Pretty much this, basically way to many Anime/Manga has the stereotypical Japanese view of 12 yr old girls with huge racks and of course the obligatory short school skirt....Not saying it's all like that but yeah you know what I mean...

Interesting. People on this forum are always going on about how they want things more "immersive" and "realistic" (not saying you). And in "real life", you might get hit on by people - gay or straight - that you're not interested in. And you then have the ability to turn them down (awkwardly, angrily, compasionately, apologetically, whatever).

So how does that become a bad thing in a narrative game where you're walking a character around in a world? Ok, so that NPC hit on you. Not interested? Let them know. They keep going, get stalker-y, don't take No for an answer? You've got other options - avoid them, get angry with them, fight them, etc. All sounds very Realistic and Immersive.

And certainly more potentially-interesting than a fully-character-controlled system (as others mentioned, it gives the NPCs more "agency"/personality/character.)

As games become more sophisticated, so do the side activities.

Skyrim's Amulet of Mara was a simple 'cardboard cut out' partnership mechanic with little more than coin and apple pie as an outcome.

In Fallout 4, I expect a little friendly romancing would be required in order to consolidate a relationship.

Finally, giving everyone the opportunity to romance who they want to (the 'player-sixual' approach) is not political correctness or whatever silly objections some folk have, it is simply allowing people choice to play the game as they wish. Bethesda are not BioWare, I don't expect Bethesda to leap from 'I'm sworn to carry your burdens, darling' to BioWare's romance mechanics is one jump.

I think you are quite correct, this would be the most realistic and most immersive way. Though, as you may know, BioWare got quite a push back when one of their male characters initiated a flirt with the male protagonist (which ruffled a few feathers in certain quarters). A future mechanic being discussed was that NPCs would only initiate flirting if the protagonist had already flirted with an NPC of the same orientation.

I think it's early days for Bethesda in this field, with only their first voiced protagonist. I'd like the romances to be cute, but I'm not expecting anything too deep, nor '50 shades of grey'...

That's pretty much my take on it, too.

Non-ironic romance just seems a weird concept for Fallout.

(In Skyrim I went ahead and got married and adopted needy brats and all that stuff, because they were things to do, but aside from collecting levies from my wife I had nothing to do with my family. I had my own house, and I'm pretty sure my wife was fooling around with the steward and the bard.)

As I mentioned 3%-5% of the population is LGBT in real life. In dragon age if I recall almost every companion was either gay or bisixual; I think 80% of them. This is grossly over representing a small portion of the population. I have been flirted with once by an lgbt person in my entire life... It is extremely rare so your point about realism isnt entirely accurate. In real life drunk men hit on women 90% of the time

I have NO PROBLEM with companions being LGBT but like the wedding ring toggle idea or a separate romance option so nothing is pushed on your character, whether it is straight or bi or gay companions. That way everyone is happy.

Wearing a wedding ring should open more one night stand options imo lol.

While I know it's far from a popular opinion, the fact that ALL romance-able companions are bi-sixual is highly unrealistic and simply cheapens the characters in general. I'm not overly upset about the "feature" itself, but I am annoyed that our overly PC society forces this kind of "feature" on a developer simply to avoid "controversy"....it's simply sad.

Pretending that heterosixual, exclusively homosixual and even homo-phobic individuals would not even exist within a sample of potential companions is about as unrealistic as it gets in terms of character development and I'm sorry if someone is offended by that statement but it's true.

I actually think that IS the popular opinion.

Yeah, I've got no problem with even a disproportionate amount of gay characters expressing interest - is it really so awkward that you need to adamantly reject it's place in the entire game?

My only concern with companion-initiated romance is that, suddenly every companion you travel with is expressing their interest in you. Even if all of the companions matched my character's sixual orientation, that alone would start feeling odd. I guess a good mix of both on a character-by-character basis would be the best possible outcome.

