Pixel Romance Report Card: Ranking Video Game Love Interests From 'Marry Me' to 'Please Seek Help'
Falling in love with a fictional video game character is a time-honored tradition. Don't be embarrassed — the industry has been engineering this outcome since at least the early 2000s, and frankly they've gotten disturbingly good at it. But not all virtual romances are created equal. Some gaming love interests are beautifully written, deeply compelling, and genuinely make you feel something. Others are walking red flags with a character portrait and a dialogue wheel. We're ranking them all, and we are not pulling punches.
Criteria: writing quality, chemistry with the player character, emotional payoff, and the all-important 'are they actually good for you' factor. Let's get into it.
S-Tier: Real Ones Who Deserved Everything
Garrus Vakarian — Mass Effect Series
Garrus didn't start as a romance option. BioWare added the full romance arc after fans made it abundantly clear they were going to be emotionally invested in this Turian regardless of what the developers intended. And honestly? That origin story only adds to his charm. Garrus is supportive, funny, grows alongside Shepard across three games, and his romance dialogue is genuinely tender without being saccharine. 'I'm a little rusty at this' remains one of gaming's most endearing lines. Calibrations aside, this man is perfect.
Yennefer of Vengerberg — The Witcher 3
Yennefer earns her spot not because she's easy to romance — she absolutely is not — but because the relationship feels real. She and Geralt have history, conflict, genuine disagreement, and a dynamic that doesn't require the player to be a pushover. She's difficult and occasionally ruthless and completely unwilling to be your prize at the end of a quest. That's not a flaw. That's a fully realized character. The sunstone scene alone is worth the whole game.
Shadowheart — Baldur's Gate 3
Larian Studios looked at the concept of 'romance arc' and said 'what if it was actually a whole character journey that intersects with the main plot in meaningful ways?' Shadowheart's romance is tied directly to her identity crisis, her faith, and her history — and depending on your choices, it can go in radically different directions. She has layers. She has growth. She occasionally threatens to stab you and means it affectionately. S-Tier.
A-Tier: Great, But There's a Catch
Aloy — Horizon Series (As a Protagonist You Root For)
Aloy technically isn't a romance option, which is itself a choice worth discussing. The writers clearly made a deliberate call to keep her independent, and there's something refreshing about a AAA protagonist who isn't defined by a love interest. But the simmering almost-chemistry with Erend and others leaves players wanting more. A-Tier for making us feel the absence of something rather than the presence of it.
Kaidan Alenko — Mass Effect Series
Kaidan is the reliable guy. The guy who checks in on you. The guy who, when you die and come back two years later, needs time to process it because he's a person with feelings and not a yes-machine. He gets unfairly maligned by a portion of the fandom for being 'boring,' but 'emotionally stable and communicative' only reads as boring if you've been conditioned by chaotic love interests. Kaidan is A-Tier and you should examine why you find that disappointing.
Morrigan — Dragon Age: Origins
Morrigan is complicated, prickly, and will tell you when she thinks you're being an idiot. The romance arc with her is less 'swept off your feet' and more 'earned through genuine respect and persistence.' Her arc also has major plot consequences, which is exactly how a love interest should be integrated into a game's story. Points deducted only because some of her dialogue options require the player to be weirdly submissive to unlock the good stuff.
B-Tier: Fine. They're Fine. You're Fine.
Persona 5's Confidant Romances (General)
Persona 5 has a robust romance system where you can date multiple people simultaneously, which is either a feature or a red flag depending on how you play. The individual Confidants are well-written in isolation — Ann has genuine arc, Makoto is compelling, Futaba's route is sweet — but the game mechanically rewards you for juggling them all, which undercuts the emotional sincerity somewhat. Great characters, slightly gamified romance. B-Tier.
Link and Zelda — The Legend of Zelda Series
Link and Zelda have one of gaming's oldest will-they-won't-they situations and the answer, after 40 years, is apparently 'they will hold hands and look at the sunset and that's as far as Nintendo is taking this.' The chemistry is implied more than demonstrated, and Link's canonical personality is 'silent protagonist,' so you're mostly projecting. Tears of the Kingdom got closer than any previous entry. Still B-Tier until the franchise commits.
C-Tier: You Tried. We See That You Tried.
Ashley Williams — Mass Effect Series
Ashley has good bones as a character — military background, complicated feelings about biotics, interesting family history. But her romance arc has some dialogue choices that aged about as well as a milk carton left in a hot car, and the writing inconsistency between games is noticeable. She's not irredeemable, but she needed another draft pass. C-Tier.
Most Dating Sim NPCs With Zero Personality Outside Their Archetype
You know the type. The Childhood Friend. The Tsundere Who Softens After Three Events. The Mysterious Transfer Student Who Has A Secret. These characters exist in a genre specifically designed around them, and sometimes the execution is genuinely charming. More often, they're a checklist. The archetype does not automatically equal character. C-Tier as a category, with individual exceptions.
D-Tier: The Emotional Baggage Fee Is Too High
Rinoa Heartilly — Final Fantasy VIII
Rinoa gets a lot of fan love, but the Squall/Rinoa romance is built almost entirely on Squall being emotionally unavailable and Rinoa refusing to take the hint. The 'I'll be your knight' arc is sweet in theory, but the relationship dynamic requires Rinoa to do most of the emotional labor while Squall stares brooding into the middle distance. The ending is genuinely moving. The journey to get there is a lesson in why communication matters in relationships.
Kait Diaz's Love Interests — Gears 5
Gears 5 sets up a love triangle between Kait, Del, and JD and then uses it mostly as background noise. None of the romantic tension is developed enough to pay off, and the player choice at the end is more about gameplay preference than emotional investment. Points for trying to add romance to a franchise about chainsawing aliens. Points deducted for not quite landing it.
F-Tier: Sir, This Is a Wendy's
Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2 (Rose as a Love Interest)
Rose spends most of MGS2 calling Raiden during combat missions to ask if he remembers the day they first met. You are trying to stop a terrorist plot. She wants to talk about anniversaries. The relationship is intentionally written to be frustrating as part of the game's themes about identity and control, and Kojima absolutely knew what he was doing — but that doesn't make it less exhausting to experience in real time. F-Tier for the experience, A-Tier for the narrative audacity.
The Final Buzzer
The best video game love interests work because they're characters first and romance options second. Garrus, Yennefer, Shadowheart — these are people who would exist and matter even if the romance routes were cut entirely. The worst ones are defined entirely by their relationship to the protagonist, which makes them feel like accessories rather than people.
If game developers want to keep making us emotionally attached to pixels — and they absolutely do — the formula is simple: write a real person, then let us fall for them. We'll handle the rest. We always do.
