Diablo III is a game that has become one of my favorite ways to waste time. Along with Marvel Heroes, a similar entry into the ARPG category, I find myself going back frequently to kill more monsters and accrue newer and better loot. While Marvel Heroes pushes me to try new characters, I tend to stick with my best character in Diablo III. She is a Demon Hunter named Erin, and she is one awesomely bad-ass lady.

One of the things that I love about Erin the DH (Demon Hunter, not designated hitter) is that she is completely self-sufficient. She can jump into a swarm of monsters, each one with 4 or 5 glowing auras of doom, and come out the other side, no worse for the experience. She can shoot arrows of lightning, poison or fire and she can lay down traps that decimate hordes of her foes. And in those moments when her back is against the wall and her life globe is slowly emptying, she can call upon a spirit of vengeance, grow black, inky wings and become a machine of pure, killing hate. I imagine that she laughs when she does this, a cool manic laugh, something that would strike the proper amount of fear into demons and humans alike.

One person who may not be afraid when those moments come is Kormac, my DH’s steadfast companion. Unlike other Diablo games, Diablo III decided to introduce a follower mechanic. Kormac is one of three that become available as the game progresses. He is the first you will meet and, in my opinion, he is also the most interesting and useful to pal around with. Eirena is an enchantress with a sweet as sugar disposition that tired my DH out within moments. Lyndon is too similar in power set to my DH to be really valuable. Kormac, a Templar, is just the right fit in both abilities and temperament. He draws aggression and heals my DH when she gets in over her head. He can take the point position while my DH tries to snipe from further away. It’s a partnership that just works, like PB and J, Hall and Oates, or David Ortiz and October. And like all great partnerships, once you lock into it, you never want to lose it.

This is kind of where my story really begins. Kormac and I became as close as two isometrically represented fictitious characters could. I realized after over a hundred hours that I really had an emotional attachment to him. So when he began to reveal an almost boyish crush on Eirena, I really began to hate him. I seethed every time I heard him talk about her smooth skin and golden hair. I could picture my DH scrunching up her nose viciously, narrowing her eyes, and then stabbing another demon in the face to quiet her disappointment. For some reason I really disliked this walking meat shield talking about another woman.

I thought about this reaction for some time. I mulled it over. The more I thought about it, the more absurd the whole thing seemed. I was honestly feeling a little bit of jealousy, or I rationalized it by saying my DH was the one who had become a green-eyed monster. But aren't my DH and I one and the same you may say? Of course. So I was feeling abandoned and emotionally betrayed, and for no other reason than the developers decided to create a little flavor text to color their world and lend character growth to their creations. They certainly didn't intend for me to fill in the blanks and create a blossoming relationship between these characters as I played, but I did. Kormac had traveled with me and opened up to me about his fears and dreams. I felt like I had earned his devotion. Not her.

I think the important thing that I learned from this is that romance and emotional attachment can come not just from carefully crafted story lines, say for instance what Bioware has done with the Mass Effect series, but also in the margins of a game that doesn't even really attempt to seriously craft these entanglements. I highly doubt that the creators of Diablo III had any intent to make the player become enamored with Kormac, but it kind of just happened to me. Similarly, I had a moment much the same in Star Trek Online as I played through the Romulan Republic storyline. My captain became interested in her first officer, Tovan Khev. Nothing in the game points to there being anything romantic in this relationship, but with each mission, common enemy and common goal, I felt like there could be more going on behind the scenes. Dialogue and plot that could have no significance but to draw the player along suddenly had more weight and caused a stronger reaction. All because I, as a player, imagined something happening beyond what the game was giving me.

Both games somehow found a way to make me feel like I was fostering these connections with pretty much unchangeable NPCs. I think a huge part of it is the way that they have you view the characters stories through game play. Kormac goes through an emotional roller-coaster, first being a devout Templar, then slowly realizing that his entire crusade is pretty much a lie. This is only revealed if you, the player, constantly talk to him and get him to say more about his time with the Templar Order. Similarly, Tovan Khev is with your character from the very beginning in Star Trek Online, and the main plot of the Romulan arc also has his search for his lost sister as a prominent focal point. Pair that with a mission where your captain is captured, tortured, and the reassuring voice that helps you through the torture is Tovan himself, and you have a character that is tied closely and, I would argue, intimately to you. Another factor is most likely my own personality and what I bring to the game. I can't claim that these games will make everyone react the same, but I personally find them both to have found an interesting way to inject emotional resonance without having to bludgeon the player over the head with obvious tropes and mechanics.

In the future, I hope to see game developers exploring these possibilities more fully. Emotions can be created not just by having the player go through an entire romance story, complete with dialogue trees, binary choices, gift giving or whatever other game mechanic they use to try and make you care for their characters. It can also emerge organically from taking two characters through a journey together. They don't have to say "I love you" or embrace passionately like in a movie or television show, but they can fight side by side with plots that focus more on mutual goals and desires. I learned through spending time with these titles that a developer can pull me into their game and if their characters are interesting and charming enough, I can be drawn to them naturally. Kormac and Tovan didn't do anything special, they just helped me in my time of need, in demon haunted halls and the quiet expanse of space. That's more than enough to engender my devotion, even if it's only for as long as I'm living and playing in their worlds.