Owlcat Games developers encountered unexpected narrative challenges while writing romance arcs for their latest project, according to a report from PC Gamer.
The studio struggled with a lack of diversity in character traits among potential romantic interests. Developers realized that the writing team had inadvertently created three female romanceable characters who all shared the same cannibalistic nature.
"We realized we had three female romanceable characters, and all three were cannibals," the outlet reported, quoting the development team's internal observations.
Narrative diversity challenges
This overlap in character traits created a bottleneck for the writing staff. The studio had to rethink how to differentiate these characters to provide players with more varied interpersonal experiences.
Writing romance in complex RPGs requires balancing character depth with player agency. The developers found that the shared trait made the available romantic paths feel repetitive and less impactful for the player base.
