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In “The Outer Worlds 2,” Obsidian Entertainment continues its tradition of crafting RPGs that sidestep the concept of romance, marking a noticeable absence of amorous elements compared to previous titles. While the first installment offered a glimpse of romance, allowing players to facilitate a budding relationship for the character Parvati, the sequel veers away from such narrative paths.
Players who might have anticipated a surprise romantic subplot akin to a rom-com twist will find themselves out of luck. The game’s companions and storyline consciously avoid any romantic entanglements, a choice that has become a hallmark of Obsidian’s design philosophy.
The Outer Worlds 2 devs (likely) didn’t have enough gamedev budget for romance
Historically, Obsidian has shown a cautious approach towards integrating romance into their games. They made a remarkable exception with “Pillars of Eternity 2,” a title that offered multiple romantic options, reminiscent of the popular “Dragon Age” series. This was a rare foray into romance for the studio, which typically prefers to focus on other narrative elements.
Rather than being against romance outright, Obsidian favors creating authentic emotional connections over simply ticking off a romance feature box. They aim for organic storytelling, avoiding the pitfalls of superficial romance mechanics that feel more like obligatory add-ons than integral parts of the narrative experience.
The studio is not necessarily anti-romance narratively, but they want to do organic romance rather than gamified add-on options just to fill a romance checkbox.
Romance may not be necessary to tell a story (certianly not one about gross corporate greed or blind dogmatization). However, it does add some life into the world of a game, if not just for the spice. There’s even a little inkspot of courtship in Pentiment, for example (I won’t spoil what it is).
Obsidian’s studio culture still holds true to Josh Sawyer’s decade-old comment on a forum post takes a hardliner stance against turning an RPG into a “harem anime” sim, which is “a total fantasy indulgence and gross pandering”. In The Outer Worlds 2, it seems to have been both a matter of narrative intent and budget. As game director Brandon Adler says to Gamesradar:
“Say three nice things to them, and then they’ll want to romance.’ It has to be deeper than that, and has to, in some ways, be organic when you’re writing these things.”
In the same interview, Brandon Adler also reminds that all things in game developments are “give and take”, so doing romances at least in the highly organic and feature-complete manner that the studio culture seems to demand would take away too much wind out of other sails.
The Outer Worlds 2 makes giant strides in terms of gunplay feel and world size over the first one, and between shipping this game, Avowed, and Grounded 2 within the span of a few months, it makes sense that there wasn’t that much wind in the sail to begin with. As a token of goodwill towards romanceable companion enjoyers, Avowed at least give you a mild yes and a pat on the back.
As for what it means in future Obsidian Entertainment games, Josh Sawyer at least cleared out his current dispositions towards romancing companions in a potential third Pillars of Eternity game:
“What the fantasy audience enjoys in a romance is not generally what I enjoy in romances. (…) If I were to make romances in a game… that were done in a way that I find appealing, would an audience enjoy that, or would they actually hate it even more than romances not being in the game?”
This is froma Q&A session that also talked about Baldur’s Gate 3 right before that question (which, co-incidentally, sprung some talk about gamedev budget constraints). You can check out the full video here for broader context:
And as for cementing the original question: you can’t have romance in Arcadia because The Outer Worlds 2 is too focused on improving other parts of the reactive companion experience.
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Edited by Sambit Pal
