Mass Effect 2 writer Brian Kindregan has revealed that Jack was originally supposed to be a pansexual character, but after Fox News kicked up a fuss over sex scenes in the original Mass Effect, BioWare ended up making her romanceable if Commander Shepard is a man.
In an interview with The Gamer, Kindregan said that the controversy sparked by Fox News’ coverage led to unnecessary backlash against Mass Effect, and since times were a little different back then, BioWare didn’t want to attract negative attention again.
He said:
I was trying to chart out the arc of [Jack’s] romance, which for much of the development – it was actually very late that it became a male/female-only romance. She was essentially pansexual for most of the development of that romance. Mass Effect had been pretty heavily and really unfairly criticized in the US by Fox News, which at the time… maybe more people in the world thought that there was a connection between reality and what gets discussed on Fox News. The development team of Mass Effect 2 was a pretty progressive, open-minded team, but I think there was a concern at pretty high levels that if [the first] Mass Effect, which only had one gay relationship, Liara – which on paper was technically not a gay relationship because she was from a mono-gendered species – I think there was a concern that if that had drawn fire, that Mass Effect 2 had to be a little bit careful.
Jack actress Courtenay Taylor separately confirmed to The Gamer that she was always under impression that her character was pansexual, and she wasn’t sure when/why that changed.
Well, now we all know.
[Source: The Gamer]
