain terms.