The Mass Effect franchise is one of the most influential game franchises of the modern game industry, becoming an instant classic and the basis in which many following science fiction (sci-fi) media pieces are judged and compared to. In the first three games, the player plays as Commander Shepard, a space marine working with a myriad of characters to save the galaxy from the impending threat of the Reapers, an advanced alien race who wants to keep the Milky Way galaxy in balance by destroying any advanced civilizations. Mass Effect: Andromeda, released March 21st, 2017, is the next installment in the franchise where the player plays as Pathfinder Ryder, searching for a new home for the Milky Way species in a new galaxy, Andromeda, and fighting some mean aliens along the way. What makes the Mass Effect franchise so influential and what draws such a large fan base to the games, is the player’s ability to customize their character (their Shepard or Ryder), their looks and their relationships. This allows a personal connection and manipulation of the story, making each playthrough unique for the gamer. Not just Mass Effect, but BioWare as a whole, is known for letting players enter a romantic relationship or fling with a character in the game. However, players cannot romance just any character. They must align with the character’s sexuality and gender preference. This inclusion of queer1 romance with gay or bisexual characters, when the majority of games do not have a non-heterosexual option, BioWare provides the unique experience to allow players to make their Shepard or Ryder queer and provide a culture of inclusion and representation. This groundbreaking idea sets the standard for future romantic interactions in game, making Mass Effect one of the most well-known, memorable game franchises to feature queer characters.
To emphasize this impact that BioWare and the Mass Effect franchise has, we can look at Heidi McDonald’s 2013 study and analysis, Romance in Games: What It Is, How It Is, and How Developers Can Improve It. In 2013, Heidi McDonald held an online study to analyze queer romance in video games. McDonald posted her study on queer forums to specifically gather the queer audience perspective. Over 1,572 people responded from 83 countries, 57% identifying as queer. When asked to name any queer characters in games, 85% were from the game developer BioWare, as well as 43% of the queer character named are specifically found in the Mass Effect franchise (McDonald, Heidi).
Due to the fact that Mass Effect is seen as the main source of queer representation in video games, as detailed in McDonald’s study, it is important to analyze and critique the discourses that Mass Effect presents. Analyzing what makes Mass Effect positive queer representation, the techno-utopian rhetoric about the presence of physical body in virtual space, and the fetishizing of “otherness” and lesbian relationships, this paper will analyze the question: is Mass Effect really queer media or is it heteronormative media with a queer mask?
To first answer this question, we must look at what elements of the franchise focus on defining Mass Effect as queer media. The short answer is, the presence and development of queer-identified characters within the storyline of the games. In all four of the games (Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, and Mass Effect: Andromeda), out of the twenty-seven romanceable characters, there are fourteen LGB (either romanceable by both sexes of the player or exclusively the same sex) identified characters versus the thirteen heterosexual (exclusively romanceable by the opposite sex of the player) identified characters. Now, those fourteen LGB characters are a combination of homosexual and bisexual characters, so while looking at the ratio of homosexual to heterosexual, or bisexual to heterosexual, you still have a heterosexual majority.
Any character the player romances, wind up with a sex scene or heavily implied sex scene, including the queer characters. However, to analyze the effectiveness of Mass Effect as queer media, we must look at the quality of the queer relationship content versus the straight relationship content. Given the fact that Mass Effect: Andromeda was released so recently (at the time of writing this paper, two months ago), I will be using that game as my main judgement of the quality of queer content, since BioWare has had time to develop and attune themselves to the criticisms of queer relationships in Mass Effect 1 – 3.
