Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire Romance Guide - who all can be romanced?
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire like any RPG of its type comes packed with a handful of romance options for your player character, just in case you find yourself a bit lonely out in the big old ocean. Romance options are not a critical part of Deadfire – they don’t really affect the main quest at all – but they can be nice side objectives to accompany your story in the game. While not every companion can be romanced, sadly, all of the remaining options are available no matter if your player character is male or female.
Due to the variability in which companions are met and the order in which quests are undertaken, alongside some remaining bugs, it’s been a little difficult to completely determine which romances are possible, and which simply haven’t been found yet. On the flip side, some romances seem to initiate incredibly quickly, perhaps moreso than the developers intended. It’s all a bit tangled at the moment.
After a few weeks of the game’s community analyzing the permutations though, here’s what we figure seems to be the consensus – at least so far.
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Player Romance Options in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
To start out, two of the returning characters from the original Pillars of Eternity, Eder and Pallegina, are not romanceable. It might be a little disappointing for some fans since these are some of the characters we know the most about. We’ve now had two titles to get to know each of them, but it doesn’t change what seem to be facts: neither is interested in pursuing a relationship with The Watcher, no matter how charming they think they are. Them’s the breaks.
It should also be worth noting that none of the sidekicks are romanceable. This makes sense since these characters have a limited history and serve more of a role of giving your battle party some different configurations, rather than being as fully fleshed out from a writing standpoint.
So that leaves Xoti, Teheku, Serafen, Maia, and Aloth as romanceable companions. Here’s the details on each of them.
Serafen: Serafen’s one true love is the sea, and even if you make advances on him, it won’t become anything more than a one night stand. As far as we know so far, Serafen doesn’t readily approach the watcher like the other companions do, and as such, his romance is treated more like a side fling. In other words, it won’t lock you out of pursuing other romances or otherwise cause any deadlocks with the rest of the crew. So he’s there if blue and crass is your thing.
Xoti: Xoti’s romance can be a little bit tricky depending on how you approach her crush on Eder, whether you encourage her to pursue anything with Maia, or if you gain too much negative reputation with her by taking more agnostic stances against any of Eora’s gods, particularly Eothas. That said, earning reputation with Xoti is usually pretty easy for good-dispositioned Watchers and she’ll generally approach you pretty early on.
Aloth: Unfortunately, it seems like some of Aloth’s tendencies remain as some of the buggiest in the game, so as a result, his romance seems like one of the most difficult to properly start. Compared to the other relatively easy-to-trigger romances in the game, reports suggest that Aloth will not approach you until you complete his companion quest “The Painted Masks”, and also have the requisite reputation with him. Completing his quest requires you to travel a ways north into the archipelago, so likely won’t be completed until fairly late in the game. Once you’ve established your relationship with him, the scene that you get during the game’s ending sequence will depend on your actions during his quest.
Maia: Maia is one of the more difficult romances to engage in, and not because of a buggy requirement, but instead because you have to perform a small little task for her bird, Ishiza. When tasked to find Shark Meat for the feathered friend, you’ll have to purchase it from a stall in Sayuka, found Northwest of Neketaka. Once this task is completed, Maia’s romance dialogs should be fully available to you, provided you aren’t seeing anyone else and have the requisite positive relationship with her.
Teheku: Teheku is a bit of a flirtatious fish, so he’s one of the easiest to romance in Deadfire. The availability of his romance kicking off nearly as soon as you meet him might be partially due to a buggy trigger, but it’s also pretty much completely in character for him. That said, his dialogue is pretty much as expected, and he doesn’t even have a companion quest component to flesh out his character like the rest of the crew. Pursuing a relationship with him will spark some interesting dialogue between you and Ondra.
Companion Romances in Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire
Xoti and Eder: Early on in the game, Xoti will confess to the Watcher that she has begun to eye Eder as a potential love interest. These are some of the earliest companions you get in the game, so it’s understandable that the two might hit it off. Both also have rural upbringings and strong ties to worshiping Eothas. At this point however, it seems like the attraction remains one way, and never grows into anything more than a passing crush.
Xoti and Maia: At some point after Xoti’s ceases to pursue Eder once her advances are stalled, she’ll approach you about budding feelings for Maia. The biggest obstacle in getting this companion romance to trigger isn’t meeting a specific reputation require, but rather just that you must use both characters in your party for a moderate amount of time so that the pair can get acquainted. It’s possible to miss this option at all if you happen to only have one or neither in your favorite dungeoneering crew.
Eder and Iselmyr: According to some file-scraping done by savvy players on the official game forums, Eder may actually have, or at least had planned at one point, a romance option with Iselmyr, the female presence carried inside of Aloth. This would be an interesting relationship to have, for several numerous and obvious reasons, but it seemingly hasn’t been confirmed to be in the game at this point. Or at least, it may require some very specific triggers. The most obvious of which being that Iselmyr likely can’t have been fully suppressed during the events of the original game.