Affinity Systems Make Or Break Every ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ RPG

You can’t please everyone. That’s a fundamental rule of simply experiencing life; sometimes, despite your best efforts and maybe even because of them, people will dislike you. You don’t even like everyone. Thankfully, the same principle applies in the reverse as well. Life tends to toss people your way who align with your morals, values, and beliefs.

Regardless of where you fall within your own life’s social circles, it’s undeniable that our relationships with those around us play a critical role in our lives and the creation of lasting and impactful experiences. And art, as they say, imitates life, so it’s only natural that we should see such an inevitable aspect of life reflected in our games as well.

There’s More To An Affinity System Than Meets The Eye

Until last month, I had never played the Mass Effect trilogy. It was one of those game series that I always meant to pick up because of hearing nothing but righteous fanfare of it since my elementary school days, but I never got around to it in my adolescence. I got it on sale on the PlayStation Store, all three titles in all their glory for a paltry $6 (a steal), and I jumped at the opportunity. I haven’t finished it quite yet, but I’ve completed the first game, and I’m halfway through the second. Initially, I was planning to address how insanely good the experience has been. It has genuinely lived up to all the hype. I doubt I’ve played a retro game more appropriately rated, but something else about the series drew my attention even more closely than general praise of the game as a whole: the affinity system.

The original Mass Effect was released in 2006, and while I can’t be certain it was the very first RPG to even embed a complex affinity system that tracked the level of tolerance that NPCs and factions had towards the player character, it is definitely quite clear to see that a lot of RPGs have since borrowed the affinity system formula to enhance their own projects. I felt the effects of my in-game decisions on my first return to the Normandy immediately after the introductory mission on Eden Prime.

I’d spoken to Ashley Williams after the de-briefing, and her attitude towards me, though professionally respectful, clearly hinted at some measure of distaste for having criticized her during the mission. I hadn’t thought much of the interaction until I restarted the game on a whim to change Shepard’s class and had the conversation again after choosing a different dialogue option during the mission to show more empathy, and the tone of the post-op conversation with her shifted entirely.

It wasn’t the most advanced affinity system, of course, but for its hayday, I was pleasantly surprised at how innovative and seamless Bioware managed to have it complement the pacing of the story and budding relationships with the crew as we journeyed through the stars. It got me thinking about all the RPG titles that have come out since and how their affinity systems were implemented. While a largely in-depth, advanced affinity system is not necessary for every RPG to be great (the Soulsborne games, for example), I would argue that for games that pride themselves on peak immersive experience and gameplay do not have the luxury of making that claim, especially given the level of precedent for what quality affinity systems can look like.

Any RPG that defines its gameplay loop by building your character from the ground up in an already existing world complete with lore and other interactable NPCs, be that with skills, abilities, relationships, exploration, etc., needs an affinity system if it is to maintain an unbreakable level of proper immersion.

The Consequences Of Actions

Consider a game like Stardew Valley, where the main appeal is, itself, the community you build your farm in. I am by no means suggesting that the other aspects of the game are redundant, of course, but if the dynamic relationships with the townspeople were altered — if there were no consequences for your actions in those relationships — would the experience of the game be the same? It is because of the player’s capability of gratifying and likewise repelling NPCs solely based on their actions that establish believability and heightens immersion. A marriage to Abigail wouldn’t feel nearly as earned if you’d done everything possible to annoy her and could still shack up with her anyway.

All affinity systems aren’t created equal by any stretch of the imagination either. Consider Fallout 4’s companions and factions, for example. Sure, there were plenty of in-game decisions you could make to have your followers look at you with disdain or contempt, the obvious rule-of-thumb being don’t do things in front of them that don’t gel with their personalities, but should you peeve one of them enough off to not wish to be your companion anymore, that hardly affected any major story or gameplay mechanics beyond having one less follower.

The faction affinity system played a bit better about the ordeal, since a good handful of important and memorable quests that gave the game more replayability revolved around what sides you took when those factions came to blows or when we were in need of their resources, but ultimately, a faction disapproving of you amounted to whether or not they were going to shoot you on sight.

Take that, and compare it to another RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3. Relationships between your protagonist and your party members are complex, fluid, and changeable based not only on your dialogue choices and active gameplay decisions, but how you made those gameplay decisions, the consequences of your actions, and your interactive decisions with not just them but NPCs as well. They granted you grace and second chances, should they deem you deserving of it, and losing a party member (be it through violence or disagreement) meant losing out on critical advantages through various stages of not only the story and side quests but general exploration and sometimes even the development of relationships between yourself and other party members.

Faction and organization affinity play by the same rules and are equally as fleshed out, taking location and severity of offense or benefit from your protagonist into account in your dealings with them. A sect of one faction may not have heard of your actions, positive or otherwise, inflicted upon another sect of the same faction, and you have a chance to make an impression anew, for example. It’s amazing what the developers managed to do with navigating these relationships and maintaining a constantly amazing quality across all the interpersonal nuances, often following you through all three acts of the game.

The point is that when the name of the game is immersion, a good affinity system is a non-negotiable insofar as presenting a game with lasting impact is concerned. We may never hear about Paladin Danse again, but the conversations around Shadowheart still haven’t shown any signs of slowing down, and for good reason. When character relationships and consequences for player agency are considered and combined in a way that truly encapsulates what it feels like to create or destroy a bond you may have found in real life, it’s a surefire sign of a game crafted with care and attention to detail.

I was initially going to talk about what a fantastic time I’m having with the Mass Effect trilogy (and maybe someday soon I will), but for now, I’ll settle for a big thank you for boosting my appreciation for immersive sims as a whole and setting a very necessary standard.