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By | mollipen |
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| Filed Under | News, USA, Video Games | ||
| Tags | bioware, commander shepard, mass effect |
Twitter really is a wonderful thing. Even if you don’t actively participate in it or the crazy “social network” created from it, at least you can enjoy the interesting bits of information (or drama) that come from its 140-character postings.
Today was one of those great days, as over on his Twitter account, BioWare marketing director David Silverman tweeted the following two replies:
@SilentKittyK the CE of #ME3 has both #FemShep and male Shepard on the box.
@ChrisCrowdly there will be a #FemShep trailer. We actually had a meeting on her yesterday. We are working on the look now.
Two very simple tweets that could easily have been passed over in whatever else was going on at those moments, but replies that lead us to something much bigger in the grand scheme of things.
Basically, David is telling us here that BioWare is finally, finally giving a nod to the female version of Commander Shepard in their marketing plans.
No doubt one of the marketing issues that comes up when trying to promote a game that heavily pushes the idea of a customizable main character is what kind of default or canonical version of the character to portray. Even though the choice between male and female Shepard (or “FemShep” as fans tend to call her online) are given equal weight in the game, it isn’t surprising that BioWare would decide to have the main portrayal of Shepard be male. (In fact, in data BioWare released for Mass Effect 2, only 18% of Shepards created in the game were female.)
Still, for fans of the female Shepard–a group I am indeed a part of–it’s always felt regrettable that she didn’t get at least some kind of acknowledgement. Let’s be fair: the male Commander Shepard that you see plastered on box art, magazine covers, and wherever else could be mistaken for a long list of other video game heroes if not for his trademark armor. When you see that character as the public face of Mass Effect games, while the awesome female Shepard (made awesome on no small part by her fantastic voice actress, Jennifer Hale) is relegated to fan-created trailer remixes, it can sting a little.
In the grand scheme of things, adding a female Shepard to the Collector’s Edition cover for Mass Effect 3 and making a version of a future preview video for the game based around her are relatively small things. However, they are one of a number of signs that BioWare are trying–either out of genuine desire or opportunity for a feel-good story on gaming news sites–to expand the appeal of the third game to a wider audience. Recently, it was announced that the game would be the first in the Mass Effect series to include the option for same-sex romances.
No, female Shepard getting it on with a “kind of but not fully female” blue aliens doesn’t count.
So, no matter the full intention behind this decision, kudos go to BioWare for making it. We FemShep fans and supporters appreciate it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, June 16th, 2011 at 5:41 am and is filed under News, USA, Video Games. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
