Highlights

  • Romance and marriage were new additions in Skyrim, but the system was limited and leaves much room for improvement in future Elder Scrolls games.
  • To enhance romance, Elder Scrolls 6 could separate romance from marriage, focus on better storytelling with popular characters, and create more natural relationship progressions.

The Elder Scrolls is a series with great characters and seemingly endless worlds for players to explore. While Skyrim was the fifth addition to The Elder Scrolls, it was the first to make the addition of marriage to the series. While previous games in The Elder Scrolls involved recurring characters and relationships with the player character, none of them involved romances, with any romances needing to be imagined on the player's part. The inclusion of romance and marriage in Skyrim was a welcome one, but it was a limited system, and The Elder Scrolls 6 has a lot of space to make it much better.

The Elder Scrolls 6 Logo over an Enchanting Table from Skyrim
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The Romance and Marriage System in Skyrim

Getting Married in Skyrim

The basis of how The Elder Scrolls 6 can improve romance lies in how marriage works in Skyrim. Romance and marriage in Skyrim involve having at least a positive relationship with an NPC and an Amulet of Mara. While the Dragonborn is wearing the Amulet, any NPC eligible for marriage will suggest marriage. If the Dragonborn agrees, a ceremony will be held at the Temple of Mara in Riften, with all the Dragonborn's closest NPC acquaintances and followers in attendance. The couple will then move into one of the Dragonborn's homes or the NPC's home.

After Marriage

The Dragonborn's new spouse, regardless of their role before marriage, will then stay at the home and give new spouse dialogue lines. These lines are the same for all spouses and can be a little jarring depending on the NPC's role before marriage. Some NPCs—who had large story roles in guilds and who had distinct personalities—suddenly switching their personalities to very different ones is extremely strange and also dissatisfying for anyone who wants to romance a specific character hoping they remain authentic.

How to Improve Romances in The Elder Scrolls 6

The First Step

While the process of marriage in Skyrim is better than nothing, there are a number of ways The Elder Scrolls 6 could make romance better. The first thing it can do is separate romance and marriage, so player characters don't have to get married to romance a character. Another option would be to make the pool of romance candidates smaller so that the romances could be better written and a more integrated part of the story. Popular characters who have major roles in the story, such as Serana from Skyrim: Dawnguard, and Vilkas and Farkas from the Companions are popular romance options and would have benefited from their own romance storylines rather than the dozens of NPCs in Skyrim.

Tying the Plot

Main characters from other games in The Elder Scrolls have also been popular, such as Martin Septim from The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. The Elder Scrolls 6 could take major characters from its storylines that Bethesda anticipates will be popular and give them their own optional romance story arcs. A system like this would give players fewer romance options, but it would result in better storytelling and more narratively satisfying romances. It would also avoid removing NPC personalities once they get married to the player character.

A More Natural Progression

Marriage in Skyrim is also extremely abrupt, with the entire marriage process in Skyrim beginning and ending in around two in-game days; the process should be longer and more gradual to feel more natural and progressive. If The Elder Scrolls 6 ties romance to a story arc, such as the Dragonborn's relationship with Serana in Dawnguard, the natural progression of the story will allow the relationship to progress at a reasonable pace that feels far more natural than the marriage system in Skyrim.