When you think of Cyberpunk 2077, the game's romances may not be the first thing that comes to mind, but they are still worth highlighting as possibly the best RPG romances, at least according to Fallout: New Vegas, Pillars of Eternity, and Pentiment creator Josh Sawyer. Speaking to PC Gamer, Obsidian's Game Designer noted that the romances are well separated from everything else in Cyberpunk 2077, unlike in other RPGs, where the romantic conversations happen in the party's camp with everyone nearby.
The reason is because those relationships, whether you like the characters or not—which I feel is kind of beside the point, from a design perspective—it's not in a party context. [In other RPGs] there are six of us together, and we're engaging in these romantic talks right next to everyone, and it feels kind of odd.
[In Cyberpunk 2077] You do something with Judy, let's say, and then, you wrap it up, you have a convo, and then she's like, 'I gotta go do some things, bye. She is gone, and you're not going to hear from her until time has elapsed, and probably until you've progressed the critical path. There's a built-in pacing, so the development of the human component of that relationship is developed over content that is specifically made for the two of you, like it's content for you and Judy alone. River doesn't come into it at all. It's not to say that's flawless, but I really do enjoy that way of doing them. If I were gonna base romances on anything, I'd probably do something like that.
Some of it is production value, which, of course, Obsidian is not necessarily the big cutscene company. Larian does that extremely well. Of course, CDPR does that exceptionally well. BioWare also does it well.
Do you agree with Sawyer's praise of Cyberpunk 2077 romances? And what do you think about RPG romances as a whole? Let us know in the comments below.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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