Mass Effect Writer Was 'Surprised' By Demand For Garrus Romance

ign.com:

Mass Effect developer BioWare never intended to make the now-beloved Garrus a romance option in the second game and was "blindsided" when fans asked for it.

In an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit, Mass Effect writer Drew Karpyshyn was asked if the BioWare team always intended to bring Garrus and Tali back in the second game or if it was decided later as a response to players' positive reactions towards them.

"We always knew they'd come back as companions," Karpyshyn said. "I was a bit surprised fans wanted the romance options. Tali I could sort of see. You never saw her face, so it was easy to imagine something vaguely human (but she had those weird feet). Garrus blindsided me," he added. "But once we saw what fans wanted, we decided to deliver."

Though Mass Effect 2 was released more than a decade ago in 2010, conversations around the game were rekindled last year when the trilogy was released in one package as Mass Effect: The Legendary Edition.

BioWare has also been teasing more about the fifth game recently and revealed earlier in July that Guardians of the Galaxy and Deus Ex prequel writer Mary DeMarle had joined the team as its senior narrative director.

Mass Effect 5, for lack of an official title, was being "actively prototyped" as of February 2022 and first announced in December 2021. BioWare also released a new teaser image that includes a handful of secrets for fans to decipher and was later forced to address (and deny) an apparent leak that suggested original protagonist Commander Shepard was returning in the new game.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer who occasionally remembers to tweet @thelastdinsdale. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.