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Bioware's Perspective
🕑 Added 2022-12-23 14:00:02 +0000 UTC
January 2021, you might've remembered a headline spreading around from various gaming sites about Mass Effect 2's tattooed psychotic biotic, Subject Zero, AKA, Jack; that she was originally Pansexual but made straight in response to the Fox News controversy that Mass Effect 1 stirred up.
Due to the climate of gaming at the time, Bioware's open team were worried into removing that aspect of Jack's character, at least to those playing Commander Shepard.
While I'm not going to make an entire case study around this one decision for a game that during development had to make thousands, I do believe it's consistent with the rest of Bioware's style of writing during this period.
Mainly, that for as much as Bioware put an emphasis on writing in their games, I don't think they actually wrote in the pursuit of storytelling.
That sounds confusing, I'll try to clarify.
So… Miranda Lawson is the perfect woman.
She's tough, educated, authoritative, sexy, assertive, cunning, and a leader in even the most advanced projects humanity's ever conceived…
Yet Commander Shepard is the icon.
Miranda, the perfect woman, is directing Cerberus' empire of wealth towards resurrecting another Woman who is single handedly recognized as the Galaxy's savior.
Everything is spent to bring back this woman literally from death so that she could lead humanity and potentially the rest of the galaxy to a future…
And then, to top off all this irony, Miranda Lawson, the Perfect Woman, falls in love with Commander Shepard, the woman she resurrected to lead humanity…
Doesn't this sound like a fucking great story?
One that invites all manner of intrigue, contradiction, and thematic undertones?
What the hell does it even mean to be the Perfect Woman? Especially when these two are absolutely nothing alike in upbringing, ideals, mentors, and personality?
How does a woman who was designed from birth design someone who had already lived for three decades to be exactly as they were remembered?
Is falling for this Woman motivating for Miranda, or derailing her entire identity?
There's so many layers to unpack here…
Well, actually there isn't, because Miranda's exclusive to Male Shepard… along with Jack, the pan-sexual prison breaking pirate.
Some might argue that those themes I brought up are still present in the game and work even as Male counterpart, but that's not generally how the game portrays this romance.
Early on, you do contest Miranda's understandable conceptions. You point out that she doesn’t need to describe herself as just a tool, even if she is capable and helpful to Cerberus, that doesn't need to be what defines her.
Later on she admits her insecurity. That despite everything gifted to her in life, she's not even close to the being like Shepard is… one line later, the line's used for talking about wanting to bang on the floor.
I'm exaggerating, but the conversations seem a bit all over the place, and by the end of Mass Effect 2's romance, amounts to little more than actually banging on the floor.
There was an opportunity to use Shepard's gender to thematically further a relationship with a character whose entire inner conflict is built around what it means to be proud of one's self… and it's ignored for a Femme Fatale that isn't one after one conversation.
For comparison, in Cyberpunk, Panam isn't (ironic screenshot I know) just a conquest for the player, but a character with real thematic ties to V, being somebody who was also the victim of a devastating betrayal sending their life into chaos, being pulled into Night City as their only salvation for a future life.
The difference being she did have the option of not going, and without spoiling everything about the game, leads to V having a similar realization.
In general, that's one of the big differences I notice in CD's writing compared to Bioware.
There's multiple quests in Cyberpunk which don't have anything to do about empowering the player, but realizing a character, world, or theme.
When talking to a neighbor who is feeling suicidal, one conversation doesn't solve their problems.
Helping Claire doesn't attach her to you.
Bioware games do have a couple quests and characters that exist beyond the player's power fantasy, but it seems that quite a few of those moments were met with frustration from players. I'm thinking of a partciular moment in Act 2 of Dragon Age 2 that I won't spoil for those who haven't played it, but it's… unsettling to say the least.
I think though reason why moments like that were considered frustrating for many Bioware players is because that's not what the games generally inform players.
They've been playing potentially three games in a row in Mass Effect that always tells them, if you pick the top Paragon option, things are going to work out, and it's because of you.
That's severely limiting.
I don't know exactly how you build an entire world, cast, and theme with that framework.
It's actually rather remarking that Mass Effect said as much as it did given this design.
Maybe we should thank all the people who skipped every side mission, only following those they explicitly cared about, and inadvertently put in danger, as most of the time, the most impactful, thematic, and complex themes in the entire series, were experienced by those who couldn't simply pick the Paragon Win button.
It's not that I'm against giving players choices that make them feel powerful, it's that I'm against making that framework that basis of your writing style.
I think it's what directly led to things as silly and hilarious as Miranda's ass taking up the screen while fearing for her Sister's life, and to things as flat out absurd as Shepard's opening death.
For all the talk about writing, writing, writing, writing, looking back on it, I think Bioware was taken as seriously for writing at the time more out of the incompetence of everybody else.
Comments
As someone who grew up loving Bioware's Mass Effect series, this might be my favorite critique I've ever read of the series. Going back to it now watching my fiance play the games, I'm repeatedly struck by how I love the moments you discuss more for my nostalgia than the prowess of the writing. After playing games like Divinity or Witcher or Cyberpunk, it's clear that while the Mass Effect games are still excellent in their setting and world, their plot and character writing has aged.
