RIP Romance: BioWare’s ‘Anthem’ Friendzones Fans

Adam Mathew
Games Xbox
Games Xbox PlayStation PC Gaming

Anthem, BioWare’s fascinating crossbreed of Mass Effect and Destiny, will be a loveless affair. Not in terms of developer passion – even in its infancy this shared-world sci-fi shooter-RPG reeks of time and care lavished upon it. We’re more talking about the fact that the studio has recently confirmed its company staple character romance options are being blown out the airlock.

That’s right, folks, no woo for you — knocking space-boots is off the table. The furthest base you’re going to get to in Anthem will be “friendships.” The closest analogue that’s been given is the camaraderie moments delivered in Mass Effect 3‘s Citadel DLC.

For those of you who don’t remember that piece of downloadable content, it was three hours of often irreverent fan-service. Stuff like getting Garrus Vakarian to shoulder his sniper rifle to go dance the tango with Fem Shep. Weird but adorable.

A bunch of exo-suited characters mingle in a town square -- nobody is in love

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

BioWare’s newfound abstinence will be viewed as a letdown by many. After all, this studio has been something of a pioneer of side-quest nookie – they’ve had us chasing party member sexy-time since ’99 with the Baldur’s Gate expansion Tales of the Sword Coast.

That said, being a firm proponent of ever so many “delightful digital misunderstandings” has served to create some less-than-pleasurable entanglements for the studio, too. With 2011’s Dragon Age a small band of official forumites railed against lover options perceived to be “unrealistically bisexual.”

Years later in Mass Effect: Andromeda, BioWare took heat for its depiction of trans-woman Abrams, plus the gay path for Scott Ryder was derided for being a bit passionless.

Makes you wonder. Could those hot-button moments have served as the catalyst for BioWare to discontinue its rich heritage of…hot button moments? Whatever the cause it’s a shame, because the team sure did deliver some great love stories over the decades. Let’s reminisce on a few of them now…

Advanced Diversions and Dalliances

In the days of D&D antiquity, Baldur’s Gate players needed only to talk flirty and offer a gift to their NPC companions to earn some pants-de-equip action. (If only it was that simple in real life.) The entirety of the series offered a dozen different romance-able characters – eight for male protagonists and six for female ones. Better yet, you could play it as pansexual as you pleased by bypassing the games usual restrictions with magical Girdles of Masculinity / Femininity.

These weren’t just simple off-screen flings, either. We’re talking additional dialogues, the odd additional quest line – Tales of the Sword Coast even gave romantic players a unique rescue moment where their paramour (Delainy for male characters, Durlyle for the ladies) would aid in your escape.

Better yet, as the Baldur’s Gate series progressed into its first numbered sequel, so too did the complexities of your relationships. Fans discovered they could be players in the alley cat sense by having simultaneous open relationships with Aerie, Jaheira and Viconia (male options) or Anomen (female). Stringing out these torrid love affairs across expansion packs was also possible, but there would come a point where you would need to make a choice for one or another.

Fair warning: the rejected party takes some of your stuff and ghosts you forever, much like real-life.

A knight of the old republic pledges her love to the player

You Can’t Force Love, You’ll Have to Force Wait

The next big evolution in love stories took us from the Forgotten Realms and into the Star Wars universe with 2003’s Knights of the Old Republic. The number of avenues available were cut back considerably (Bastila for male builds and Carth / Juhani for female) but this was a case of quality interactions over quantity.

KOTOR‘s 2004 sequel was handled by Obsidian and, in an ending left on the cutting room floor, romances paid off big right before the endgame. Lovers were supposed to take a blaster round for you, or two jilted ones would fight each other to the death for you.

This approach clearly inspired BioWare to do something similar in Jade Empire (2005) – having a strong relationship with Dawn Star, Silk Fox or Sky would earn you a dramatic smooch right before the big bad. (Sadly, the same-sex cutscenes were censored.)

When BioWare’s Star Wars obsession made the force-jump to MMO with The Old Republic, romance options made the leap across, too. The vanilla experience offered at least two different love interests per class. Later expansions folded in same-sex options as well as some bi-sexual action in Shadow of Revan.

Liara and Fem Shep get up close and personal

The Age of Mass Dragon Effects

Now that we know Anthem will friend-zone the lot of us, the golden age of BioWare’s romance arc side-quests must now be the Dragon Age and Mass Effect franchises. Excuse the phrasing but BioWare went all in with the sexual nature of its character relationship in Mass Effect (2007).

No longer was coitus implied, we were treated to inexplicit cutscenes of our favourite party members on the job. Most notably, Liara T’Soni — member of a one-sex species – was leapt on by mainstream media not interested in the semantics of Asari genitalia.

Dragon Age: Origins (2009) pushed the envelope by thumbing its nose at the aforementioned critics and going all in with unabashedly bi-sexual party members (Zevran and Leliana). This game is also notable for being the first to include the option for one-night-stands, not to mention a red light establishment where “sampling all the wares” earns you an achievement.

The respective sequels to these games, the unimaginatively titled Mass Effect 2 (2010) and Dragon Age II (2011), continued to up the risque. The latter made basically all romance partners bisexual and your relationship with them would branch in unique ways, depending on if they were friendly or rivals.

The former did something similar. Final consummations were locked behind lengthy Loyalty Missions and your end results would sometimes be flavoured (or blocked altogether) by the two-option morality system. Paragon Shepard was rewarded with sentimental lovemaking cutscenes and Renegade Shep, well, lets just say they liked docking procedures to be rougher.

Mass Effect 3 didn’t add anything amazing so much as it did turn things up to 11 (that’s the actual number of shaggable crew members available). The only notable addition is the ability to “rekindle” an old flame, providing you’ve done the groundwork in a previous Mass Effect save.

From there we come full circle to the modern era with the aforementioned Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014) and Mass Effect Andromeda (2017). When Anthem releases in 2019 with no love, it will be breaking with exactly 20 years worth of BioWare tradition. Heck, the studio was so consistently committed to romancin’, it even shoehorned some furry love into Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood (2008).

Make no mistake, in the grand scheme of BioWare Anthem will be a black sheep. Will the gunplay and PG-13 NPC relationships be enough to keep fans happy. Or will we all feel a certain sense of lovesickness?

Adam Mathew
I've seen and played it all – from Pong on a black-and-white CRT to the 4K visuals and VR gloriousness of today. My only regret after a decade of writing and 30+ years of gaming: hitchhiking's no longer an option. My thumbs are nubs now.