Polygon's favorite (romantic) ships of 2023

The year 2023 gave fans a remarkable year full of sizzling romance. Baldur's Gate 3 had players falling in love – and then making love – with its sexy and eclectic group of misfits. The Resident Evil 4 remake gave Leon Kennedy a head-to-toe makeover and turned him into a bona fide internet baby girl. Outside of matches, old fan favorite Satoru Gojo made his long-awaited return to the Jujutsu Kaisen animation.

I love it all, but sometimes the source material isn't enough. It never hurts to add a little extra spice to the stories. We just want characters to kiss each other! Sometimes… it's just a little more fun to ship.

Whether it's steamy, slow-burn fanfic or sharing perfectly edited character clips online, character shipping helps expand our favorite worlds in exciting ways. Ships and all that romance are the fuel to fuel the roaring engine of fandom. That's why we've decided to bring together our favorite ships and romantic combinations of 2023.

Shadowheart and Lae'zel from Baldur's Gate 3

If I had a nickel for every sprawling RPG with romance options that had a super-duper immersive sapphic enemies-to-lovers ship that was so good I couldn't find it in my heart to go between pairing it with my player character come, I would have two nickels. That's not much, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Anyway, Shadowheart and Lae'zel out Baldur's Gate 3 I've earned a place in my shipper's heart, next to Miranda Lawson and Jack from Mass Effect. They have such a wonderful chemistry, the kind of antagonism that comes from actually being in very similar positions, but refusing to acknowledge it because that would be admitting your own faults and shortcomings. I also love a spicy knife-to-the-throat scene!!!!!! —Petrana Radulovic

Zelda and Link from The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

Justice for Link and Prince Sidon shippers!!!!! Nintendo really did a dirty job on Prince Sidon and Link's romance this year when it came out Tears of the kingdom. Apparently Sidon is not only straight, but also engaged to a lady named Yona? Link didn't ride Sidon at all. Boo! Anyway, I love this game for the way it portrays such a beautiful and never-ending love between Link and Zelda. It was the first time I felt like I really understood Zelink shippers, and why I would now count myself among them. —Ana Diaz

Leon and Luis from Resident Evil 4

Most people play Resident Evil 4 – either the original 2005 game or the recent remake – ships dreamboat protagonist Leon S. Kennedy with looks-barely-legal-but-she's-actually-20-something Ashley Graham or mysterious femme fatale Ada Wong . These two women conform to the typical dichotomy between Madonna and whore, and what could be more boring than that? Plus, Leon always comes across as so awkward as a person that I always saw him as a semi-closeted queer swiping through Grindr on the DL. (OK, in 2005 it was Craigslist and not Grindr, but you follow it anyway.) For all these reasons, I see Leon's true love RE4 as Luis, the flamboyant Spanish babe who even gets a few lines of dialogue in the remake. The only problem with their relationship becoming more serious (because I can only do that). contract they have connected) is that in a regular bathroom they will not have enough space for each of their respective hair products. —Maddy Myers

Janine and Gregory from Abbott Elementary

It's no secret that Janine and Gregory are meant for each other Abbott Elementary. Sure, this ship is predictable and maybe not that exciting! But also consider: both characters rule.

They've been my endgame for a long time, like so many other sitcom couples – the same way we all knew Nick and Jesse were meant to be New girland that Chidi and Eleanor would end up together in every life The right place. Ever since those shows ended their runs, I had been waiting for another slow-burn romance to hit the scene. Abbot's slow burn is refreshing because it doesn't rely on pure hijinx or plot contrivances to keep the leads apart. Janine and Gregory are both full of heart, carry so much (matching) baggage and do their best to show up for their students every day. They're so incredibly clumsy that they struggle to read each other's signals, and yet they keep trying – because their relationship is built on a foundation of friendship and trust.

This friendship also means that they make excellent scene partners, whose conversations flow very smoothly from flirty banter to serious and consistent. Gregory helps Janine withdraw from her naive improvement projects, while she helps him gain self-confidence. I often think of the scene where Janine quietly calls out the decorative classroom posters from Gregory's office supply store. Gregory then shares all the drawings his students make of him; viewers realize he has no idea how loved he is. Janine – who already knows this – helps him see it, and maybe he starts to believe in it a little himself. —Nicole Clark

Literally all Owl House ships (Luz and Amity, Hunter and Willow, Eda and Raine)

I simply can't choose one! Am I in the mood for a friends-to-lovers rivalry where a mean girl goes from rude to infatuated with the plucky hero? Or for a spiky boy who is secretly super soft and a soft girl who is secretly a badass, both of whom are outcasts in their own ways but find comfort in each other? Or a decades-long friendship-to-lovers-to-exes-to-estranged-acquaintances-to-reconciled-allies, as they mutually pine for each other after their relationship fell apart all those years ago? The Owl House kept us fed. —PR

Bronya and Seele from Honkai: Star Rail

I haven't even played the other Honkai games, but apparently Seele and Bronya are lesbians in every universe. I literally love these two. One is a tough punk leader of an underground grassroots organization that helps the poor, and the other is a world ruler originally raised ignorant of the brutality of the state. It's a match made in Heaven! —ADVERTISEMENT

Haymitch Abernathy and Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games

After I saw it The ballad of songbirds and snakes, I got to work a bit on the Hunger Games and reread the original trilogy. And let me tell you, if you read these books as an adult, you'll see Haymitch as the most popular character. The film trilogy had already planted some Effie and Haymitch in my mind, but rereading it made me want to write a fiction from Haymitch and Effie's perspective, where everything is mostly the same, except they're in secret all the time. have had contact. —PR

The player and Rusty from Armored Core 6

You just have to respect a ship where almost every part is something invented wholesale by the fans. Rusty and the player character in it Armored core 6 have chemistry, don't get me wrong – but you never see this character's face in the game! In the mercenary hellscape of AC6But in the post-apocalyptic, corporate-controlled gig economy, any friendly voice in your ear is enough to make you fall in love. Every piece of fan art I've seen of Rusty depicts him beautifully. But who cares about his literal physical form! It turned out that it didn't take any player to believe that Rusty believes in us. —MM

Geto and Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen

Have you ever loved your brother so much that it made you radicalize and hate the entire human race? No? Well, this isn't really what happens with SatoSugu, a popular pairing that matches the infamous Satoru Gojo with Suguru Geto in the anime and manga Jujutsu Kaisen. Their love story is about a teenage bond gone wrong. I'm still sad they broke up, but hey, at least the Mappa is great at delivering appealing characters. -ADVERTISEMENT

Keefe and Kelvin from The Righteous Gemstones

The best ships sneak up on you, and none more so than Kelvin and Keefe The righteous gems. Every character on this show is so weird, not just because the Gemstone family is rich (yes, rich people are weird, I said it), but because the family business is televangelism. Kelvin is one of three adult siblings vying to inherit his family's megachurch mantle, but he's so far in the closet that my gaydar readings were confused for the entire first season. Closeted Christian adults are like that in real life, and yet it's not that funny The righteous gems manages to make it funny and even heartwarming as Kelvin's dependence on his ex-Satanist BFF Keefe grows stronger and stranger. Will God forgive them? I think an agnostic: Yes!! —MM

Kaveh and Alhaitham from Genshin Impact

Sometimes the best ship is one that feels the most real. This is why I love Alhaitham and Kaveh Genshin impact. Together the two behave like an old bickering couple. Kaveh will make snide comments about the decor and Alhaitham will groan like an old bear. It's not exactly steamy or hot, but it feels stupidly homey and entirely possible. It's basically canon, right? —ADVERTISEMENT