VIDEO CONTAINS SPOILERS! WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK

For anyone interested in seeing how Cora's romance plays out, this video has the whole thing, including BOTH romance scenes choices - the one with #PrettyGoodBanging and the more romantic one.

Also contains ending romance and post-game, so again - SPOILERS WITHIN THE VIDEO!

Good christ the sex scenes in this game are explicit. Really pining for 'fade to black' to come back into style

@pansurrealism: I can do with or without. Doesn't bother me much, other than the fact that you can see where the dev team's priorities and/or resources were. XD

Wish the romantic no-sex version was longer and had a little bit more. It was nice.

What was explicit about it?

Wow they really took those clothed sex scene jokes to heart. That's more explicit then The Witcher 3.

@sketchpanic: Just posting videos with little to no discussion is an easy way to get your thread closed, my dude.

Okay, maybe we can pull this one back from the brink:

It's quite surreal watching over the years this fairly small aspect of Bioware's games become more and more prominent, both to the fans and as a marketing and talking point for the developer.

I can say with absolute certainty that if Bioware announced a new ME or DA game with no romances at all, I really wouldn't give a shit. It's never been a draw for me, and I mostly engage in them just to see how much or how little they've improved, writing-wise. But it's really important to a portion of their fanbase, particularly their LGBTQ fanbase.

It's maybe a bit like the character creator. I remember Jeff saying once on the podcast that there'd be something to be gained by ditching the notion of created characters in Bioware's games. That might be true, just as far as animation fidelity goes, but I think a portion of the fans highly value the ability to create characters who look like them, especially when the alternative is the default "marketing Ryder", who will almost certainly be white.

It occurs to me that Bioware sure has a lot of different masters to serve...

@encephalon: Well, at least I know you've got my back, and came in for the clutch assist! ;D

I feel like the romance subplots add to the overall experience, but taking them out wouldn't harm the overall story or final product. That's why people can play through just about any Bioware, not bother with them, and STILL really enjoy themselves.

I agree with you that it has become a big expectation and important part of the game, to a majority of the community, and would likely cause quite a backlash if there were ever an announcement of romance being thrown out completely.

CC probably less so, but I'd probably be one of the people with torch and pitchfork in hand, if that ever did become the case. Mass Effect Andromeda's current CC leaves much to be desired. As an avid fan of such a feature, and going from DAI to MEA, I was left going "What the crap is this?!?"

But beyond my own feelings on the matter, CC does allow many players to cast themselves in the role of "Ryder" or a creative project from one's imagination. Taking that away just wouldn't be right, especially given the fact that the Mass Effect series has always been a series about choice, so why take away the player's ability to choose who their character is?

In the end, though, they can't please everyone, and trying to do so is just going to leave them pulled in every direction, stressing them out, and in turn affecting the final product we receive.

That's probably the only good sex scene. FemRyder's romance options are pretty lame but Peebee's sex scene was decent I guess. I don't mind them being more explicit but it wouldn't bother me either if they were just dry humping like past mass effect games.

Really? I've heard Jaal's was great for SisRyder, also that Peebee's is just a copy and paste of BroRyder.

As I said before, sex scenes aren't all that important to me. I'd like to see more romantic options, like Josephine in DAI or Cora's alternative scene in MEA, just longer and/or a little more fleshed out (no pun intended).

I always felt the "Q" was a bit redundant in that acronym. But yeah, watching the matchmaking and sex gradually take over Bioware games just makes me think of the similar evolution of the Fire Emblem games. It goes from "that one mechanic we experimented with once for fun" to "the thing we're known for in the press and on the net" potentially to the detriment of what makes the rest of the games great. In a similar vein, I thought it was weird that ME:A included "loyalty missions" that didn't seem to do anything as far as earning/not earning the loyalty. When they had that mechanic in ME2, it was critical to the structure of the game and the outcome of the final mission. Here, it's like they just kept the nomenclature as a nostalgia thing.

I think we see enough guys heads explode that we can see a little softcore too.

Yup. And they IMO get very harsh criticism compared to other developers. I don't envy them. I don't think they are as good of a developer as they once were either but I still think they make good games.

Because there really is a big romance fan base for them. I also usually think it's not great in their games. I also felt like it's kind of your one big relationship with many characters when why can't we be friends, ya know? Like in DA: Inquisition, make something come up where you need to pick one of your companions you really trust to carry out some sensitive mission or something. Then develop that with time like you might a romance with you two building a bond. I know yall like sex we all do but come on Bioware.

I think with some things in their games I get a little tired of how spelled out it all is and predictable in ways like that we know there will be these various romance options on your ship. They dabble in this kind of stuff, but why not even at least have a character somewhere else in the world? I think there are a couple ones like this in the game but they don't seem developed. To me even that little switch up would be welcome but they do the same old things. I don't like to compare many games to the Witcher 3 because I think it's a masterpiece but if you look at that game it does it all in a way better way. You only have two choices overall but they are deep and nuanced (both are very different too, not clean "everyone is nice and sweet" Bioware romantic dialogue). There are even little bits with characters throughout in the world (and some that are rather surprising). Even in these Bioware games only provided you with like 3 options but made them deeper that would be more interesting.

You could say it's the kind of thing that comes from listening to people too much and not taking chances. Overall I think there is things to applaud with player choice and how inclusive it is for people who really appreciate that but playing these games it feels like going through the motions. I have not enjoyed the romance stuff in the last few games.