Kindegran explained the reasoning behind the change, pointing out that the media in the US had criticized: “Mass Effect has been quite heavily and really unfairly criticized in the US by Fox News,” Kindegran told The Gamer, referring to a panel in 2007 on usage. of sex scenes in the first game. “‘The development team of Mass Effect 2 was a fairly progressive, open-minded team, but I think there was concern at fairly high levels that if Mass Effect, which had only one gay relationship, Liara – who on paper is technically not a gay relationship because she was of a single sex species – I think there was concern that Mass Effect 2 had to be a little cautious if it caught fire. ‘
Kindegran disagrees with the change, but told The Gamer that it was done in an effort to “reduce the amount of criticism that will be directed at the community by stores like Fox News.”
“It was not like an anti-gay person in the Mass Effect 2 team saying, ‘We are not going to have this.'” Instead, it had to do with the firestorm of controversy that Mass Effect received in 2007, ‘Kindegran added. Changes to Jack’s romance options apparently came late in the game’s development due to the controversy, when the development team was told to ‘concentrate the relationships on a more traditional kind of vector’.
In other Mass Effect news, check out this concept art for the next Mass Effect game, which appears in the book ‘Bioware: Stories and Secrets from 25 Years of Game Development’. You can return to the original Mass Effect trilogy in the upcoming Legendary Edition, which you can now pre-order, ahead of rumors on March 12th.
Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.