You’ve read that right. Bioware, long supporter of having storylines involving romantic trysts, has opened the floodgates for doing the sideways space samba. According to Casey Hudson’s Twitter [1] (Lead Designer of Mass Effect 3), all romantic options will now be included. This entails M/F, F/M, F/F, M/M, and possibly M/? and F/?.
While I commend Bioware striving for…diversity, I do think that they do their mostly straight-male fanbase a disservice. I mean sure, they’ve got Miranda for Mass Effect 2…but how’s the game going to improve the outlook for the straight male gamer (which I suspect MAY be a majority out there). Hopefully we’ll see a series of fleshed-out romance lines for everyone else.
And hopefully, a ton of dialogue won’t be locked away in “romance only” pathways. A real shame…as a Male Shep, we were stuck hearing a lot about Calibrations previously. Seriously, it’s not that hard. Take Jack as an example:
Jack admitted to being with women in ME2, yet won’t bunk with femshep. But OH MY GOD! You can still have all the regular dialogue regarding her side-mission and past as normal?! It’s so easy to add a romance option while still keeping the “bro” option it’s not even funny. Jack is the prime example with femShep; The only difference is now YOU will be the one telling the NPC “no” instead of them telling YOU.
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. There needs to be an option for asexuals. Shepard should be able to romance himself. If they do not put Shepard as a romance option and do not give us the ability for a masturbation scene, I will not buy this game. I am tired of all the discrimination.
At the end of the day though, it doesn’t really matter; Gay, straight… Hell, half the romances aren’t even human!