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Kotaku: Underwhelming Gay Romance Options In ME: Andromeda Disappoints Many Fans

L

LordOfLore

Banned
Link. Saw them asking for people to send in their thoughts over the weekend.

Mass Effect is a franchise known for letting players sleep with other characters, and while that sauciness makes a return in Andromeda, some romance routes have left fans heartbroken.

Since it was released, Andromeda has been criticized about how it handles gay romance options, particularly for male characters. On neoGAF, Reddit, unofficial BioWare forums, and on Twitter, there are hundreds of pages of complaints, with many people accusing BioWare of treating gay romance as an “afterthought.”

On a basic level, people have pointed out that players who choose to play as a man can only romance two other men in the game. Male characters can romance more women, and players who play as a woman can romance more women and more men. BioWare games’ romance plots usually involve dozens of optional conversations spread across dozens of hours of playing time, usually culminating with a profession of love (and/or lust) and then a sex scene. The pair of male gay options Andromeda includes aren’t nearly as extensive as the other romance paths.

One option, a smuggler named Reyes Vidal, only appears in a couple of quests. Gil Brodie, an engineer on your ship, is also gay, but, unlike many of the women and straight men available for romance in the game, he’s not actually a squadmate. As side characters, Reyes and Brodie can only offer the player short dialogue prompts, whereas full-on squadmates have long dialogue scenes that are further expanded on during missions, when the player can hear extra banter. (Other sexualities get short flings like Reyes and Gil, but these are complemented with longer romance routes as well.) Players are also unhappy that both Reyes and Vidal only have make-out scenes that fade to black, rather than anything approximating the risque and partially nude sex scenes available for other sexualities.

It’s a testy situation that has caused players to circulate infographics chronicling romance options across games. Across four Mass Effect games, male-on-male romance options didn’t appear until the third game:
hplfs8cfehqgvjhnyhpoxnynn.png
Click to expand...

More at the link.
 
D

DocSeuss

Member
Nobody's missing much. The relationships in the game are universally terrible. Bioware hasn't had good romance options since before Dragon Age 2. I've been actively avoiding every single Andromeda relationship; it's a mess.
 
A

A Link to the Past

Banned
What's weird is I see people talk a lot about how diversity quotas affected the quality of the game, and yet that doesn't explain why diversity in-universe is so poor. It's just so weird that LGBT people got the short-end of the stock in-universe and out-of-universe.
 
A

Aeana

Member
I definitely wish there were more gay options. I decided to play as a guy in this one as a change of pace, and while I do like Gil, Reyes is a bullcrap option (for story spoiler reasons).
 
B

Brokun

Member
As someone who is not gay and doesn't have any gay friends, I am kind of curious about what is preferred in a worst case scenario: poorly handled/executed gay characters/relationships, or the complete exclusion of any gay characters/relationships?
 
K

King Gilga

Member
ME: Andromeda Disappoints Many Fans

Would have said enough.

But seriously no sexable squadmate for gay guys really sucks.

Brokun said:
As someone who is not gay and doesn't have any gay friends, I am kind of curious about what is preferred in a worst case scenario: poorly handled/executed gay characters/relationships, or the complete exclusion of any gay characters/relationships?
Click to expand...

Like most things it's better to try than do nothing at all.
 
Z

Zero315

Banned
DocSeuss said:
Nobody's missing much. The relationships in the game are universally terrible. Bioware hasn't had good romance options since before Dragon Age 2. I've been actively avoiding every single Andromeda relationship; it's a mess.
Click to expand...

Good or bad, it doesn't change the fact that the gay male options feel like an afterthought. I mean, look at this:

On a basic level, people have pointed out that players who choose to play as a man can only romance two other men in the game. Male characters can romance more women, and players who play as a woman can romance more women and more men. BioWare games’ romance plots usually involve dozens of optional conversations spread across dozens of hours of playing time, usually culminating with a profession of love (and/or lust) and then a sex scene. The pair of male gay options Andromeda includes aren’t nearly as extensive as the other romance paths.

