The player has agency in choosing every advancement of every decision of the game. The player has agency in choosing to RP agreement with Halsin's free love ways, or in choosing to RP disagreement with his free love ways and breaking up. The player has agency in choosing to RP agreement with Gale's monogamous ways, or in choosing to RP disagreement with his monogamous ways and breaking up. The characters do have obligatory romance sexualities, in the case of Gale, monogamous sexuality, in the case of Halsin, free love sexuality.

This is how the player lacks agency: the companions are not playersexual,* the player does not have a switch to eliminate poly in the game and make everyone monogamous, player cannot toggle off the expression of attractions the characters feel for one another, the player only has the RP tracks developed by the studio available to them. These have been complaints in this thread.

None of these ways players lack agency is abuse, gaslighting, emotional blackmail, or toxic.

It makes the characters more complex and appealing that they are bound not by player imagination, but by intentional characterization. The characterization of the branching player character in response to these companions is a design decision. The decision to not make companions playersexual is a design decision, the decision to not include a toggle to turn off inter-character attraction in the game is a design decision, the choice to not have a toggle to eliminate poly characters from the game is a design decision.

I like that Halsin is characterized by internal motivations, beyond his use in promotional marketing. I hope we get to learn more about him, and I hope that arguing with him and challenging him about how he lives and loves is not the development focus, the way I hope that arguing with and challenging the other companions about how they live and love is not their development focus.

Edit 10/1: I've had this explained to me! I didn't understand that playersexual means simply, universally attracted to player character. I was using this term incorrectly. I'm not sure what to replace it with. But my statement here is just wrong lol, the companions are all playersexual.

Last edited by Tharrow; 02/10/23 05:08 AM. Reason: added ps note edit