#i dont want to punish the player for exploring the game as an asshole

[northern-passage]

Are you able to talk about how you're going to approach Lea's character arc on the rival reassignment route?

Will it be a case of variances versus outher routes, flavour text, Lea going off with other companions at certain points in place of the Hunter?

I ask because admittedly I thought this is content we would not see on their route. Much like how certain choices can lock us out of a romance, I figured the same would apply for non-romance content.

Although typing that, in that scenario I guess if the player played their cards right, they could end up in a situation where the companions are just dropping one-liners like it's a post-story Bioware game.

That would make the Hunter a very lonely, lonely person. Eh, moreso than they currently are given everything.

yeah for the most part the scenes are just going to be different, but the same information will be relayed to the player.

you can potentially miss out on some scenes if you piss Lea off too much, or any of the companions for that matter; there are scenes in the second half of ch2 with Noel, for instance, that can make him very angry with you and will change the way that scene goes, and if you've been romancing him you'll miss out on a potential romantic scene since he'll cut the conversation short. same with Merry. Clementine is the only one exempt from this in ch2 because i don't give you the option to be mean to them 😇 but their scenes will differ whether or not they got hurt or if you traded them or not, etc.

with Lea, the structure of the scene and the dialogue choices will change, depending on your relationship, as well as how they respond to the dialogue depending on whether or not you agreed to talk to them later, or if you reaffirmed your partnership, if you yelled at them or let them down gently...

choices in one scene if you're "rivals":

choice 1: "I wanted a clean break." choice 2: "…I don't know." choice 3: "I think I just wanted to hurt you." choice 4: "I had to do something!"

versus the same scene and choices as "partners":

choice 1: "I don't know." choice 2: "I thought I could just ignore it..." choice 3: "I was scared." choice 4: "I don't trust you, Lea."

and, again, the exchange leading up to these choices is also different, mainly the tone and attitude of Lea, though the same information is exchanged. and there's a whole other set of scenes for if Lea is injured by Duncan that vary in the same way.

if you want to see it in action i would point you over to my other work, blood choke, which is farther along relationship-wise than tnp and has a significant amount of branching depending on how you treat the characters.

(hopefully this also sheds some light on why this shit is taking me so long to write 💀 lmfao)

there are going to be points of no return with the companions, you can potentially be locked out of Clem's and Lea's romance routes already, and if you're rivalry crosses the line into actively hostile, the companions will respond likewise. i wouldn't say it locks you out of their story arc, but it will change it, if that makes sense.