Summary
- One player in Starfield found themselves married to both Sarah and Andreja, sparking a debate on whether it's a feature or a bug.
- Bethesda's Starfield offers limited romance options, but a player managed to complicate their love life by having an affair and patching things up with an easy persuasion check.
- Having multiple spouses seems unintended, leading to confusion about whether it's a bug or a planned feature.
One Starfield player was surprised to find themselves married to both Sarah and Andreja at the same time during their space escapades. They later took online to explain their peculiar predicament, adding to the list of unusual Starfield experiences that the fandom has been sharing throughout September.
While both The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and Fallout 4 offered some romance options, Bethesda's brand of role-playing games has generally steered clear of making love interests a major part of its overall experience. The studio has long been open about the fact that its newest title will continue that trend, having confirmed that Starfield will feature just four romance options months ahead of the game's release.
Despite that limited pool of potential partners, Reddit user SKobiBeef somehow managed to complicate their in-game love life to the point that they ended up being simultaneously married to both Sarah and Andreja. Reflecting on their unfaithful exploits, the fan explained that they had an affair with Sarah after marrying Andreja, which prompted the game to instruct them to talk to their spouse. And while they "fully expected to get dumped," they were surprised to learn that one "easy persuasion check" was all it took to patch things up between them, without forfeiting the Starfield romance with Sarah Morgan.
"Now I have two wives," the player wrote, concluding that they still cannot tell if the resulting love triangle that they found themselves in is a feature or a bug. While several fans chiming in on their unexpected polygamy shared similar experiences, the post prompted hundreds of surprised reactions, with some believing that the developers didn't intend for players to simultaneously have multiple spouses, and that this unusual episode was indeed a result of a bug.
The way Bethesda implemented romances in Starfield is mechanically similar to Fallout 4, in that the protagonist's ability to develop relationships with select companions is inherently tied to their affinity rating with those NPCs. Specifically, while the game occasionally provides players with the ability to flirt during dialogue, even doing so consistently won't necessarily lead to romance if their love interest dislikes their character's actions often enough for their affinity rating to stay low.
The biggest difference between the two is that Fallout 4 doesn't offer a way to get married, although it does support having multiple relationships, while Starfield appears to attempt doing the opposite. Namely, Starfield companions with a high enough affinity score should eventually present the player with an option of getting married or staying friends. However, picking the former usually doesn't result in marriage if the protagonist already has a spouse. On the contrary, the game even has some unique proposal rejection dialogue for such situations. And while that interaction clearly won't always work as intended, it's still unclear what could be causing this peculiar polygamy bug.
Starfield is available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.