Siobhan Keogh: Romance in games

The straight-laced, human templar Cullen, in the game Dragon Age: Inquisition.

What could be better than battling dragons and falling in love? Siobhan Keogh takes a look at romance in video games.

When I started playing epic fantasy game Dragon Age: Inquisition, I had a plan. First, I was going to flirt with anyone and everyone who would flirt back. Maybe I'd hook up with a couple of them, maybe we'd break up. But I figured, at the end of it, my character would wind up with the giant, one-eyed, horned Qunari, Iron Bull. I had immediately liked Iron Bull and his love for fighting dragons.

Like most of developer BioWare's games, Dragon Age: Inquisition features a conversation tree system that allows you to build up relationships, platonic and otherwise, with characters in the game. The system indicates when you're about to flirt with someone, and also pops up with a little message when you're about to embark on a romance with them - and when it's about to get serious.

My character - a woman with Inquisition's default name of Evelyn - did play the field a little. I had her flirt with anyone at first, but one person seemed particularly receptive to the glad eye. Evelyn began dating the straight-laced, human templar Cullen, but I had every intention of splitting them up later on, once Iron Bull was ready to give her a shot.

But then a funny thing happened. Gradually, Cullen grew on me. Not just Evelyn, but me, despite him being, you know, not real. He was terribly awkward, which was endearing, but also so darn nice.

Eventually, Cullen and Evelyn had The Talk. He asked if she saw a future for herself with him in it. And I knew two things then: first, that saying yes to Cullen I would no longer be able to break them up on a whim, and second, that I wasn't entirely sure I could break this poor, fictional guy's heart.

So I didn't. I made the call: Evelyn and Cullen were officially a couple. And while Evelyn and Cullen were falling in love with each other, I fell in love with the game's writing and relationship system. Because while mechanically I could have turned romance into a game, it was written so astoundingly well that morally I couldn't.

I can't think of many games, outside of BioWare's few, that have had romance subplots that have really hooked me in. There is romance in a few games - RPGs in particular - but for the most part your character is set up with a fixed person and there's a fixed storyline. Very few games give you the breadth of choice of a BioWare game. And perhaps more interestingly, BioWare creates characters that can choose, too, based on their sexual preferences. Even some characters who are interested in your gender just aren't going to be into you, no matter how much you bat your eyelashes.

The absence of romance in games, up until now, could be attributed to the fact that games were primarily marketed at men. Now that there are more women playing games, there are more romantic storylines in them. But back when Final Fantasy VII came out, I seem to recall many teenage boys I knew talking about who they took on a date to the Golden Saucer. And now these teenage boys are all grown up, still playing games, and openly shipping Dragon Age: Inquisition characters on Twitter.

All this is to say that I hope Dragon Age: Inquisition proves that people - men, women, gay, straight, bisexual and otherwise - enjoy a little bit of love. Not every game has to become Dragon Age, of course, but it would be great if more games had a little bit of romance in them, and gave people more choice.

It does wonders for replayability - I should know, because I have another play through of Inquisition planned. And I'm not even finished the first one yet.

• Should there be more romance in games? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.