Game Guides, Video Games

ME2: How to Romance Garrus Vakarian

A lot of people find my blog using the search phrase “how do I romance Garrus?”, so I figured I’d provide some answers.

WARNING: THE SUCCEEDING PARAGRAPHS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS.

I’ll try to keep spoilers at a minimum, but I honestly can’t see how I can avoid putting spoilers in a How to Romance Garrus guide.

Step One: Recruit Garrus

Obviously, you’ll need to get Garrus into your squad so that you can romance him. The Illusive Man will provide three dossiers for people you can recruit into your squad. One of them is a dossier for “Archangel”, who can be found on Omega.

EDI and Miranda will recommend that you go after “The Professor” first, and I suggest you do it. You’ll need “The Professor” to unlock the Tech Lab on the Normandy SR-2 to upgrade your weapons/armor/ship, which will help you get through the Archangel mission.

Once you rescue Archangel from the mercs that are ganging up on him, Garrus will join your squad.

Step Two: Complete his Loyalty Quest

After a few missions, your squad members will start asking you for help on personal matters. These are their Loyalty Quests. Completing these quests will secure their loyalty to you and open up romance options. Not sure when Garrus’ Loyalty Quest activates—just do a few missions first and it should trigger.

Garrus’ Loyalty Quest involves tracking down and attempting to assassinate someone. Once you’ve helped him find the target, you have to choose to either let Garrus go through with the assassination or convince him not to take the shot. Whatever you choose to do, you’ll complete the quest and earn his loyalty.

Step Three: Flirt with him!

After you finish his Loyalty Quest, Garrus will tell you an entertaining story about an experience he had while preparing for a high-risk mission on a turian ship. I’m sure you can figure out which dialogue options are the flirty ones without me spelling it out for you. :p

If you’re done with this step, congratulations! Garrus is now your love interest.

Step Four: Stay interested in him!

Garrus will eventually have another conversation with you, and all you have to do here is to reassure him that you like him. After that dialogue, you will have the option to break the romance off whenever you want by telling him that you just “want to be friends”. But why would you want to do that?

Step Five: ENJOY.

Right before the final suicide mission, Garrus will visit you in your cabin. I’m sure you can take it from there. 😉

Having trouble romancing Garrus?

You might not be able to romance Garrus if:

  1. You’re romancing someone else at the same time.
  2. You romanced Kaidan in the first Mass Effect game, kept him alive, and didn’t tell Kelly it was over between the two of you.

The solution to #1 is simple: end the romance with the other person, and assure Garrus there won’t be a love triangle.

The second one…well. Not sure how to resolve that one, as the Shepards in the ME save files I carried over to ME2 didn’t romance Kaidan.


23 thoughts on “ME2: How to Romance Garrus Vakarian

  1. Ack, so I did what you said, but Garrus…he turned me down! 🙁 Something about not wanting to be a name on my list of conquests…

    I had been sexing up Jacob quite a lot in the game prior to being able to talk to Garrus, and I did have a thing with Kaiden in the first game. I’m guessing my pure sex driveness towards Jacob had something to do with this, even though I hadn’t gotten to the point where I had to break it off with him, because I did Jacob’s loyalty mission quite a bit after Garrus’. Know anything for certain?

    1. Whoa, I’m not sure what went down there – I played as a Shepard that romanced Jacob first, but I didn’t have any issues with Garrus when I decided to romance him instead (aside from Jacob getting all miffed and calling Garrus a cuttlebone).

      I’ve never encountered any complaints about either of my two my Shepards “lists of conquests” from Garrus…and neither of them have romanced Kaidan. That makes me think you were right in assuming that that probably had something to do with it. 😐

    2. Hi I think the Kaiden romance drove garrus away. At some point in the 2nd game you’re talking to someone that asks how you feel about kaiden after seeing him again on horizon. I think it’s kelly. You should say that you don’t feel for him or say it’s history now. That will probably make Garrus available to you. Just don’t flirt with Kelly too much because it becomes an option at that point :). ( As for a source…. I romanced Kaiden in one and was able to romance garrus in two no prob by doing this)

    3. I have a glitch too. I haven’t really been flirting with anybody and I’ve progressed Garrus as far as I can. He said he’d do me he just needs to do some research. Mordin isn’t talking about sex so I don’t know what the deal is.

