PRIDE 2021: Mass Effect and the Effects of Retroactive Representation

With the release of the remastered Mass Effect games, I started thinking about my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2 and 3. These games were one of my first steps into RPG narratives, and one of the first places I ever saw an LGBT+ character in a video game. I played these games on my Nan’s computer (which made the Kaidan romance scenes tense as hell). What I didn’t notice as a baby gay playing through Bioware’s flagship space opera is that when humanity left earth in 2069CE, we packed up heteronormativity and took it with us. 

This is a common trend in many narratives - our modern conceptions and attitudes towards LGBT+ characters are often transposed to our fantasy worlds. Modern games such as The Witcher 3 - which features Mislav, a character who was driven from society because of his sexuality - have the concept of homophobia with little to no reasoning for it. Homophobia is a construct built up over centuries as a complex and interlocking societal norms, religions, cultures and more, so why does almost every fantasy setting have to have discrimination almost exactly like our own? There might be a very shallow argument to be made for ‘wanting the setting to be realistic’ (I say, holding back vomit) but I’m not here to play devil's advocate, I’m here to hunt monsters and snog my friends. 

The straights’ gender reveal parties are really getting out of hand.

Turning our attention back to space, and Mass Effect, how does realistic grounding affect games? Contextually speaking, it does the opposite of what it is meant to. Humanity, in the Mass Effect series, set off into the stars and promptly started kissing every living thing they could find. Shepherd can start a relationship with an alien within 26 years of humanity’s first contact with a new species. Yes, I did the math. So, why are same-sex relationships still out of this world? Not just for those on earth but the advanced star people!

Obviously, you have to consider the climate in which these games were developed - a time when the work of David Gaider and other LGBT+ designers was only just coming into play. The first exclusively queer romance in a Bioware game was seen in 2014’s Dragon Age: Inquisition, a full two years after the release of Mass Effect 3. In the first Mass Effect game, a female Shepard could romance Liara, however, after a backlash the developers claimed that this wasn’t a gay relationship as Asari are monogender.

I’m sure they are just really, really good friends, right?

Furthermore, only a few more gay romance options were only introduced to ME in that third game, where characters who were previously only romanceable in straight relationships were retrofitted to be open to a queer relationship. Kaiden Alenko is not a possible suitor for a male Shepherd in Mass Effect but becomes one in the third entry of the series. The introduction of LGBT+ romances, especially those who have previously been exclusively heterosexual, caused issues with some fans, but these arguments are based on a similar concept of ‘well I didn’t think they were queer’ because of their previous attitudes towards characters. As a counterpoint, I dated four girls before coming out. Sexuality isn't a set-in-stone concept, especially in the depths of a diverse and ever-changing galaxy, like in the Mass Effect series. However, the fact that several companions in that series go from staunchly straight, to confidently bi-sexual in the time between the two games, with little writing around their personal journeys makes the change feel somewhat lacking. 

Luckily, games have come a long way since Commander Shepherd saved the universe - LGBT+ characters are now far more common. Games like Dragon Age: Inquisition stand as proof that queer characters can seamlessly be introduced into established worlds, and shows that Bioware has evolved its queer character creation. Inquisition even went on to become a fan favourite in the series, a huge seller for EA and cleaned up at Game of The Year awards time.

I would protect Parvati with my life.

This sort of written from the ground-up, character-centric representation extends outside of Bioware, into titles like The Outer Worlds. Parvati is the player’s first companion and an asexual character who enters a relationship with another woman via a serval mission long questline. I mention Parvati because she is an example of a passive queer character; a significant amount of the characters I have mentioned have been romanceable characters, but Parvati is a non-romanceable character, which means she exists as a queer part of the world. It doesn’t matter how the player acts, her sexuality is invariable. She is valid. 

In many games, queer characters are romance goals more than anything else. This leads to much of the queer representation we see in games being over-sexualised. Wide swaths of the community get very little screen time, out of a fear from writers that these queer characters that just exist can’t be a reward or part of the player fantasy.

How do Bioware somehow make all these aliens look hot? It is kinda unnerving.

Our current climate is changing, and with it comes a new wave of queer acceptance in games and a more enlightened idea of what games creators and audiences look like. Games characters are starting to reflect this. This is a significant contrast from the reception of queer characters in the past. As a queer gamer, I am ecstatic about this. But opportunities are still being missed for this representation. 

But I want to return to retroactive representation. And no, I don’t mean Dumbledore. I mean when studios have taken steps to change or update a character to be a queer character. Kaiden Alenko is a good example of this but misses the mark. A more direct example of this came in the latest Mass Effect entry, Andromeda. When players were upset that there was only one gay romance option for the male Pathfinder, Bioware changed a character and gave us the first male bisexual alien in the series. 

I mean… Yeah… Look at him.

Taking all of this into account, if developers are willing to go back on characterisations and make folks gay after the fact, we probably could have made Garrus a little gay in this rerelease. If the writing had been appropriate, in a game like Mass Effect where “One small step for man” took us into the pants of the galaxy, there is no reason why Garrus couldn’t have taken us into his intergalactic pants. 

Bioware had the chance to give queer players these fully fleshed out stories with reworks of the romantic choices with the release of the Mass Effect Legendary Edition - something many modders have done for years before, and that they themselves did in Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda. Adding these new options for players would have had no effect on the overall plot, but would have meant the world for players like me. This collection was no mere HD remaster, core parts of all three games were improved for this release. Additionally, they had the assets to do it in the remake. 

Bioware has proven in the past that they are willing to make changes for their queer players, and if they had in this case I would have had my love story in the stars, spanning all three entries in the series with the lovely Kaiden or (far more likely) Garrus. 

All these years later, now that I am out, I am finally playing as me, and the opportunity to do so in a game I have loved since I was a teenager would have been a journey completed. But instead, I am left waiting through two entries before my story can be told. This practice of retroactive representation employed by Bioware in the cases of Kaiden and Jaal is a positive change, in my opinion, but needs work. Queerness is a key part of a character and any rework needs to reflect this. If this practice becomes common, there has to be a consideration for the quality of the queer story itself.