One option, a smuggler named Reyes Vidal, only appears in a couple of quests. Gil Brodie, an engineer on your ship, is also gay, but, unlike many of the women and straight men available for romance in the game, he’s not actually a squadmate. As side characters, Reyes and Brodie can only offer the player short dialogue prompts, whereas full-on squadmates have long dialogue scenes that are further expanded on during missions, when the player can hear extra banter. (Other sexualities get short flings like Reyes and Gil, but these are complemented with longer romance routes as well.) Players are also unhappy that both Reyes and Vidal only have make-out scenes that fade to black, rather than anything approximating the risque and partially nude sex scenes available for other sexualities.
Click to expand...

They only way they could've put less work into these options is if they hadn't included them at all. It honestly feels like they're there just to check off a box saying they have them. It's insulting.
 
T

T.O.P

Banned
While I loved Kaidan and Dorian I am already so bored with this game that I don't think I'll ever even reach the romance options
 
A

AlexFlame116

Member
inky said:
You mean Chobot? She wasn't, she just wanted a quickie with Shepard and asks you not to say anything about it because her reputation as a journalist would suffer.
Click to expand...
Oh. Haha thats kind of dumb in my opinion. Oh well.

Back to the topic it is really surprising how few options there are.
 
G

Garrett Hawke

Member
Brokun said:
As someone who is not gay and doesn't have any gay friends, I am kind of curious about what is preferred in a worst case scenario: poorly handled/executed gay characters/relationships, or the complete exclusion of any gay characters/relationships?
Click to expand...
This, but it shouldn't be this way. There was a clear lack of fucks given about m/m romance in Andromeda. It's not even close.
 
A

akidnamededdy

Banned
Hey be careful OP, according to the dunkey thread we don't need a new topic every time someone announces they don't like the game.

Garrett Hawke said:
This, but it shouldn't be this way. There was a clear lack of fucks given about m/m romance in Andromeda. It's not even close.
Click to expand...

Seems to be there was a clear lack of fucks given about a lot of ME:A.
 
R

roxaloxa

Member
All the fucks went to the literal softcore porn scene for male Ryder and Cora.

Which, fine, but give everyone porn.
 
C

clarknova156

Member
Underwhelming game has underwhelming options. Color me surprised.

I finished the game and overall it was largely a waste of time, the story was hammy and boring. The side missions are boring and character development was flat across the board. This isn't even going into technical issues.

Biggest disappointment for me in years. Glad there were so many great games before it to help soften the blow.
 
S

Snagret

Member
DocSeuss said:
Nobody's missing much. The relationships in the game are universally terrible. Bioware hasn't had good romance options since before Dragon Age 2. I've been actively avoiding every single Andromeda relationship; it's a mess.
Click to expand...
As a gay man, I'm disappointed that Bioware has decided to scale back their options for homosexual relationships to such an afterthought.

As a human, I'm so utterly repulsed by the animations and dialogue in the game that the thought of sitting in my living room and watching these mannequins thrust their dead faces at each other in my space videogame gives me a dark, cold feeling deep down inside.
 
K

kennyamr

Member
I commented on this topic a couple of times already.

All I can say is that it sucks. Mostly because the straight and female/female routes have more options and even a trophy included. Male/male is the least developed for some reason. I would like to know why.
 
P

PSqueak

Banned
So i take, from the chart, that ME Andromeda still will not let you romance Krogans regardless of gender?

Bullshit.
 
H

Hours Left

Member
The clear lack of any effort toward the gay male relationships is shocking. A lot of people in the gay gaming community were so looking forward to this game, particularly since Bioware is one of the few large companies that actually have made strides in the past to offer meaningful gay content in their games. For them to then put this out is ridiculous.

They eroded a lot of their goodwill with this. Shamefully bad.
 
