As is expected from Dragon Age, there are romance options galore in Dragon Age: The Veilguard — and the fan discussion on which non-player character to romance began months before the game even came out.

Unlike previous Dragon Age games, in Veilguard, all of the recruitable companions are romanceable no matter your Rook’s race or gender: optimistic scout Lace Harding, confident Grey Warden Davrin, spunky elven historian Bellara Lutare, cynical detective Neve Gallus, erudite necromancer Emmrich Volkarian, tough dragon fighter Taash, and pragmatic assassin Lucanis Dellamorte. The romances run the gamut from steamy to nail-bitingly awkward (complimentary), but no matter who romances who, the relationships feel true to the characters and how their arcs progress.

“There’s so many different flavors of romances with the characters that even if one doesn’t work for you, one of them I think is likely to,” creative director John Epler told Polygon. “But they’re so tied to the character arcs that they become part of that character development as opposed to ‘and also you can romance them on the side.’”

[Ed. note: This post contains spoilers for Dragon Age: The Veilguard.]

For instance, Epler said, Bellara’s romance is purposefully awkward and stilted. (“As Bellara’s writer, I’m very familiar with it,” he added.)

“It’s clearly somebody who doesn’t see themselves as someone people are going to want to romance,” he said. “And so one of my favorite things is paying Bellara a compliment, and she takes it in the most awkward [way]. Because she herself as a character, and something you see through her arc, has these issues with how she sees herself, especially after what happened in her past. And so that romance kind of plays off of that as somebody who does have, I wouldn’t say necessarily low self-esteem, but has issues with self-regard. This is how that romance goes, especially if they are themselves a very awkward character.”

Meanwhile, Lucanis — who joins the party after you rescue him from an underwater prison where he was tortured for a year after someone in his inner circle betrayed him — has a long road ahead of him in terms of opening up and letting others in. (That also means the results of one big early game choice might cut him off entirely.)

“[He] has an arc that’s very much about family and letting people get close and seeing what happens,” said Epler. “And so with his romance, you get more of a slow burn where it doesn’t feel like you’re ever getting quite as close to him as maybe you want until the very end.”

In addition to the player-chosen romance arcs, some companions you haven’t chosen to romance might enter romantic relationships with one another (or in the case of one character, with an NPC that isn’t in your party). This isn’t the first time non-romanced party members get together: A fan favorite, for example, is Qunari mercenary Iron Bull and Tevinter mage Dorian Pavus in Dragon Age: Inquisition. But Veilguard has more opportunity than ever before for these side romances to blossom.

It all came down, once again, to what made sense for these characters’ own arcs. Bellara doesn’t romance anyone outside of Rook because, as Epler said, she is a “very focused person with a very specific obsession.” Romance isn’t exactly on the top of her mind. For Taash and Harding, however, a romance made perfect sense — both characters navigate accepting who they are and how that fits in with what they thought they knew about the communities and cultures they hail from.

“I think one of my favorite parts of that arc is how much compatibility comes through as you go through their arcs and you realize these are two people […] broken in ways that are so complementary to allow them to heal each other,” said Epler. “They end up developing this very lovely relationship, lovely romance that makes sense for the both of them.”

Players might understandably want to go into the game without any spoilers about what characters might get together. But if you’re heading into your second playthrough and you already know more about what the characters’ relationships with one another look like, making decisions might take on a whole new level of significance. That was definitely the case for game director Corinne Busche.

“What I love about those developments is that it really gives us some interesting and compelling decision-making about the choices and the consequences within the game,” she told us. “[The relationships] have an extra level, I think, for the decision making. I don’t want to get into spoilers, but there was a moment where I set the controller down and had to go, Oh my God, how can I possibly make this decision knowing what I know of these two characters and how they feel about each other? Oh, it just really makes it hit.”

There’s a lot of emphasis on the inter-character relationships in Veilguard. Not only is there the usual party banter while out and about in the world, but you can also stumble upon conversations between characters back at your home base, mitigate disagreements between them, and read codex entries about their book club meetings, cooking rotation, and other things. It makes sense that writing interactions between these companions might spark some ideas for the writers.

“It really does come down to who makes the most sense for these characters and who as the writers we are excited about pairing up,” said Epler. “Because I think something people forget is […] well, it’s not technically fanfiction. It’s the same impetus that drives fanfiction where you’re like, Who are the characters we love the most and who do we want to see together? Who do we think makes the most sense as a couple? And then playing with that and seeing if it actually does make sense.”