Mass Effect 3 writer speaks about “issue” of girls in games

Just a day on from the developers of Remember Me discussing how difficult it was to get the lead character accepted as a female, one of the writers for Mass Effect 3, Ann Lemay, has spoken out about the approval process for adding a female Turian to a DLC release. Apparently it went very smoothly, which was a first for the industry.

Normally adding female characters, especially strong ones that don't need rescuing, to a game is a problem. “In all of my years in the video game industry, this request process was the simplest and smoothest I'd ever gone through, particularly for the creation of a significant female character,” said Lemay.  “Creating diverse and engaging female characters – or any character that isn't both white and male – should not be such an issue.”

What's perhaps more impressive, is that this female was key character, Nyreen Kandros, hardly a pushover or traditional damsel in distress. However as Eurogamer points out, perhaps it was easier to add such a character at the tail end of a trilogy's development cycle. The fact that it was DLC too, meant that people playing it are already invested in the series and may be more accepting.

KitGuru Says: I've never given much thought to the gender of the character I'm playing. I did do a playthrough of Mount and Blade: Warband as a woman once though.

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