In Mass Effect: Andromeda, there are seven exclusive romance options and three “fling” options2. The seven exclusive options are:
- Cora Harper
- Liam Kosta
- Peebee
- V etra Nyx
- Jaal Ama Darav
- Gil Brodie
- Suvi Anwar
The three fling options are:
- Keri T’Vessa
- Avela Kjar
- Reyes Vidal
Of the exclusive options, the heterosexual characters are: Cora, Liam, and Jaal. Peebee and Vetra are bisexual, while Gil and Suvi are homosexual. Of the three fling options, Avela Kjar is heterosexual while Keri T’Vessa and Reyes Vidal are bisexual. An important mechanic to note, in Mass Effect games, there are squad members, people who go on missions with you and are a part of your main team. This is important because it is where many people draw a large critique of the queer romance content in Mass Effect: Andromeda. When the player romances a squad member, there is more game content and dialogue for the player to interact with, which is why many players prefer to only romance squad mates, to have in game content and world building. However, the only two exclusively homosexual options are not squad mates. Also, if you were to play as a gay male, the only two options you have for romance is Gil Brodie, an exclusive relationship but with less content (due to the fact that he is not a squad member) and Reyes Vidal, a fling option with a minor story impact.
Homosexual characters didn’t show up in the Mass Effect series until Mass Effect 3, with the only queer representation being hyper-sexualized bisexual women. The only bisexual man, Kaidan Alenko, wasn’t in-game bisexual until the third game (he was considered heterosexual for the first two games), and for the player to romance him as a man, the player must have: saved Kaidan from death in Mass Effect 1, not exclusively romance anyone in Mass Effect 1 or 2 (a huge part of in-game content, as mentioned), and keep up positive relations with him by choosing specific dialogue. All four homosexual characters, across Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda, are not squad members, thus reducing the content dedicated to the characters greatly. Both homosexual men options are reduced a tokenized story-line. In Mass Effect 3, Steve Cortez is a mechanic whose entire storyline is based around losing his husband and that is the majority of the dialogue between him and the player is about. With the player’s third conversation with him, he is listening to a recording of his last conversation with his husband, for no reason than to mention that it is the only thing he saved from earth. If you do not wind up romancing him or developing his story line, he winds up dying in an act of reckless abandon, playing on the “gayngst” story trope3.
Gil Brodie in Mass Effect: Andromeda also has a very tokenized story line. Gil is also a mechanic but has a best friend, aptly named Jill, who is a fertility expert for the initiative. Jill gives Gil a lot of grief about not having kids, saying that “if he’s not making babies, he’s part of the problem”. Though Gil plays it off as their “unique relationship”, however this plays on the real life homophobic view that many hold: that being homosexual is “unnatural” because it doesn’t lead to reproduction (Hernandez, Patricia). The fact that the storyline of the only exclusive homosexual male is based in homophobic “jokes” makes many queer players uncomfortable pursuing that storyline, leaving them only with a fling romance option, and less content.
Transgender indie game creator Anna Anthropy provides insight as to why tokenized queer characters do not qualify as positive queer representation:
Token characters are not the product of queer experiences. Actual queer experiences offer perspectives on identity, on struggle, and on romance that could be entirely different…
There is also a lack of effort put in to the animation of the queer romance and sex scenes in Mass Effect: Andromeda. In all bisexual and homosexual romance end scenes, there isn’t an explicit sex scene, but rather, a fully-clothed fade to black and an implication of sex. This contrasts with the heterosexual romance end scenes of Cora and Jaal, where there is nudity and the beginnings of sex before the fade to black. There are two exceptions to this: Liam, a heterosexual romance option, doesn’t have an explicit sex scene, while Peebee, a bisexual romance option, does. However, when looking at the animation of the sex scene for Peebee, she is riding Ryder (no pun intended) in the same way and motion. The perception is that the animators, rather than correctly animating a lesbian sex scene, reused the same penis-riding animations from the heterosexual sex scene. In the romance scenes of one of the fling options, Reyes Vidal, there is a serious gap in quality between the animation if the player plays as a female Ryder versus a male Ryder, making the romance queer. The female Ryder and Reyes animation is fluid and full of small attention to details, while many have pointed out that the male Ryder and Reyes animation is clunky and awkward. The fact that there is such an animation difference and a lack of explicit queer sex scenes makes many queer gamers feel as if the queer relationships were treated as an afterthought or not as serious as the heterosexual romances in the game.
