When it comes to big-budget video games, Mass Effect has traditionally been a rather progressive franchise that allows for a variety of different novels, depending on your character’s sexual orientation. But during the development of Mass Effect 2, a potential case was apparently adjusted due to an alarmist news clip.
Players in the galactic RPG theft game may remember a certain mercurial character named Jack, who in the course of the game reveals that she was once part of a throuple with a man and a woman. But, bizarrely, Jack could only be courted by male Shepards in the game – which left some fans confused. Well, there is a reason for that.
According to a recent interview conducted by TheGamer with Mass Effect 2 writer Brian Kindregan, Jack was initially conceived as a pansexual character who could like anyone. Polygon contacted BioWare to comment on this anecdote.
“I was trying to draw the arc of [Jack’s] romance, which during much of the development – in fact, it was too late that it became an exclusively male / female romance, ”says Kindregan. “She was essentially pansexual during most of the development of this novel.”
But after Fox News aired a segment that made a big fuss over an optional sex scene in Mass Effect 1, the writer’s office was nervous about the follow-up. In the clip, participants say that allowing a sex scene in a video game is like opening the “Pandora’s box” because children could see it.
“They don’t show women as being valued for anything other than their sexuality,” said a personality about the first game, which is a bold statement, as it allowed players to choose a female protagonist. Experts continue to rely on their ignorance, claiming that there is total nudity in the game, which does not exist. Even so, the segment was a business big enough that the news network influenced the development of the sequence.
“Mass Effect had been criticized in a really unfair way in the USA by Fox News, which at the time … maybe more people in the world thought there was a connection between reality and what is discussed on Fox News,” says Kindregan. “The development team of Mass Effect 2 it was a very progressive and open-minded team, but I think there was a concern at very high levels that [the first] Mass effect, who only had a gay relationship, Liara – who on paper was not technically a gay relationship because she was a kind of unique gender – I think there was a concern that if it had generated fire, that Mass Effect 2 had to be a little careful. “
And so the novel was changed in the eleventh hour of development, although at that point, a few lines of dialogue that suggested a different route had already been recorded and put into the game. That’s why jack looks pansexual, although not really available that way. (Some fans have modified it back, however.)
“I worked with lesbian developers who came up to me and said, ‘Why isn’t Jack in the mood for me?'” Says Kindregan. “And I have to say, ‘I’m sorry, it’s partly my fault.’ But I still maintain the idea of maintaining it with a more varied background. Perhaps one day Jack will be portrayed as a pot. “
It’s been years since Mass Effect 2, of course, and during that time, BioWare launched games that include options beyond heterosexuality. And when the developer fails, the fans make noise. After the launch of Mass Effect Andromeda, players discovered that a character had lines that referred to a potential gay romance that was not really in the game. Following a negative reaction, BioWare updated Andromeda to allow pairing.