Without BioWare, I wouldn’t be who I am today
The inevitable has happened. BioWare is gone, closed by EA in an act of what can only be described as cultural vandalism, and Mass Effect 5 has been cancelled. It cannot be overstated how important their games have been for the industry at large or how gutting this is, especially after EA was recently acquired by a consortium of investors that includes the Saudi Arabian Public Investment Fund, private equity firm Silver Lake, and Affinity Partners, an investment firm formed by Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and which overwhelmingly receives its funding from the Saudi Arabian government. It’s hard to imagine ownership by a more repulsive group of people. How much of BioWare’s closure is down to the… proclivities of EA’s new owners and how much is just standard EA mismanagement and/or post-buyout restructuring, we don’t know, but it’s telling that a studio known for inclusion and queer representation in its titles has been one of the first to go under the new leadership.
“What generations of BioWare built together is something to celebrate and remember. These games became so much more because you played them, debated your choices, fell in love with the characters, and made these worlds your own,” the company wrote in a statement.
As a writer, I’m sure I’m not alone in saying that BioWare means a lot to me. These stories have influenced many people over the years, from Kotaku’s Kenneth Shepard to our own EIC, Will Borger. BioWare’s storytelling will always hold a place in my heart thanks to the Mass Effect games. Without them, I don’t know whether I would have discovered who I truly was.
I’m a trans woman. Hi. One of the earliest memories I have of wondering what it would be like to be a woman was playing as Shepard in the first Mass Effect game, romancing Liara (and later Garrus in Mass Effect 2; what a beautiful chicken man he is. He’s just so dreamy). BioWare’s approach to gender in these games isn’t exactly progressive; the games completely stick to the gender binary when it comes to their lead characters (it was the late 00s; you can only expect so much), but the writing and worldbuilding are so well done that I felt like I was Shepard. I was this hero in a galactic conflict, surrounded by my allies and friends. More importantly, I was a woman.
After playing Mass Effect, I never made another male character in an RPG. All of my characters have been women. So have almost all of my TTRPG characters (the exception is a changeling who had no gender). Playing as Shepard, as a woman, made me feel seen in a way that no other game had, and every single time I go back to the Mass Effect games, a bi-yearly ritual at this point, I feel warm and safe. I can’t really pinpoint one specific reason why – perhaps it was the fact that BioWare created a character so detailed and a world so immersive that I basically fell into it whole. Perhaps it was to do with the fact that it was one of the first times that I actively realised what I wanted to be, rather than just being what other people wanted me to be. I didn’t have to meet an expectation; I didn’t have to be some standard bearer. I could be Shepard, and in being Shepard I could be me.
I am Shepard, and Garrus, Liara, Wrex, Mordin, and everyone else on Normandy–they’re my friends. They accept me for who I am. No questions asked, no awkward glances. I am comfortable around them. I feel safe. Part of this was solidified by the Citadel DLC, which released in March 2013, and acted as a sort of coda to Mass Effect as a franchise. Rather than focusing on some epic story which spanned the galaxy, it instead zoomed in on these characters, and on how you played Shepard. Here was a group of people who were just happy with who you were, who didn’t question you, who you could just be around. It made me happy in a way many other games didn’t.
Years later, I looked deeper into myself and realized that I’d been lying to myself for a long time, but Mass Effect was the first domino to fall. Without BioWare, I really don’t know where I’d be today – and that applies to both my gender identity and my career. I wanted to work in games thanks to the original Mass Effect; a desire Mass Effect 2 and 3 only strengthened. My love for RPGs came from Pokémon and Mass Effect. Hell, it’s part of the reason I love science fiction.
It isn’t unfair to say that the writing’s been on the wall ever since Casey Hudson left. It is unfair to act like BioWare as a studio doesn’t deserve better. At one point, over four hundred people worked at BioWare. That’s four hundred stories, four hundred creatives, all with their own ideas, some of which could have been absolutely incredible, thrown to the wayside.
I hope everybody at BioWare lands on their feet. I hope they make something incredible that carries on that legacy and moves people the way Mass Effect moved me to be the truest version of myself. I hope that years down the line, EA looks back at this decision with regret, knowing that they’ve made a terrible mistake by closing a studio that is a core piece of gaming history and that inspired countless developers. I hope that the BioWare employees know that the people they have inspired over the decades will follow them, regardless of what they do next. Wherever they go, whatever they do, I know I’ll be there.