Alongside that, McDonald found that, in her research, that for a game to positively reflect queer representation, it must “make sure that the romance somehow continues after consummation; the characters should grow and change in some way as a result of having had the romance” (McDonald, Heidi). This element of development that McDonald has illustrated provides evidence to the claim that Mass Effect is straight media. In Mass Effect, the romance that the player pursues with a character, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, stops being relevant to the plot and game after the player has had intercourse (or implied intercourse) with their romance character. Anna Anthropy helps to define this idea and provide evidence as to why Mass Effect is a straight game, rather than a queer one,
…most straight games are interested only in the pursuit. once the girl (or if you’re playing a BioWare game and you’ve hit the right checkbox, the boy) has been won over, the game stops being interested. Whereas queer games tend to explore the actual dynamics within the relationship.
The fact that the romance stops being relevant to the game after consummation in Mass Effect, reinforces the inherent straightness of the game and the catering towards heterosexual ideals.
An in-game mechanic to incentivize players to complete certain aspects of the game is called an “achievement” and to fully “complete” a game, you must gather all the achievements. In Mass Effect: Andromeda, there is an achievement entitled “Matchmaker” where the player must romance three different characters to complete the game. Unlike previous Mass Effect games, in Mass Effect: Andromeda, fling romances count towards the progress of the Matchmaker achievement. The problem, however, is that there are only two queer romance options for a male Ryder. So, if a player wishes to complete this achievement, and thus complete the game, they must make their Ryder heterosexual. It is important to note here that in McDonald’s study, she found that 49% of queer gamers always play as their sexuality if the option is available. That means, that 49% of the homosexual men gamers that want to complete the matchmaker achievement must make their character straight. In an article on the gaming journalism website Kotaku, author Patricia Hernandez quotes fan J Mittelstadt, “We cannot even gain an achievement unless we play as straight [male] Ryder (which sounds like conversation therapy to me and is no way attracting me)” (Hernandez, Patricia). The fact that fans are interpreting this lack of insight and inclusion from BioWare as an analogy to conversion therapy, where queer people are forced to become straight through harmful methods, contributes to the conclusion that Mass Effect is heteronormative media with a queer mask.
To further analyze the question of whether Mass Effect is queer media or not, we have to look at the reintroduction of the presence of the body in the virtual space. In the 1980s and 1990s, a techno- utopian rhetoric formed from the beginnings of the internet. Megan Condis summarizes this idea in her academic article, No Homosexuals in Star Wars? BioWare, ‘Gamer’ Identity, And the Politics of Privilege in A Convergence Culture:
The Internet was an ideal venue to solve problems like discrimination on the basis of race and gender, because it would allow users to forgo embodied social interactions, to leave their bodies behind and present themselves to others only on the basis of their personalities… the Internet would enable us to evolve beyond the petty concerns of heterosexism and homophobia because it had already evolved beyond the body and to bring those concerns back into a virtual community would be to import unwelcome, unnecessary problems from the physical realm.
Looking through the lens of this techno-utopian rhetoric, people have come to view the Internet as a bodiless space that transcends the real-life notions of racism, sexism, and homophobia. Many gamers have come to expect a bodiless, identity-less space in online communities and many see it as the main purpose for the virtual world’s existence. Based in this rhetoric, many dedicated fans and consumers of the Mass Effect franchise have spoken out against the identification of characters as queer, among many defining factors. The belief is that, if characters are identified with specific sexual orientations, that that reintroduces the physical body, and thus the bigotry that accompanies it. When the body is reintroduced by people asking for queer characters, the people who believe in this techno-utopian rhetoric conform to the idea that those people are also responsible for the hateful comments they receive as a result of their reclamation of the queer body. The blatant defining of queer characters in a video game is seen as a political move by both other gamers and the developer themselves. Condis explains this by saying, “any attempt to lobby for a more inclusive stance toward queerness is understood to be an attempt to rudely divert discussion away from the game itself and toward what is perceived as a personal, political agenda…” (Condis, Megan).
