Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 was a roaring success for plenty of reasons. The game offers satisfying turn-based RPG mechanics that closely mimic the feel of playing D&D. It has solid graphics and compelling characters. But if the jokes about Baldur’s Gate 3 being a vampire dating sim have any merit, the variety and depth of the romance options certainly played a part. And from the sounds of it, Fable is trying to one-up Baldur’s Gate 3 when it comes to romance options, by a lot. But I’m worried that it could backfire in a big way.
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Now that Playground Games has pulled back the curtain and shown off more of Fable, the hype is real. I count myself among the gamers who are incredibly excited to step into the reimagined world of Albion. And yet, one comment that’s been making the rounds is giving me pause. In an interview with IGN, Fable’s game director revealed that the game has 1,000 fully voiced NPCs. And beyond that, each and every one is allegedly a marriage candidate. I love a good romance sub-plot in my RPGs, but I have to admit, this comment has me feeling more worried than excited.
When It Comes to Romanceable NPCs, Quality Beats Out Quantity
Yes, Baldur’s Gate 3 gives us a decent amount of choice when it comes to who we romance. You can try and fail to earn Astarion’s respect in every save like I do, or opt to win the affection of several other key companion characters. But even if it feels like a wealth of choice, the sum total of romanceable characters in Baldur’s Gate 3 is far from 1,000. It’s actually… 10. Just 10.
It’s not the number of romance options that makes Baldur’s Gate 3 fun for the love story enthusiasts among us. It’s the depth and nuance available in those stories. Each companion character in Baldur’s Gate 3 is carefully crafted, making them feel well-rounded and whole as characters. They all have back stories and a variety of potential directions for their fate, whether you romance them or not.
Players don’t start new saves to romance a different character just because. They do it because Larian made us feel invested in those characters, made us want to see how all the different narrative routes could play out. That, and because it’s very hard for someone who is just too nice to every NPC to earn Astarion’s affection. Not that I would know anything about that.
With all that in mind, I fear that bragging about 1,000 NPCs in Fable could be taking all the wrong lessons from Baldur’s Gate 3‘s success. And it could backfire by making romance all but pointless in the game.
I’m Worried Fable Is Going For Shock Value Over Substance with Its NPC Count
While a number like 1,000 NPCs sounds like we’ll have some copy/paste repeats, Playground Games insists this isn’t the case. Instead, they aim to deliver NPCs that are unique and “handcrafted,” each with their own unique appearance, personality, and sense of morals. In theory, that would make Albion a truly lifelike world full of new people to meet and form relationships with.
But in practice, I’m a little skeptical. It’s hard to imagine that having so many individually created NPCs will result in truly fleshed out characters. Instead, I worry we’re going to get a bunch of characters with unique surface-level details, but otherwise not a lot to offer. Just looking and sounding unique from the other 999 NPCs doesn’t automatically make a character someone we want to know. Baldur’s Gate 3 worked because each character had a story you could unlock by developing your relationship with them. And 1,000 full-on narrative arcs for romance doesn’t sound feasible.
Of course, there’s no promise that every NPC will be equally complex. Perhaps the game will offer a ton of unique background characters you can technically marry, but have a few more compelling, well-rounded companion characters. In that case, I could see it working, and it would certainly explain why Fable has taken so long to come to fruition. But if every marriage candidate is just one of 1,000, I worry that romance in Fable might not feel worth pursuing at all. The characters we’ve seen so far do seem full of personality, so I’m hopeful that we’ll get some solid story out of at least some of them. But delivering on 1,000 romance options feels a lot like “they were so busy asking if they could, they didn’t stop to wonder if they should” to me.
Are you excited to see how many marriage candidates Fable plans to deliver, or skeptical like I am? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
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