In all likelihood, Obsidian will likely include some token relationship quest trees to appease backers who, for whatever reason, like to play their part in a pixelated romance novel with awkward dialogue.
So you don´t have much confidence in Avellone´s, Sawyer´s or Ziets´ writing capabilities, I take it?
As I see it, serving character depth via developing relationships is pretty much the best way to go about it in a party based game with talkative companions and even more so in a game that holds reactivity in high regard. I mean, maybe besides some token info dump convos, whenever player is allowed to stir dialogues in different directions, treat companions differently or simply isn´t a strictly passive element, there´s a form of relationship going on. Unlocking the circle of Zerthimon in PS:T was a form of developing a relationship with Dak´kon in my book, for example.
And while there´s a myriad of possible relationship forms, I don´t see why romantic element should be excluded from the bunch. Obsidian dudes did some great work on companion relationships in PS:T, KotOR2 and Mask of the Betrayer, all three contained romantic elements and it didn´t make any of them worse, quite the opposite.
The sorta platonic romantic subcurrent added a good deal of depth to PS:T´s Fall-From-Grace, for example.
Given what writers are on board for PE, I don´t see why you´d expect any kind of "relationship quest trees" delivered via "awkward dialogue".
As a side note, romantic elements played quite significant roles in both Witcher games
and I don´t think it in any way diminished the quality of either. The choice between two gals in TW1 was interesting and so were the possible contexts player could put the relationship with Triss in in TW2. In both games these elements added to the depth of player character himself and even to the plot itself (at least in the case of TW2).
My daughter and I still laugh about BG2. We were playing a network game and her character was the lead. There we were literally in hell battling demons when the Anomen romance kicks in with something like "Here is a flower I just found for you…". Yay! A flower from hell. How touching.
I´ve not experienced the following scenario myself, but I think that nothing quite compares to having your party buffed to the teeth and just about to enter the Throne of Bhaal to end it once and for all, when suddenly Aerie decides to give a birth (which then leads to fighting Melissan and co. with a child in your inventory)
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