Mass Effect 2 Cut Pansexual Romance After News Coverage

Mass Effect 2 writer Brian Kindregan has revealed that the party member Jack was intended to be a bi-sexual character and romance option for female Shepard players. Jack’s voice actress, Courtney Taylor, further confirmed that she recorded the lines for the romance scenes. However, in 2007 Fox News covered the original Mass Effect in a panel and made false claims about the game being an alien “rape simulator”. Despite Fox News later admitting that they never played the game, the damage was already done. Kindregan was asked to rewrite Jack late in development to help avoid another public relations scandal. Taylor noted that she was surprised that the lesbian romance option was cut. While the dialogue is no longer a standard option, modders of Mass Effect 2 were able to uncover the audio files within the game’s code.

 

Despite the controversy over the first Mass Effect, with Mass Effect 2 playing it safe it allowed more diverse expression when creating Mass Effect 3. In that title, it featured a male-male only relationship with pilot Steve Cortez, and a female-female one with communications officer Samantha Traynor.       

Kurtis Seid, NoobFeed
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