BioWare artist reveals Mass Effect could’ve been much, much better

In the first Mass Effect game, Shepard chases the antagonist Saren around the universe, much in the way Cloud once chased Sephiroth through almost every single in-game location. Saren was corrupted by the Reapers — the overall series’ main antagonist — and Shepard eventually put an end to him and saved the universe for a short while.

The series featured an alignment system, but people who paid attention realized that the games very clearly pushed you toward being a hero rather than a villain. In the various endings for the series, Shepard saved the universe regardless of how evil you tried to be. Canonically, Shepard is a good guy or gal.

However, BioWare designer Matt Rhodes revealed that a very early idea for the Shepard character was to eventually turn to Reaper technology to achieve the game’s goals, but it would slowly corrupt the character like it corrupted Saren. Eventually, Shepard would be confronted by another important in-game character, such as Kaidan or Ashley.

Whether you fall into the camp that thinks Mass Effect is god’s gift to gaming, or you fall into the camp that thinks it was fine but overrated, you can agree with the other side that this idea for the path the game could have taken was great, and we’re all worse off for it having been scrapped. Canonically, Shepard was a stock, run-of-the-mill hero, and this could’ve made the character much more complex.

Rhodes also disclosed that the team debated whether or not to reveal Tali’s face for a long time. As we all know, her face ended up being revealed if Shepard romanced her, which drew ire from MEfans because it was modeled after a stock photo model rather than being an original creation. While revealing her face was a nice addition for players that were invested enough in Tali to romance her, perhaps BioWare should’ve debated a bit longer in order to avoid modeling her after a stock photo.

After devoting however many hours to the Mass Effect trilogy, it’s a bit annoying to see that the character we spent so much time with could’ve been much more interesting. If we still can’t agree on that, though, I think we can all agree that ReapShep is a better nickname than BroShep and FemShep.

Rhodes posted a bunch of early concept art on his blog, which is well worth checking out if you’re a fan of the series.