Dragon Age: The Veilguard's relationship levels can be earned through becoming friends with our companions, not just romancing them. This means it won't just be our character's partner who gets new abilities, as some had initially suspected.
This was explained by an executive producer at BioWare, Michael Gamble, when answering questions from fans on social media. Here, he shares a bit more detail on how relationship levels will work, reassuring fans that they won't be locked out of unique abilities because they didn't fancy any of their companions.
The wording here is interesting. Gamble says that the relationship levels of each companion will "progress as you play with them", which definitely confirms that we don't need to romance them, and friendships will be just fine. However, it could also be leaving the door open for other routes of unlocking abilities, perhaps by just having companions in our party, even if they don't approve of our choices.
With all this said, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is supposed to be the most romantic BioWare game yet , so you might not want to avoid this mechanic entirely.
If that is the case, it might work similarly to Dragon Age 2. This had a...