In what is surely E3 2018's most unfortunate news, Bioware's Anthem will not have smooching. The future is forsaken.

The past, on the other hand, is a love-in. Because not only will Ubisoft's Assassin's Creed Odyssey have romance options, players are free to shape their character's sexual orientation as they see fit.

When this very point was put to creative director Jonathan Dumont, our Samuel was told: "Yeah. You do whatever you want. If you're interested in this character, you're interested in this character, and that's it."

In his early impressions, Samuel said Odyssey's RPG-style choices bring the game's story to life. This extract captures that nicely, and hints at how this might affect potential courtship. Sam tells me he had the option to pursue Thaletas or Kyra in the demo:

During my hands-on, I gift wine to a character I want to romance. I get to choose whether to pick a head-on military strategy or a more careful one. I choose to be a dick to everyone I can, just to provoke heated responses. As a result of these actions, characters can live or die. It's an exciting wrinkle that makes me more engaged with the goings on in an Assassin's Creed cutscene than I usually am.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey releases in October, is set in Ancient Greece and has dialogue choices.

Additional reporting by Samuel Roberts.