However, to be fully counted as queer media, or at least, positive queer representation, Mass Effect must reintroduce the body into virtual space. If a body is not explicitly defined within the terms of sexuality, gender, race, or ability, it is assumed to be “a member of the dominant class: a white straight able-bodied male” (Condis, Megan). Ironically, when gamers enforce this bodiless rhetoric of no identified gender or sexuality, it automatically reinforces the identity and “the privileged status of straightness and maleness” and goes against their tenant of letting people “live and let live online as they see fit” (Condis, Megan). In reading Tosha Yingling’s Fat Futurity, we can draw parallels between the importance of representation of all bodies in a virtual space, looking at both fat bodies and queer bodies. Yingling says,
In these realms, digital identity can serve as a form of self-creation and subversive representation for marginalized bodies, in this case, fat flesh. As a person digitizes their identity, they have the freedom to represent fat as desirable, confident, unapologetic, fierce, fashionable, human.
While important for the inclusiveness of fat bodies, this idea of digital identity serving as “a form of self- creation and subversive representation for marginalized bodies” is essential to apply to the reclamation and reintroduction of queer bodies in virtual spaces as well. By labeling characters as queer, it helps queer people see their body as normal instead of being erased for, what Condis describes as “a universal silent sameness” which is ultimately read as straightness, what is perceived as the default orientation.
Yingling’s fat futurity also details an element of the techno-utopian rhetoric that Condis describes in her essay, “The mysticism of the screen divide… makes us believe that on the internet the body is left behind and the mind released from the mortal limitations of the flesh. However, the fat avatar complicates this idea as many bloggers are embracing their flesh on the internet as a form of re-embodiment that transcends this”. The use of the fat avatar by online fat bloggers relates to the mentioning of queerness in gaming environments, providing a basis to reclaim the body in cyberspace. Fat bloggers use their fat avatars, the physical representation of their bodies to reembody their physicality. Queer gamers use the physical depiction of queer characters and representation of queer romance in games to explore and accept their sexuality because real life may not allow them to. Going back to Heidi McDonald’s Romance in Games study, she found that 52% of gamers only ‘sometimes’ play their sexuality, which is either because the option is not available to them or because they are experimenting with a new sexuality. The latter idea is supported by the other information that McDonald gathered, that 64% of male gamers identify as straight but ‘sometimes’ play different sexualities.
For Mass Effect to be considered positive queer representation, despite some obvious technical differences, BioWare must explicitly state the queerness of a character and thus, reintroduce the queer body, which is what they have done. BioWare must also respond to feedback and discourses provided by queer gamers and their allies. Lori Kido Lopez details the importance of fan activism around Asian representation in media in her piece, Fan Activists and The Politics of Race in The Last Airbender. Kido Lopez says,
Some of the organization’s strongest and most effective tactics rely on the skills developed as members of the fan community: honing their arguments through community discussions, producing and editing multimedia creations, educating themselves about every facet of their issue, and relying on their trusted networks to provide a database of information.
We can apply the same importance of fan activism for Asian representation in a whitewashed Avatar: The Last Airbender to a heteronormative video game culture. When BioWare included blatant queer content in their other game franchise, Dragon Age, specifically Dragon Age II, there was an outcry from fans against that inclusion of queer bodies, with claims that BioWare was neglecting “their main demographic: the straight male gamer”. In contrast, many people voiced their support of the queer characters in Dragon Age II. Senior writer on Dragon Age II, Gaider, responded to the straight male gamer outcry by saying, “privilege always lies with the majority. They’re so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance” in support of queer fans who spoke in favor of the inclusion.
That inclusion of queer bodies should be positive and normalized, something that BioWare is lacking in the Mass Effect franchise. BioWare profits off of the commodification and sexualization of the “Other”. Author bell hooks illustrates the Other as any body that is “other” than the dominate white straight cisgender man. In Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance, hooks says, “When race and ethnicity become commodified as resources for pleasure, the culture of specific groups, as well as the bodies of individuals, can be seen as constituting an alternative playground where members of dominating races, genders, sexual practices affirm their power-over in intimate relations with the Other” (hooks, bell). Though hooks is talking about race and ethnicity in her description, we can apply her analysis to the sexualization and commodification of queer bodies as well. Another aspect of BioWare and Mass Effect sexualizing the Other can be seen in the alien race, the asari. As stated in the official Mass Effect art book, “one of the main species in Mass Effect [the asari] would be a race of beautiful, blue alien girls. An extensive exploration of the idea led to the asari appearing exotic and alien while desirable as potential love interests” (Helper, Chris et al.). The asari were originally created to be catered to the male gaze and for them to be seen as sexual beings. Yes, the asari are all bisexual (they are a monogender species). However, Mass Effect is catering the inclusion of bisexual and lesbian content, also to the heterosexual gaze. Matthew Wysocki, in his book, Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games, he illustrates,
…in twenty of the twenty-two4 relationship arcs, which culminate in sexual cutscenes, players are shown women in positions of sexual availability either individually or as a part of a lesbian couple. From this perspective, in 90 percent of sexual cutscenes, players are exposed to scenarios that could be sexually agreeable to heterosexual males.