I sincerely doubt it was done to avoid any "political correctness" controversy. Bethesda probably discussed romance at length internally, and decided that sixuality wasn't important for the characters they wanted to build and that "player-sixual" romance partners were the best fit for their player freedom philosophy. What's lost from a character like Preston Garvey not caring about your gender?

I think this is less to do with LGBT players, and more to do with players who create a character of the opposite gender to themselves but feel awkward having that character romance an NPC of the same gender as themselves (ie, the opposite gender to the player character).

I'm sure there are a fair number of heterosixual males who create a female character to play as, either so they feel more as if it's a character rather than a self-insert, or because they find the male-option voice acting less appealing, or because they want something attractive to look at while playing in third person. But having their character romancing a male NPC might still feel a bit as if the player is trying to romance another man.

The same may well apply to heterosixual female players as well.

Certainly, I played as FemShep in Mass Effect because I preferred the voice, and I felt I could make a more distinctive and unusual face for the character. I had her romance Liara in ME1. I did have her romance Garrus in ME2, but it only felt comfortable because Garrus's actor and the writers did such a good job of making the whole thing funny and faintly awkward and ridiculous, as well as touching.

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing on its own, but from past experience with Bethesda as well as what little information we've been given, I think it'll be poorly implemented.

That is a great point I didn't think about! I have never made a girl character myself. As I said I think you should be able to romance whoever you want, I just don't want to be hit on unless I ask for it that's all.

Ha, that would be me. If I play a guy I romance females. If I play a female I romance females. Point being, I romance females. Even in a romance as non-committed as Skyrim's I still just marry females. The sole exception is when I romance Alistair in DAO once just to see the 'queen' options. Course I had to skip the romance scene.

I guess when I'm playing a guy I'm trying to play myself. When I'm playing a female I'm playing myself with boobs.

But I do really like it when the NPC does make the advance. I recall Tali in ME2 confronting me. To be honest I was just being really nice to her the whole time. I mean she's an alien in a bio-suit. I don't even know what she looks like. But when she confronted me about my intentions with her ... dang I have to admit it kind of melted my heart. I turned her down of course, but still. However if I was playing a guy and a male NPC did this ... I just don't think I'd like it that much. To avoid this I'm just not nice to my male NPC's.

I personally think y'all are making the problem bigger than it really is. Bethesda probably made the companions "player sixual" for two reasons 1) so people won't whine about not being able to romance the character they want to romance 2) because beth actually *gasp* wanted to do it this way. No evil PC society forced them to do anything.

Don't like it? Tough [censored] and really how many of you actually care that badly about well-written realistic romances in beth games? Me? I just want a girlfriend/boyfriend to accompany me on my wasteland adventures and that's probably what I'll get.

On Bethesda's actual capability for doing romances well, I think I'm going to at least give them a chance. They've said in the past they want to improve characters, and when they announced romance they talked about adding depth to the companions - and it seems to me that when Bethesda sets out to improve something, it gets improved.

We'll see the fruits of their labor in November, but I've got faith. Worst-case scenario, I'll just stay single like in every other Fallout game and be no worse for wear.

Again, there's more about "player freedom" in those choices to make characters "hero-sixual", than with any attempt to "over-represent" a percentage of the population. Especially in Beth games, where the romanceable characters (in Skyrim) weren't characterized enough to even have a preference. Personally, unless a character explicitly says, in-game, that they're bi? I don't consider them that. When playing a female character, all the male options are straight, all the female options are lisbian. If you tnen go and make a male character, the male options are gay, the female ones are straight. They aren't all bi..... because the world defines itself around the hero.

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As to the main topic... honestly, I have no real hopes/expectations of the "romances" in FO4. Because I don't expect them to matter. Sure, Bioware's romances are pretty shallow - but at least you spend a game/narrative hanging out with these NPCs, getting to know them and developing some characterization. Beth companion NPCs? They're all optional. They don't get a chance to be developed as characters and be interesting people. They're meat shields, cargo carriers, etc. So what is there even to "romance"?

