Regarding all of this, I think bringing up Dragon Age is quite apt. Ignoring the fact that the upcoming game now has a romanceable dwarven companion AND a romanceable companion who has to be around 60 and looks it, showing that devs can be brave about who they present as romances (though I don't think romanceable dwarves are a brave thing) there's more that can be gleaned from how the two games handle romances and how the audiences react to them.
If you look at Dragon Age discussion, yes romance is a big part of it. But for as horny as we fans are, if you look even a little deeper you see that in fan spaces things get a lot more complex. We talk more about character motivations and philosophies, why they are the way they are. Stuff I don't think would be worth getting into if you don't already know who I'm talking about. But for example, much digital ink has been spilled over Vivienne and her opinions about the Circle of magi, or Iron Bull and his loyalties and character arc. We get a lot of discussion about the nuance of certain conflicts within the setting, story beats within each game, discussion of the history of the setting and it's implications, mysteries within it, and the lore. So much about the lore and how things may work, and theorising. Lots and lots of theorizing. Meanwhile I dipped into the BG3 subreddit and there's hardly anything as substantial. And here on the forums the most active threads are about kissing animations. Though in fairness those are propelled by a handful of very active posters. But the most frequent discussions after those are more or less about fixing things the game got wrong or didn't live up to.
I think there's a couple reasons for this discrepancy between the games. One is, in all fairness, that DA:Ve is a proper sequel in a series that's been handled by the same team since the start, so there's been active planting and payoff going on there that BG3 doesn't have. People also have sequels to look forward to, and the setting also exists primarily beyond the game so they don't have full control over it to develop it and plant cool ideas. But even there, there's another layer. I really don't think Larian cared about the setting, and I feel that that shows in how everything is presented. The environment clearly got a lot of love, but the broader setting feels like it's kept at arm's length. They don't care to make the areas work together and feel cohesive. I'm playing BG1 and just finished the main campaign, I'm in the middle of siege of dragonspear now. And so far, the setting feels rich and invested in. The focus is clear but it still feels like there's a larger world that I'm part of. Sarevok's plan and the plan of the chosen are narratively kind of similar, both centre on using Baldur's Gate as the fulcrum for a plan at the scale of divinity. But where Sarevok's plan has a clear scope that makes sense, the scope for the chosen's plan simultaneously is focused only on Baldur's gate yet somehow will impact gods that hold dominion around the world. Going back to dragon age, the setting always feels integral to every game. The history of places often ties into plots going on there, or if not then we still get the history and it feels like part of somethign bigger. That's rarely the case in BG3.
And this brings us to what I feel is the main cause for the way romance gets focused on in each game. I think that BG3 is, with the exception of its character writing, very weak in its writing. And even then that writing strength is distributed unevenly. Karlach's writing? Brilliant. Her quest? Stumble upon a few pieces of ore and then fight a boss you probably were going to fight anyway. The main quest is held together with duct tape and string, with a setting that feels distant and hard to connect with if you don't already know it from other media. Meanwhile say what you will about Dragon age, but the stories have always been strong and the setting is rock solid and interesting in and of itself, with a level of love and care clearly put into crafting it. So yeah, when it comes to BG3, the best thing anyone has to latch onto are the characters and by extension, the romances. Whereas while characters have always been Bioware's strength, those characters still serve a story that is at the very least functional and pretty good on its own.
