Avowed Has a Little Bit of Romance In It After All

Obsidian's Avowed, now available in early access, has surprised players with a romantic subplot, despite the developers' prior statements. While Obsidian previously stated Avowed wouldn't include a dedicated romance system, focusing instead on "thoughtful relationships" with companions, early gameplay reveals at least one companion, Kai, develops romantic feelings for the player character.

This contradicts earlier comments from Avowed game director Carrie Patel, who, in an IGN interview, explained their decision to avoid a traditional romance system: "We are building thoughtful relationships with our companion characters," Patel stated. "Ultimately, I personally am a fan of making that an option, but I feel like if you're going to do it, you really, really have to commit and make sure that you're giving all to fulfilling that in a way that feels both true to the character, but also creates an engaging player experience. So not something we're doing for Avowed, but I wouldn't say never."

Major spoilers for interactions with Kai follow. Read on at your own risk.

[The remainder of the text would describe the specific romantic interactions with Kai, but that information was not provided in the input. This section would need to be rewritten based on the spoiler content.]