Romance in the Digital Game

In the last decade, the popularity of ‘romance’ in the AAA game has exploded. It has become an expectation for major releases and a regular object of fan obsession. High-profile games such as Baldur’s Gate III (2023), Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) and Starfield (2023) prominently feature in-game romance in their multimillion-dollar promotional campaigns. Moreover, rampant speculation by gaming journalists and fans about who is ‘romanceable’ will regularly accompany the announcement of a new title. However, representations of romance have long been under-examined and vaguely defined by scholars. This leaves important questions unanswered. How does the digital game mediate cultural attitudes towards love and sex? How can we classify representations of romance in the digital game? Does romance simply replicate existing hegemonies surrounding gender and sexuality, or does it offer a space for transgressive play?

This book positions optional romance in the AAA game as a central object of analysis. Based on the close analysis of some of the most commercially and culturally significant games of the last 30 years like Grand Theft Auto IV (2008), the Mass Effect series (2007-21) and the Elder Scrolls series (1994-2024), it is the first full-length monograph to effectively and comprehensively categorise how mainstream gaming asks its audience to engage with romance. It interrogates the idiosyncrasies of romance in the popular games to provide fresh insights into messaging surrounding normative social understandings of love, sex and intimacy.

By theorising four representational categories of romance—Limerent, Physical, Domestic and Ludic—Automatic Love introduces a new theoretical framework for scholars to understand romance, gender and sexuality in gaming.