M

Madness

Member
Those expecting 50% part and parcel for gay and lesbian romances with straight romances were always going to be disappointed. You won't really see it, beyond just tokenism or the odd character thrown in here. People are upset no gay and lesbian each squadmate out of the 6, etc. At the end of the day, as progressive and socially aware as BioWare is, and they're better than most, they cater to the 90% of the people, 90% of the time. The goal is to make a profit from their video games over social change. Everyone wondering why certain animations were made for BroRyder and not SisRyder etc. In ME2 and ME3 they showed that both games, only 18% ever actually started with FemShep vs MaleShep. Now this game will be interesting to see the numbers as Sara Ryder technically was shown first, is above Scott Ryder as default quick start but however was also was trashed for animations and so Scott got the launch trailer and PAX panel missions etc. Gotta see what the stats are.

There are even petitions to turn some characters straight only into bi or gay/lesbian right now with the reasoning being the players need that agency more than the fictional characters. Overall, BioWare hasn't handled it the best, and I don't think it is ever going to.
 
K

Kinyou

Member
Madness said:
Those expecting 50% part and parcel for gay and lesbian romances with straight romances were always going to be disappointed. You won't really see it, beyond just tokenism or the odd character thrown in here.
Click to expand...
Da Inquisition actually got pretty close to that.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Romance_(Inquisition)

But I also believe that an equal percentage is the lesser issue, it's rather that none of the squad mates are an option (and thus only less meaningful characters) which feels like a huge oversight.
 
Acerac

Acerac

Banned
kennyamr said:
I commented on this topic a couple of times already.

All I can say is that it sucks. Mostly because the straight and female/female routes have more options and even a trophy included. Male/male is the least developed for some reason. I would like to know why.
Click to expand...
Apathy seems like a fairly safe guess.
 
A

azyless

Member
Yeah I'm pretty upset for all the guys out there that would have liked to romance a male character. Two options, one of them a fling and neither of them squadmates... that's kinda pathetic. Specially since Bioware has a pretty large LGBT following.
 
H

Harlequin

Member
Sain Drevia said:
The whole game is disappointing, so the poor relationships across the board shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone.
Click to expand...

It's not equally poor across the board, though, and that's the point. The M/M romances are clearly of a lower quality on average than the M/F and F/F romances (though from what I've heard, the F/F romances seem to have mostly been made with a male audience in mind rather than a lesbian audience which is a problem in and of itself, of course), less effort was put into them and they (or the characters you have them with) are less integrated into the overall story. They really do feel like an afterthought and like they were rather shoddily thrown together (whether that was due to lack of time, lack of resources or just because the devs didn't give a fuck about them, who knows).
 
A

Aikidoka

Member
Such a massive disappointment, especially after Dragon Age Inquisition, where they really nailed all the romance options.
 
D

Deleted member 465307

Unconfirmed Member
Kinyou said:
Da Inquisition actually got pretty close to that.

http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Romance_(Inquisition)

But I also believe that an equal percentage is the lesser issue, it's rather that none of the squad mates are an option (and thus only less meaningful characters) which feels like a huge oversight.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I haven't seen anyone who expected there to be an equal number of romances. I think the main reason people expect more in this case is because of the achievement; had the achievement only required two, I think people would be talking about quantity a lot less.

For the most part, from what I can tell, this is a relative quality issue. Character creator character models, no squadmate, shortened romance sequences (haven't personally confirmed this yet), and exclusively blacked-out sex scenes all add up to something less. If all the other romances in the game were this way, I don't think people would care as much, but as is, neither of the two m/m romances seem to have received the attention that some of the other romances got.*

*This is based on articles like the one in the OP. I still have to verify some aspects of these comparisons, since I know not every romance was treated like Cora.
 
E

Enduin

No bald cap? Lies!
While it's definitely a real issue I will say Gil has a lot of development in this game. Save for random banter and the rare mission dialogue interjection he's had as many unique dialogue segments as everyone else so far. He is way more developed than past crew members. Romance options or not.
 
S

SatoAilDarko

Member
Kenzodielocke said:
Bro culture indeed, no male gay sex, but here have more than double the amount of hot lesbian sex.
Click to expand...

