by Dustin Christianson
When the first Mass Effect came out, I started playing it with certain expectations based on my history with BioWare games. I would customize my character’s appearance and class, make dialogue choices and probably save the galaxy. I never thought it would completely change the way I approach role-playing games. And the funniest part is that I didn’t even notice the change until it had already happened.
I got my first taste of Western RPGs with Baldur’s Gate 2. Dungeons & Dragons had interested me for a long time, but being an only child with just one other friend nerdy enough to care about rolling twenty-sided dice made playing it regularly unfeasible. The appeal of a single-player alternative—where I could make whatever character I wanted and do whatever I wanted–was too great to deny, so I asked my parents to buy it for my birthday.
After installing all four discs, I created a male sorcerer with blond hair named Dustin and started to play. I was hooked immediately. Not only could I make my character look like an abstraction of me, but I could make him say things I would say. I did good deeds, I became a hero, and I even won the heart of the pretty winged elf. I wasn’t just playing this game; I was in it. It was so much fun that playing once just wasn’t enough. I started a new game immediately after finishing the first one, and this time I made a male paladin with blond hair. Once again, I did good deeds, became a hero, and won the heart of the pretty winged elf. I had a slightly different party this time, though.
The same thing happened with Knights of the Old Republic. The first character? A blonde Jedi Guardian who did good deeds and won the heart of the beautiful Bastila. The second character? Same thing, but replace “Guardian” with “Consular.” It was then that I realized I had a problem. I was completely ignoring over half the content because I was obsessed with being the good guy. So for my third playthrough I resolved to be the most evil Sith in the galaxy.
I didn’t even make it past the first moral choice. A moral choice that, in the long run, doesn’t even matter, since the first world you go to gets completely destroyed once you leave. I couldn’t kill and steal from an imaginary person who I already knew was fated to die. That avatar on the screen was me, after all, and I would never kill and steal from an innocent person. My Sith idea was doomed from the start.
Then Mass Effect entered the picture. My first character was a blond male who got the girl and did only good. This time, though, I was determined to play a second character that was actually different. I wouldn’t wuss out like I did with KOTOR. To emphasize my new commitment, I started by creating my first female character and named her Iris Shepard. She still had blond hair, of course, but I was at least making progress. Since I realized I couldn’t go outside of my comfort zone too much on my first attempt, I decided that I wouldn’t be completely Renegade. I would still be a Paragon to friendly NPCs and my squadmates. It’s much harder to feel guilty about being a jerk to villains than to friends, I reasoned.
It worked like a charm. This Shepard was just as kind and helpful to her companions as I was but was much more ruthless on the battlefield. She still talked down Wrex, but the Rachni queen? Dead. The Feros colonists? Saved some, but I didn’t reload if I killed any while trying to keep myself alive. The Council? Alive, but I nominated Udina. This Shepard was “flawed,” but she was also interesting to me. More interesting than my “perfect” Paragon male Shepard.
So when Mass Effect 2 came out and I imported that Paragon Shepard, it felt a little like an obligation. He was the character I started with, so I should play a pure Paragon game with him first. In my heart, though, Iris Shepard was who I actually wanted to play. She would romance Garrus and convince her crew to get along and make sure everyone made it out of the suicide mission alive, just like I would; but she’d do questionable things, too. She’d get angry at Kaiden. She’d destroy the research that could help cure the Genophage. She’d shoot first and ask questions later. And when the Illusive Man asked her to keep the Collector base, she’d—
Wait a second. What’s up with that pronoun? Until Mass Effect 2, I always referred to my character in the first person. I rescued Imoen. I defeated Darth Malak. Iris Shepard was different. That simple pronoun shift snuck up on me, and I only realized what it meant when I finished the second playthrough. She pushed a mercenary out a window, not me. She tried to tell Mordin that creating the Genophage was the right call, not me. She was born of my mind, but she wasn’t an avatar like my previous characters were. She was her own character. I was simply the agent that allowed her to become who she was.
I was so enamored with the idea that I did it two more times, creating two more distinct Shepards. And when Mass Effect 3 was finally released, I didn’t beat around the bush. Iris Shepard would be the first one I’d experience the story with, and the mission on Tuchanka sold me on my new playstyle. I knew from the start that, when the final choice came up, Iris wouldn’t betray Wrex; but I also knew she was still conflicted and would need to work to that conclusion herself. So when the option came up to reveal the plan to sabotage the Genophage cure, Iris stayed silent. She listened to Wrex and Eve talk about their plans to see the Krogan return to their former glory and become respected members of the galactic community. The option to reveal the plan eventually came up again. Iris stayed silent. But as she saw more of what Tuchanka used to be and thought about Mordin’s change of heart, she had second thoughts. So when she and Mordin were in the Shroud, she finally told him the truth. He asked her why she didn’t mention it sooner. The final dialogue options came up, and I immediately knew what she would pick: “I’m sorry.”
Mordin understood. He went up the elevator and released the cure. He was redeemed. Iris Shepard was redeemed. And I sat back in my chair with a huge smile on my face, because for the first time in my life I had accomplished in a video game what I had always taken for granted in my writing. I created a person with a soul, not some author-surrogate shell.
I should have done this sooner.
When he somehow manages to pry himself away from Internet forums, Dustin Christianson occasionally remembers to talk about games, comics and anime on his Twitter account: .
