Given the responses here and on Reddit, I don’t think it’s controversial to say the romances are not living up to what we were advertised. “The most romantic Dragon Age” this is most certainly not. The entirety of each romance arc is roughly twenty minutes, with characters like Lucanis spending most of that not responding to flirts at all. Not “responding awkwardly”, like Cullen rubbing his neck or shuffling before continuing to speak, I mean not responding AT ALL. Is there any chance patches could come in and save this? BG3 and Cyberpunk both had multiple patches that fleshed out their romantic interactions. It’s already been said we’re not getting DLC, but what kind of patches can we expect going forward? On the off chance the patches will be more substantial than bug fixes, I’d like to offer a few that could help turn the game around for me, at least. I’ll be upfront that I’m mostly talking from the perspective of someone who has only gone through Lucanis’ romance and has been jaded by the time sink required for a really lackluster experience. The “missives” system is right there for some low-effort lore drops. Maybe an interactive love note to carry through the game? Lucanis’ commitment scene is genuinely awful. It felt like the equivalent of putting on the marriage amulet in Skyrim. It was literally just hitting the “committed—on” switch. It is the least satisfying “romance” scene I have ever experienced. They don’t touch. They hardly even gesture. They just stand there staring at each other and cycling through what looks to be idle animations. Was there cut content meant to be here, or is this genuinely the effort put into the “most romantic game ever”? Is it possible to fiddle with some scenes to make them the smallest bit dynamic? And finally, could we get a patch to allow the players to turn off the flirting between companions? It’s a real kick in the head to hear the effort put into two companions getting together, knowing how little romantic content Rook gets to experience themselves. Especially in the case of Neve and Lucanis, where Lucanis is seemingly the one companion that can be locked out of a romance entirely—and then he immediately hooks up with the person who made the exact. same. call. There’s even a line in his Inner Demons quest about being into Neve, it’s relentless and it’s insulting. I’d rather just not even hear it. Obviously there’s bigger gripes about the romances—why only twenty minutes of content? why can’t we talk to them between missions? why no kiss button?—but I feel like this is a few relatively small adjustments that could help ease some of the ick. Maybe others have more, better ideas, I don’t want to write a whole book and a half. Additional: Adding an option to object to Rook being referred to as “young” in Emmerich’s romance to allow for more RP potential.

EXACTLY, EXACTLY, EXACTLY!!! omg i hope EA or Bioware is actually gonna read this because i’m LIVID about this. I hope they add more to all the romances but Lucanis’ especially because it feels so empty, it’s not even a slow burn, the climax being THE END OF THE GAME. But most of all i do hope they do something about disabling companions romance with each other, because it feels like they put more work into that than into Rook’s romance, and it’s honestly infuriating and insulting.

TL;dr: oops I typed too much again. Dear BioWare, Please make Lucanis better, he’s making me sad. XoxoIt’s really not even a slow burn, since the final scene feels very much like they’re already established and comfortable with each other. I would have been fine with a true slow burn, where the final scene is a culmination of all the build up that came before, like Solas and his Quizzy, but that isn’t what we got.As it is now, it goes: Almost something, nothing, nothing, “Idk what this is, but I’ll take it”, and then what seems like an established relationship? The burn all happened off screen, like the player wouldn’t want to see their relationship develop and would rather see the awkward nothingness we got. It’s baffling. It seems like the party banter is implying the relationship is progressing, but we don’t get to see it.They’re “together” enough for the companions to comment on it, but we don’t know what being together even means. Why is this being kept secret from the player? We can’t even be sure when their first kiss is, because the codex, party banter, and the behavior in the final scene doesn’t really scream “they’re not doing anything in their downtime.” We can only find out about Lucanis’ romantic history through party banter after meeting a checkpoint with Emmerich, how is that not a discussion to be had between Rook and Lucanis???BioWare, plz. I’m on my hands and knees begging for clarity. Lucanis doesn’t know what it is? Me, the player, doesn’t know what it is either, and that’s insane. You can apparently tell Emmerich you’ve never been kissed, but you can’t even clarify what the relationship is with Lucanis in by the second to last scene of the game.

I couldn’t agree more with everything you said!! It would be awesome if they added a little something and definitely toned down the Lucanis/Neve stuff if we’re pursuing either one of them!

It feels like they put more effort in to their interactions with each other than it does Rook as a whole. I am entirely disconnected from this entire cast.

I absolutely agree. And i’ll add that what i felt during my playthrough was that the companions were closer to each other than they were to Rook. She (my Rook) was always there for them, helped them, and yet i couldn’t help but feel alienated from them, in a way that i could only explain as a leader/subordinates dynamic that really shouldn’t be there, since they’re basically just a bunch of guys. In DAI the protagonist is a literal head of state, with an army of soldiers and faithfuls, and yet their friends always tried to keep them grounded all the time, by making them feel more like a person (pulling pranks with Sera, playing cards with Varric, Bull introducing you to your soldiers, etc). In DAV i felt the exact contrary, and even the romances felt like some companions were more smitten with each other that they were with Rook. Truth be told, it made me feel really sad, as if i was a stranger in “my own” game and squad. And that’s definitely not something a game, a saga, that mostly resolves around companionship, romance and friendship should make you feel like.

[Discussion] Potential Updates For Romancing?