I mean look at that graphic. There weren't male gay options till Mass Effect 3 but there have been lesbian options since Mass Effect 1.

I have to wonder how much of the lesbian relationships are done by the developers for representation vs. for the benefit of straight males?
 
H

Harlequin

Member
I haven't actually come across this piece of dialogue yet myself but I've read about it. Apparently, if you romance Reyes, Vetra will have this to say about it (includes spoilers for Reyes' romance/missions):
She'll ask if, now that Reyes is king of Kadara, that makes you his queen. Scott can reply that he'd be more of a consort, to which Vetra will reply that he at least deserves to be a baroness.
And no, this is not some sort of joke between the two of them, this is the devs not bothering to change these gender-specific lines from Sara's romance with Reyes for the gay version. (Usually, I'd have given them the benefit of the doubt, assumed it was just an innocent little oversight and laughed it off but considering all the other things they've fucked up regarding the game's M/M romances I'm not feeling particularly inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.)
 
D

Dandy Crocodile

Member
DocSeuss said:
Nobody's missing much. The relationships in the game are universally terrible. Bioware hasn't had good romance options since before Dragon Age 2. I've been actively avoiding every single Andromeda relationship; it's a mess.
Click to expand...
I don't give a shit if they're bad. If everybody else gets peanuts, I want peanuts too, not two dead flies.

People saying stuff like "yeah well ALL the game is bad" is like saying All Lives Matter.
You're missing the point entirely on why a marginalized part of society needs better representation and support.
 
A

akidnamededdy

Banned
Hours Left said:
The clear lack of any effort toward the gay male relationships is shocking. A lot of people in the gay gaming community were so looking forward to this game, particularly since Bioware is one of the few large companies that actually have made strides in the past to offer meaningful gay content in their games. For them to then put this out is ridiculous.

They eroded a lot of their goodwill with this. Shamefully bad.
Click to expand...

If anything good can be said for this game it's that it has brought so many diverse groups of people together in their shared overall disappointment.
 
O

OrionX

Member
I would've been perfectly fine with only one m/m option as long as they were a squadmate. After Kaidan in ME3 I thought for sure it would happen again. I would've bet money on Jaal being bi. Gay male players have never had an alien romance option, unless you make the claim that Asari aren't technically female. lol

Squadmates just get so much more screentime and attention than other characters. You can take them everywhere you go and listen to all their commentary, and they're usually just more relevant to the story in general. Obviously something is always better than nothing, and I appreciate that Bioware does something that most developers aren't willing to do, but I guess the hope was that things might improve at least a little rather than regress or stagnate.
 
M

MoonFrog

Member
Kenzodielocke said:
Bro culture indeed, no male gay sex, but here have more than double the amount of hot lesbian sex.
Click to expand...
Yeah. It really comes across to me as:

-People playing this game will be predominantly male, let's give them some man on woman and woman on woman action.

-Women will play this game too. Give them some heterosexual options (and lesbian options, but I'm going to guess lesbian porn for men was the stronger idea). Slash is 'icky,' but some gay guys will be playing so we've got two reasons to cater to that audience a little bit...

Perhaps I'm being too cynical...
 
D

dimb

Bjergsen is the greatest midlane in the world
I think it hits particularly hard because the romances in these types of games already feel like they are heavily pandering to begin with. When certain preferences find themselves heavily indulged and others are just sort of sifting through the scraps it sure does feel like people are being left out in the cold on an aspect of the game that is supposed to be goofy and fun. It becomes very difficult to swallow that Liam or Jaal not being interested in men is essential to their character, but if that is the route Bioware wants to go there needs to be strong representation on the other side of things.

The negligence to romance options between two male characters already stuck out like a sore thumb across the series, so I found it especially disappointing that Andromeda did little to right things. There is really just no excuse for the complete absence of a gay male companion. Obviously it's not the same team, but Dragon Age Inquisition is sitting right there as an available blueprint for how to approach this stuff in a much more balanced way. Just give me some gay aliens already...jeez...
 
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