Romance options in Jade Empire

In Jade Empire, the player can choose to play as a male or female player-character. Male PCs can have relationships with three NPCs: one male, Sky, and two female, Dawn Star (the player character’s adoptive sibling, regardless of gender, and Silk Fox’s cousin) and Silk Fox (the player character’s adoptive cousin, regardless of gender, and Dawn Star’s cousin) . The male player-character can also romance both female NPCs at the same time and reportedly have a threesome with them. The female PC can only romance Sky and Silk Fox. All romances are pursued or not through conversations between the PC and NPCs and “require that the player character take an interest in the other character’s thoughts and background” (Romance, n.d.).

Loadscreen-DawnStar

Dawn Star Image credit Image credit http://jadeempire.wikia.com/wiki/Romance

As a male PC, the player does have the option to romance Sky (a male NPC) but only if they are “unpleasant and dismissive” to the female NPCs Dawn Star and Silk Fox. If the player-character has expressed no interest in the two women, Sky will ask whether it’s “because…” A dialog option allows the player to say it is because of Sky. That is, only by actively rebuffing female characters (not simply being indifferent to them) will the game allow for the same-sex male relationship option, indicating the PC can only be gay and not bisexual, and even as gay has to have active disinterest in all women’s advances. Yet Silk Fox and Sky are ostensibly bisexual, as they are romance options for male and female PCs. Indeed Sky had a wife (now deceased), making it possible for him to be considered a bisexual character.

In contrast, as the female PC can pursue Silk Fox without having already rejected Sky’s advances. However, to continue to romance Silk Fox as a female PC, the player has to “break off with any heterosexual pairings before a particular dialogue in the middle of chapter three” (Kirby, Romantic Entanglements). It is not possible to have any threesome endings with a female PC. Moreover, it requires downloading a mod for the player to be able to see the male player-character kiss Sky. A similar mod is required for seeing the female PC and Silk Fox kiss. Without the mod, the same-sex kisses are not shown on screen while the male-female kisses are. All of the male PC romance option scenes can be see in this video (we have yet to find a similar video for the female PC romances).

Reportedly (here and here), it is also possible for Dawn Star and Silk Fox to end up together, but we can find no additional details on that relationship. These might be a reference to the potential threesome love scene, which is implied but not shown in the game.

Interestingly, only Dawn Star and Silk Fox’s fates are tied to whether or not they were romanced by the player-character. Sky lives at the end of the game, regardless of if he was romanced. Dawn Star lives unless her alignment changes to Closed Fist and the PC did not romance her. Silk Fox lives if her alignment changes to Closed Fist and she is not “romanced and convinced.”

Citations:

  1. Burnouts3s3. (2014, August 4). Jade Empire: Silk Fox Lesbian Kiss. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB9DmVZ4V-w
  2. Dawn Star. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jadeempire.wikia.com/wiki/Dawn_Star
  3. Jade Empire. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Empire
  4. Jade Empire has a homosexual romance? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/35514-jade-empire-has-a-homosexual-romance
  5.  Jade Empire-How To Unlock Gay Romance? (n.d.). Retrieved from http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=569626
  6. Killerpenguin069. (2009, July 1). Jade Empire Male kiss with sky UNCUT. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0a8seQ8bU4
  7. Kirby, P. (2008, September 16). Jade Empire- The Character Development Guide. IGN FAQs. Retrieved from http://www.ign.com/faqs/2008/jade-empire-character-development-faqguide-910001
  8. LGBT characters in video games. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_characters_in_video_games
  9. masmith3200. (2005). Jade Empire: Romance Sub-Plots. IGN FAQs. http://www.ign.com/faqs/2005/jade-empire-romance-sub-plot-faq-608106
  10. Pitchingace88. (2010, June 22). Jade Empire [Epilogue 1]- All Romance Scenes. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJq_M9DI1W0
  11. Player character. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jadeempire.wikia.com/wiki/Player_character
  12. Romance. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jadeempire.wikia.com/wiki/Romance
  13. Silk Fox. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jadeempire.wikia.com/wiki/Silk_Fox
  14. Way of the Closed Fist. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://jadeempire.wikia.com/wiki/Closed_Fist