That said, isn't Avowed supposed to be the "Skyrim-alike" set in the Pillars universe? Romances were never a big part of Skyrim (Nor was its companions, besides that vampire gal in the DLC) so perhaps the lack of romances won't be as jarring as in TOW where it felt much more like your typical Bioware style "Collect-the-companions" game.
Avowed promised two levels of friendship - friendship and "deep friendship", that is, some kind of spiritual closeness with companions will be, and different levels of disclosure of companions for the player. That's curious, too. And they promised companion interaction between the companions themselves and the relationships between them. That seems curious and really worth a look.
Personally I'm on the side of hoping more games do romances so that people can work on making them better as opposed to avoiding them completely so they never evolve past DA:O's terrible "Get approval > Awful and cringy sex scene" system. I want to see more dynamic systems, with better interactivity with partners, more realistic friendships, rivalries and autonomy (Less, "Collect all the companions and they stay with you forever no matter what, even if you leave them in camp 24/7")
Yeah, that would be perfect. I'd really like realistic and deep relationships in the game, with emotions and dialogues, without the sex frenzy like in BG3. BG3 somehow a priori assumes that the player will want to have a relationship with two companions in the first chapter, it's impossible to even announce to the other companions that Tav is already in a relationship.
