![]() ![]() ![]() Aside from a few cute remarks-including Cait’s infamous “threesome” jibe-there isn’t much interplay among the characters, though there are some interesting suggestions. It gave me no end of satisfaction, for instance, when in Dragon Age 2 Isabela and Aveline learned to respect one another.Īll this is to say that although Fallout 4 made history by permitting polyamory, the very nature of its companion system also seems to preclude doing anything narratively interesting with it. As you all adventure together, relations between your party members evince their own miniature character arcs. Contrast this again to the Bioware standard, where interactions among the companions are very well scripted and display clear, extensive mutual development among the characters. When you’re off adventuring with one of them, you can pool the remainder at a single settlement, but there’s little meaningful interaction between them. "It’s possible that Fallout 4’s polyamory was a natural outgrowth of the diffuse nature of the game’s companions." Unlike Bioware RPGs, where the companions form a tightly knit fellowship around the player character and are geographically centered (on a ship or an encampment following the player across the gameworld), Fallout 4’s companions are as itinerant as the main character, Wasteland wanderers who happen to have crossed paths with the Sole Survivor. Further, it’s possible that Fallout 4’s polyamory was a natural outgrowth of the diffuse nature of the game’s companions. They are not at the caliber of Bioware’s romantic fare, which is more elegantly written and more deeply woven into the story (imagine the main plots of their signature games without Alistair, Merrill, or Liara). This is in keeping with the fact that its romance system is very pared down compared to most RPGs. But all that takes work and communication it can also mean being in the middle of disputes between partners, as well as managing a tricky balance of time and space (especially when both of your girlfriends are long distance relationships, as mine are).įallout 4’s polyamory betrays none of this whatsoever. ![]() There’s an exquisite joy in watching my partner flirt with someone else, or sharing stories with her about our respective sex lives in addition to finding many safe harbors for our love, we share in one another’s joy. You get to share love with many more people, openly, without fear of violating a confidence. Communication, the desiderata of any relationship, becomes an absolute lifeline here clarity, openness, and a willingness to be constantly vulnerable are all necessary to be happily polyamorous, contrary to those who think it's inherently easier than monogamous relationships due to the supposed lack of jealousy (that doesn't quite go away either). Whole websites and books exist to teach people how to conduct themselves in relationships with multiple partners. ![]() When I told my partner and her other girlfriend about this, I described the situation as one where there was “no drama” for carrying on multiple relationships, to which one quipped, “Oh, so it’s definitely a fantasy then.” What her wry joke was hinting at, of course, is that in the real world polyamory is rarely free of theatrics and emotional anguish. But this is also a very preliminary first step, and if developers want to really explore polyamory, there are plenty of interesting routes they can take that will generate realistic conflict and even interesting new game mechanics. Just as we are finally moving away from portraying heterosexual relationships as the default norm in story-based games, so too can we move away from the staid portrayal of monogamy as the only option. Make no mistake: this is a watershed moment in mainstream gaming, and it is very much worth celebrating. No fuss is made about this neither preachy treacle nor artificial conflict impede the simple presentation of a world where your character can be unproblematically poly. "Make no mistake: this is a watershed moment in mainstream gaming, and it is very much worth celebrating." You can flirt with, sleep with, and develop relationships with multiple characters concurrently, with both companions and regular NPCs. Simply put, Fallout 4’s romance options are not mutually exclusive. In its unpretentious way, Bethesda has set a new industry standard for dealing with one of the most unexplored dimensions of relationships in video games: polyamory. Then along comes Fallout 4 with a ray of radioactive sunshine. More than once me and my queer gaming friends have said “why do we have to choose?” Falling in love with Specialist Traynor or Kelley Chambers is quite fun and fascinating, but in spite of being mutually exclusive with all other romance options, they lack the sheer depth of Shepard and Liara’s trilogy-spanning love affair. It gets tedious after a while, especially in games like Mass Effect where all romance options are not created equal. ![]()
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