Video game romances need to grow up

Video game love stories are rarer and less developed than those in film or literature, and the surprising thing is how little has changed in decades. Tokimeki Memorial in 1994 popularized a stat-based, checklist approach to dating in games, and later titles built on that template.

Baldur's Gate 2 added more personality to romance interests by 2000, but relationships still often work like saying the right thing at the right time and then, magically, love happens. Most of what passes for romance in games amounts to lore dumps. You learn a character’s history and respond without real emotional friction, then gratitude or proximity is treated as love.

Examples range from Shadowheart and Halsin to Garrus, Tali, Miranda and Liara; even when settings like Mass Effect or Fire Emblem justify intense bonds, they often feel like flings. Quest-based mechanics and helping someone through trauma don’t, by themselves, create the mingling of personalities or the question of whether you fit into each other’s lives.

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