The Mass Effect franchise is brimming with memorable characters, but there are a few who didn’t make it into Shepard’s story but are fascinating in their own right. In a new episode of Audio Logs, BioWare’s Mac Walters talked about some of the ideas that didn’t make the cut, including a Techno-Hippie, among others.
Speaking to GameSpot, Walters said that, during development, BioWare took a “there are no bad ideas” stance for coming up with pitches. This, as a result, led to some interesting submissions.
“There’s a lot of really fun characters in here that eventually didn’t make it for one reason or another,” Walter said, referencing a never-seen-before character ideas document that was shown to GameSpot. “Although I’m sure now that they’re going to be out in the world, people will be clamoring for some of them, like the, you know, the crazy Quarian King.
“I honestly can’t remember whose idea that was,” he continued.. “It feels like it was probably Drew’s [Karpyshyn], but yeah, this idea of someone like the crazy Irishman from Braveheart, you know, kind of just a fun, wild, bombastic character … Oh. And, and of course we had a Techo Hippie at one point anyway.”
Although many characters didn’t make it into Mass Effect 2, aspects of them would be carried forward, according to Walters. The Mad Bomber, for example, was conceived as a demolitions expert and, although they weren’t in the final game, the concept morphed into the convict, who fans will know as Jack. Aspects of the Mad Bomber also informed the design of Zaeed, a mercenary with a penchant for abrupt violence.
Check out the full episode of Audio Logs to learn more about some other cut concepts. You’ll also get to see a bit of the internal documents used for character concepting, and hear how BioWare put together the Suicide Mission.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition has been given a release date of May 14. The package brings together all three games in the series but updates them with improved visuals and controls, and–in the case of the first entry–even design improvements. You can read more in our rundown on the changes in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.
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