  2. OJSKNCKSAIFDHIJAKJNCAICH. I’m so in love with him! x3 Thanks for this, I looked at guides and when I saw some of the stuff they said about it, I thought I royally screwed my profile over.

    1. Hey, no problem! It’s always fun to help other fangirls out. Garrus is the best (even if I think ME3 sucks)! :p

  3. Well, I’m playing ME2 third or fourth time and I did romanced Garrus and it was after Kaidan in ME1, now I didn’t “do” (xD) Kaidan because I wanted my Shepard to be only with Garrus from ME2 and now I don’t even get the flirty line with Shepard’s “blowing off steam”. He gave me the story about his blowing off steam and… my Shep has got “investigate” (and he’s telling the story again) and “goodbye”. What the hell happend? I told Kelly that Kaidan (and no-romanced Kaidan!) is the history. I shouldn’t hug her, right? :/
    OR maybe it’s just too early?

    1. Sorry, had to edit your comment to avoid spoilers! :p

      You’re supposed to have two conversations about that “blowing off steam” bit, as listed in steps 3 and 4. Try doing a few more missions, then try going back to talk to him for the follow-up conversation. 🙂

      1. Oh, I’m sorry about spoilers!
        And thank you very much for your answer… BUT we get the flirty options in step 3, right after his loyalty quest, yes? And in step 4 we get another one? OR we get just the story in step 3 and flirty options later will be available and then step 4?
        Sorry for digging in this so much but I don’t know what to do now. Play and hope that everything will be ok or start from my last save and avoid e.g hugging? 😛 (and I did the most stupid thing – my last save is from Horizon – 7h of playing to the point where I am now. stupid, oh, stupid me)

        Ps. And you must forgive me my English, but it’s definitely not my mother tongue 🙂

  4. Thank you once again. You were extremely helpful! I do not have the option with easing stress together. So I’m going back to Horizon… (and now I know that Kelly is not so unimportant and I just wanted somebody to feed my fishes ;p)

  5. First off, thank you very much for this guide. I have gone through the game several times as male Shep and did romances just for the funny comments that come up. Tali was my fav. Now I am going through it as fem Shep and didn’t think that one was open for Garrus
    Secondly, yes I am a guy. As I said, I do romances for the fun comments in ME 3.

  6. Heh, Loyalty Mission, makes sense…I’m 90% certain I said it was over with Kaiden…Here’s hoping:3

    hehe *flees to complete loyalty mission and woo the turian <3 thanks for the tips!

  7. I have just started the game, and made it past the first Horizon mission. However since I first got Garrus (before Horizon) I have had only one conversation with him. After that, whenever I try to have a conversation with him to further our relationship, he just replies with ” Can it wait for a minute, I’m in the middle of some calibrations”… It’s really frustrating and worrying. Has anyone else had this? (By the way, I have not played the first ME and have had no prior relationships. )

    1. You have to play some other missions/assignments then later Kelly will tell you that Garrus wants to talk to you… hopefully that helps.

      Xoxox, Trig

  8. I’ve used the blow off steam option, I’ve talked to him again using the correct dialogue options, and Mordin still won’t mention sex! Help D:

    1. And of course it takes me a MONTH to reply to this comment. Sorry! -____- I hope you’ve managed to figure it out! If not…

      I would suggest doing a few more missions and getting back to Mordin afterward. Another commenter, Darcy, seemed to have the same issue back in 2012, and I’m not sure if they managed to resolve it! 🙁

  9. HELP PLEASE!
    I need help, I was playing me2 and then my little brother wanted to play so I let him. [SPOILERS AHEAD] and he got the romance dialogue and he got the “blow off steam” bit too, but instead of saying that’s not what I meant, he insisted they should fight, and Garrus said he didn’t want to be on the list that she best up. Later on he saved, and I did the suicide mission and I later on realized he did this because the romance options weren’t there! Do other options or chances come up? I don’t want to do the whole game over again! The last save I have is after Horizon

    1. As far as I know, you won’t get another chance to start the romance if you don’t flirt with him during the “blowing off steam” bit. 🙁

      BUT.

      [SPOILERZ AHEAD]

      If by “Garrus said he didn’t want to be on the list that she best up” you mean that he said “I know you’ve got other options,” then you’ve encountered the love triangle dialogue. You might have another chance to fix it! Check out what I wrote under the “AN ADDITIONAL WARNING BASED ON OTHER PLAYERS’ OBSERVATIONS” in this post to see what you can do. 🙂

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