E3 began in earnest yesterday afternoon with the EA Play event, which meant a new and much more extensive look at BioWare’s sci-fi shooter, Anthem. Though the game definitely brought it on the gameplay level and talked a big game about its story, the most important question for many a BioWare fan was who they would be able to romance in this new IP.

The answer to that question came soon after thanks to the Game Informer cover reveal, and it turns out that it’s no one. There are no characters for the player to romance in Anthem, something that was an intentional design choice rather than something that was cut from the game proper.

Every game developer has a certain thing that fans have come to expect with each new title. A Rockstar game, for example, can always be expected to have a dense open world, and Prey developer Arkane can always be said to have expansive levels that reward exploration. BioWare’s thing has always been the opportunity to romance a variety of characters. They may not always be the characters that those fans want, especially depending on their orientation, but the studio has generally been good at giving love-worthy companions to players.

For some fans, that’s the primary draw to a game from the studio, and recent years have seen the studio become less transparent, at least instantly, about which companions can and can’t be wooed by a player’s charm. To hear that it’s not a part of Anthem--at least, not at launch, since executive producer Mark Darrah kept the possibility of them arriving after the game’s release open, and either free or a patch should it happen--is definitely shocking.

“ As a world besieged by giant monsters and powerful storms, the environment of Anthem isn’t exactly a hot destination to take a date.

Replacing the romances in Anthem will be friendships that players can pursue with various NPCs met during the game’s story mode. For many, this won’t be the same as flirting with a character and getting to declare them a paramour, but the focus on platonic relationships may actually serve Anthem better. The relationship between the player and the game’s supporting cast is as good a place as any to show growth over however long BioWare plans to support the game and support their ambitions of a living world with frequent changes.

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Anthem’s no romance approach also plays to BioWare’s strengths, in its own way. In some instances of previous titles, the friendships were arguably better or more fleshed out than the romantic options. If there’s one things that video games are arguably great at, it’s establishing a friendship between the player and various NPCs; Garrus and Male Shepard shooting bottles in Mass Effect 3 or Varric deciding that a card game is the best way to unite the Inquisition are proof of this. Even Andromeda, for its flaws, did a good job of making the members of the Tempest feel like a real family of oddballs with their relationships between each other changing throughout the game. Beloved as BioWare’s romances are, a fair amount of them have felt like they were just leading to a sex scene, but the real depth and satisfaction comes from bonding with those characters as friends rather than potential lovers.

The lack of romance in Anthem doesn’t mean the end of all love in future BioWare games. It’s just the studio trying something new, and it’s alright for them to do so. Love comes across in different ways, and for this to play out across a live service game as opposed to a single player one is intriguing. Platonic relationships are just as important as romantic ones, and there’s no better way to bond as friends than fly around like Iron Man and freeze monsters before shooting them in the face.

Justin is a freelance writer in living in Kansas City and eating too many Frostys. You can find him on Twitter @GigawattConduit.