I'll try to keep this a fairly neutral comment, this is a difficult subject to cover without the discussion temperature rising.

'Real life' orientation proportions in the population are essentially irrelevant because it's a game.

Left handed golfers account for about 10% of golfers, but they are not told to only use 2 clubs in their bag opposed to the 14 clubs right handed golfers play with.

If a left handed golfer is to play the game at all (fairly) they need access to the same number of clubs (just left-handed ones).

in Fallout 4, players have choices, to team up with companions or shoot them in the face.

They can be a saviour or an ass.

They can slaughter their way across Boston and blow stuff up.

They can build settlements or not, craft/modify or not.

Pursue limited romances or not.

If romances are in the game at all, players must be able to participate equally, whatever their orientation play choice (which may be different from real life).

So assuming around 8 human companions, offering players romance subjects that are 'player-sixual'* is a practical in game solution.

* Parenthesis: 'player-sixual' romances are different to bi-sixual romances. If a player character initiates a romance, the companion will be found to be of the orientation required to 'say yes'. i.e. a male player character will find the world filled with gay males and straight female companions, if they were to flirt with anyone, and vice versa.

* Parenthesis 2: One could argue that 'player-sixual' companions are not very realistic, it's just a 'service' to the player (as if saving or destroying the wasteland isn't). Some publishers (BioWare being the obvious example) offer a range of orientated NPCs, some of whom are 'just not into you', but overall, everyone has multiple romance options. However, to pull off such an arrangement usually requires more companions and requires an even greater emphasis on romance as a game feature than I think Bethesda feel is appropriate.

Upshot:

All that matters is that if you want the probably limited romances that the game likely offers, after some side-quest content, then they will be there for you, however you prefer to play. And that sounds just fine to me. Who knows, maybe Bethesda will surprise us with the depths of the relationships.

Maybe people just don't find you attractive?

I dunno, I was rather fond of Mjoll in Skyrim - yes, even her infuriating habit of telling the same stories over and over again. She'd clearly taken one too many blows to the head during her adventuring career .

And I was slightly disappointed that if I selected on any of the spouse options while travelling around with her, her tone shifted to this weird, creepy, Stepford Wives sort of sugary devotion. I'd have been happy if her romance/spouse dialogue had been non-generic and stayed in character, even if the 'romance' side of things had stayed as shallow and uninteresting as it was throughout Skyrim.

I'm hoping that much improvement, if no more, will come out of Bethesda's attempt to improve on this feature.

i agree with u, i mean is just a game, and i care more about my story that my companion, plus looking at the new system probably i will end going with the dog or the robot.

Just to pick on this, I feel like we'll actually have a lot of flexibility in designing the age of our character. The default characters definitely look the 25-35 age range, but I'm hoping to make a character with a more elderly complexion (https://youtu.be/D5esyZPt5Jo?t=6m43s) and some steel gray hair. I'm not expecting us to have the ability to make shambling old Dumbledores, but some haggard dude in his 50s seem plausible. Remember, if this is the same system they use to make all of the NPCs, it's got to have some give in the age range (although they do use separate character models for children and the very elderly, obviously). By that token, I would really like some companion NPCs that aren't just in the 25-35 range themselves.

And since I don't give a Mole Rat's ass about six in video games, romancing the ghoul won't really faze me. I've never seen a six scene (especially in a video game) that moved the romance narrative forward more than it just felt tacked on and awkward, but I'll be pleasantly surprised if Fallout 4 manages to succeed here.

Even after I've grown past the 25-35 range and into the 50-something range I still prefer playing someone in the game I considered in my prime.

Oh I don't want to see six either. Fade to Black is much preferred. But even that ... what I'd have to imagine with a ghoul ...

I have never played a game where romance was all that great so I don't really care about it one way or another.

I'm not bothered about seeing any action either, but I think they could be just a little more riske than with previous titles.

For instance, sleeping with a hoker could give just a tiny hint that you've done more than literally sleeping.

And maybe if you marry someone, a small kiss isn't too sinful is it?