Mass Effect: Andromeda - New Approach to Romance

@Game Informer they look at how Mass Effect: Andromeda will move romances forward compared to the original trilogy.

Moving Forward From The Trilogy

BioWare is trying to evolve what it has previously done with romances; the team has learned from the original Mass Effect trilogy, and is taking those ideas in more interesting and believable directions. "We've built on it [from the trilogy]," Walters says. "We had a strong foundation for how [romance] was working. For me, typically in the trilogy it was a bit formulaic. You'd talk to them and then get to that one point in the game where there was no going and back and romance was going to happen. That's not real life. There should be some people who just want to hop in the sack immediately. There should people who are interested in a long-term relationship. There are people who aren't interested in romance at all."

This means more mature situations and dialogue, as Walters notes the first Mass Effect spent a great deal explaining the lore of the world and the different races through the characters than focusing on their individual personalities. "I think we've moved beyond just doing info dumps on characters," Walters says. "It comes back to the circumstances. That is what we should be talking about. What are those people actually thinking right now? I think that's the mature aspect of it. Let's not ignore everything that's going on just so we can have a moment to say, 'I love you.'"

Andromeda's Varying Relationship Types

The team wants romances to feel legitimate, not like an artificial game mechanic. Different characters want different things from their romances, whether it's physical or emotional, and Walters states that some romances can happen early in the game, while some characters may take longer to let their guard down. He also confirms that BioWare got rid of what he refers to as "the hard line," where you're trying to fit in romances before you reach a certain point and it cuts off the opportunity for a romance to occur.

Walters says the team wanted to make romances more varied than previous entries. "Just because someone has a romance doesn't mean they have a longer relationship arc with you," Walters says. The team even re-envisioned what a romance looks like. As Walters says, "Think of the relationship moment with Garrus in Mass Effect 3 where you [shoot bottles off the Citadel]. Does it always have to be, 'Get someone into the bed?' or can it be, 'Let's go have a bros' moment or a friends' moment.' I think once [our writers] started to think in those terms, it expanded what those scenes could be like. But if you want to get down to the sex scene stuff, we got aliens, alien environments...we keep coming up with unique places to have some interspecies relationships.'"

Walters says the writing team has worked hard to make sure characters are unique and fun to get to know. "The [characters] that aren't romanceable should have just as interesting and in-depth an arc as the ones who do," he says. "That's one thing we did to make it feel more natural. We have to check ourselves because we know the fans want romances, so the obvious thing is to make [everyone] romanceable, but that's not real. We're trying to find the balance between 'yes, it's a game,' but we want to make these characters as believable as possible and the situations as believable as possible."