In the explicit sex scenes in Mass Effect: Andromeda, the only nudity seen (other than butt, which, is that even considered taboo nudity anymore?) are the breasts of female and women-identifying characters, including the player, if they are playing as a female Ryder. No penis is seen, even on the alien man, Jaal. From this, it can be concluded that these scenes are still being catered for the male gaze, including the lesbian sex scenes, which shows the sexualization of queer Otherness
In reference to BioWare and Mass Effect’s commodification of the queer body, the queer otherness, we can go back to Megan Condis’ essay. Condis points out,
However, it is important to note that this responsiveness is directed toward the desires of one group of users and against the desires of another… In this case, inclusive, democratic outcomes to the question of whether or not to implement queer content were made possible because BioWare’s profit motive coincided with the expressed desires of some… it came about as the result of a calculation made on the part of the developer. BioWare believed that inclusiveness was a money-making proposition.
In this case, BioWare has shown that they will move where the profit is. If they have a monopoly on queer video game content, with McDonald’s findings that “85% of all [queer] characters listed were from the BioWare”, then the profit coming from queer gamers wanting representation outweighs the money from straight male gamers, who can find representation anywhere. So then why does queer representation get shafted by BioWare? In her discussion of the Other, hooks says, “marginalized groups, deemed Other, who have been ignored, rendered invisible, can be seduced by the emphasis on Otherness, by its commodification, because it offers the promise of recognition and reconciliation” (hooks, bell). Queer bodies have been rendered invisible by years and years of heteronormative catering, that they have been “seduced by the emphasis on Otherness, by its commodification, because it offers the promise of recognition and reconciliation”.
Because they know that queer gamers will still buy their games. Even if it’s the littlest drop of queer content that varies extremely from the heterosexual content, it’s the only inclusion of queerness in a desert of heteronormative video games. Many gamers view the queer inclusion in Mass Effect to be a “promise of recognition and reconciliation”. It may not be great now, but it’ll lead to greater representation in the future.
To conclude this essay, we should look at the question I proposed: is Mass Effect queer media or is it heteronormative media with a queer mask? Given the evidence of lack of queer content and quality, the commodification and sexualization of the other, we can answer that the Mass Effect franchise is heteronormative media with a queer mask. However, the Mass Effect franchise has reintroduced the queer body into a bodiless space, and though commodifying it, is sparking a conversation about the importance of representation in a culture where white straight men are the dominant class. As of writing this paper, BioWare is promising to include more queer male content in a patch soon to be released, allowing players to complete the Matchmaker achievement without making their male Ryder character straight. Given these points, the Mass Effect franchise can be considered queer media. It is up to the consumer and the effort made to educate themselves.
1 Queer, in this essay, is used as an umbrella term to define non-heterosexual identities or identities that fall under the LGBTQIA+ category.
2 The level of romance in the Mass Effect series is defined through two ideas: exclusivity and flings. Exclusiveity means that once the player has locked into romancing that character, they cannot seriously romance anyone else. Flings mean that the romance is casual and engaging in a fling does not prevent the player from entering another fling or exclusive romance.
3 “Gayngst” is a combination of the words “gay” and “angst”. This is used to refer to a common narrative trope in media where a character’s misery or downfall is attributed to their queer sexuality.
4 Rated M for Mature: Sex and Sexuality in Video Games was published on October 22, 2015, five months and one day before Mass Effect: Andromeda was released, so those romance characters are not included.
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