And no, you can’t marry your German Shepherd no matter how much you love him.

Yesterday during a Fallout 4 panel hosted by Todd Howard at QuakeCon 2015, the developer announced there would be 12 companions the player could take on their trek across the wasteland.

Only one can be used at a time, so they can’t be used as a mini-army.

It was also revealed player could form a romantic relationship with said companions – no matter gender chosen – but this only works with human companions.

Preston Garvey and Piper are two such companions, and since they are human, this means a romantic relationship can be formed with either.

Codsworth is another companion, but since he is a Mr. Handy robot, well, the player won’t be able to act upon their sweet, sweet cravings for his mechanical prowess. Or something. Surely, this will be remedied in a mod at some point in the future.

This is the first time bonafide romance option will be appearing in a Fallout title other than simple flirtations in Fallout: New Vegas.

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Granted, in Fallout 3 Nova the prostitute at Moriarty’s saloon could be persuaded to join the player in a rented room for 120 caps. She and the player only stretched out on the bed, and that was it. No bouncy yum-yum time from what I recall.

The player’s relationship with Bittercup was the closest thing to a “romance” in FO3. In the game, she could become the player’s girlfriend, and if returned to every 24 hours, she would hand out a present.

Specific details on how romance will work in Fallout 4 haven’t been provided, but we suspect there will likely be some sort of perk involved.

Using Skyrim as an example, once a player ties the knot, the respective spouse can be asked to prepare one meal per day which boots stats for a specific timeframe. If the spouse runs a shop, they will hand over 100 gold per day.

Getting married also provided Lover’s Comfort which increases the player’s skill-learning by 15% for 8 hours.

Perks in previous Fallout games gave the player some advantages. For example, the Black Widow perk in Fallout 3 and New Vegas allowed a female character to “seduce” NPCs to gain information.

Fallout 2 was full of sex, bathhouses, bars, etc., and the player could even earn the Sexpert reputation title. The player (snicker) earned the title by having sex ten times with any of the NPCs in the game which were sex-specific.

The game also had the Kama Sutra Master perk and the Sex Appeal trait. The player could also become a porn star for the Golden Globes studio. Fun times. I may have to fire it up again soon.

It’s fun to speculate what Todd Howard and co. have up their sleeves with this feature. Whatever the team has planned, we expect some tongue in cheek humor to go along with it. No pun intended.

Hopefully we’ll hear more closer to release on how romantic relationships will work in Fallout 4.

The game is out on November 10 for PC, PS4 and Xbox One.