Verified answer
Quick answer
Four independent launch guides identify Anca, Lacra, and Crake (also called Marat in route coverage) as the three currently confirmed romance options. The guides report that all three routes can be advanced in one playthrough, but this is not an official guarantee.
Romance is tied to companion quest progress and end-of-chain choices, not a verified gift-grind system. Keep manual saves before the final relationship scenes because minimum dialogue flags and recovery paths have not been fully isolated.
Evidence checked September 8, 2026. The three-route list is launch-guide consensus, not an official permanent roster.
For the route-specific steps and save points, use the Anca Quest & Romance, Lacra Quest & Romance and Choices & Consequences.
Confirmed launch romance options
Four independent launch guides converge on three romance routes:
- Anca Laslea
- Lacra
- Crake / Marat
This is strong launch-guide consensus, not an official statement that the list can never change. The guides also report that all three can be advanced in one playthrough, but they do not expose the underlying exclusivity flags or guarantee that every combination survives every quest decision.
| Romance | Route anchor | Final relationship point | Main risk | | ----------------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------ | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Anca | Begins in Laslea during the prologue and continues through her Font of Life quest chain | Return to the inn after Stronger Than Achilles | Missing personal-quest progress or selecting the explicit friendship response | | Lacra | Begins with A Friend Like This in northeast Svartrau | Mandrake sequence at the end of The Night of Horrors | Skipping the Mandrake branch or committing to Midnight Reckoning first | | Crake / Marat | Develops through the Manumit quest line | A Closer Look after Distant Shadows | Skipping prerequisite Manumit quests or rejecting the kiss |
Romance is quest-driven. The checked guides do not describe a gift system, a visible affection meter, or a difficulty requirement.
Anca route
Complete Anca’s companion chain in the supported order:
- Page Turner — optional.
- Echoes of Silenced Bells.
- The Most Precious Thing — optional.
- Between the Words.
- Where Old Devils Lie after the required one-day wait.
- Stronger Than Achilles.
- Return to the inn for the relationship resolution.
Choose supportive or flirtatious responses, but do not assume every flirt is mandatory. The minimum successful flag set was not isolated. Preserve saves before the Font decision and before returning to the inn.
PC Gamer's successful route uses Page-Turner for early flirting, prepares tea during Between the Words, explores the optional personal questions in Where Old Devils Lie, and chooses direct affection during Stronger Than Achilles. The same guide says the final decision in Echoes of Silenced Bells does not block the romance.
At the Font, Coen, Anca, or neither can receive the outcome. PC Gamer reports that the romance can still complete after any Font choice, while allowing Anca to use it gives her the most positive character result in that route. Treat that as an ending preference rather than a hidden romance requirement.
Lacra route
Start from the Focus Mode clue below Svartrau’s northeast wall and meet Lacra after following the rooftop trail at night. Continue through A Friend Like This, A Song of the Mountain, Hive and Seek, Our Rotten Roots, and The Night of Horrors. Midnight Reckoning is a later ending commitment, not another ordinary romance step.
Detailed launch walkthroughs agree on the final sequence: eat the Mandrake, follow Lacra, answer honestly, drink when she opens her wrist, and choose the kiss. Allowing Lacra to eat the Mandrake or refusing it ends the sequence without the romance scene in the cited walkthrough.
Earlier compassionate decisions are the safest setup. Spare Nish in A Friend Like This, resolve the Uriash standoff peacefully in A Song of the Mountain, and continue the personal conversation in Our Rotten Roots. Public guides do not expose a numeric threshold, so these should be read as a documented successful route rather than proof that every line is mandatory.
Crake / Marat route
Advance the Manumit quest chain through The Firebrand, Shadows in the Woods, and Where Loyalty Lies. PC Gamer then places What Hunts the Night and What Moves the Dead before the decisive pair: complete Distant Shadows before A Closer Look. Accept Crake's background when the conversation presents it, then return the kiss during the relationship resolution.
Crake is also called Marat in route coverage, which is why searches and dialogue guides may use both names. Joining the Manumits through Where Loyalty Lies preserves more context; going directly to their Svartrau hideout can start the route but may skip scenes.
One source describes a blue-clock timing marker on part of this route. Because that detail was not independently corroborated, verify the current UI rather than assuming a universal cost from the guide alone.
Can you romance all three?
PC Gamer, PowerPyx, and VGC report that the three routes are not mutually exclusive and can be advanced in one playthrough. That does not mean every combination of faction choices and unfinished quests will preserve all three epilogues. If seeing every relationship scene matters, finish each companion chain before the final route and keep separate saves before their decisive scenes.
Romancing a character and securing their preferred epilogue are also different goals. Anca's Font outcome, Crake's later Manumit progress, and Lacra's completed companion chain can affect what appears after the ending even when the intimacy scene already played.
Save strategy
Keep rotating saves at four kinds of points:
- Before starting a companion quest that shows a time cost
- Before day-long waits
- Before a final companion choice or kiss prompt
- Before any broader story point of no return
The evidence does not prove that a missed romance prompt can always be recovered. It also does not support a gift-spam system or a universal relationship meter. Quest completion and final dialogue choices are the documented route anchors.
Add a fifth save before the final mission if you want to compare epilogues. Do not overwrite it while collecting mutually exclusive ending outcomes.
Troubleshooting a missing romance scene
- Confirm the complete personal quest chain, not just the first meeting.
- Check the required time of day; Lacra's route is night-focused.
- Reopen optional white dialogue questions, which can lead to yellow relationship choices.
- Verify that an ending commitment such as Midnight Reckoning has not moved the story past the companion scene.
- Reload the most recent pre-decision save if the explicit friendship or rejection option was selected.
Patch 1.0.2 lists several quest blockers but does not publish a complete romance-flag change log. A missing scene on a later build should be diagnosed from the journal and prerequisites before using an old community workaround.
Frequently misunderstood points
Can Coen romance everyone in one run? Launch guides say the three routes can be advanced in one playthrough, but this is not an official guarantee for every choice combination.
Does difficulty affect romance? None of the cited route guides establishes a difficulty requirement or modifier.
Are gifts required? No verified gift-grind requirement was found.
Can a failed route be repaired? Recovery conditions were not fully isolated. Reloading a pre-decision save is the only consistently defensible safety step.