“Kevin [Meek] actually called out some camera cuts that were just… why was that focusing on Miranda’s butt?” says Walters. “So in some cases, we said, ‘Okay, we can make a change there’.”
In case you didn’t play the original Mass Effect games and are wondering what all the fuss is about, the angles Walters is referencing include shots such as this one which would sometimes appear when players spoke to Miranda Lawson and other characters:
While Walters says that the team wasn’t “ultra-concerned” about character models such as Miranda, Asari, or EDI who some feel were designed to cater to male fantasies, they do believe that “things have evolved since [the original games]” and wanted to modify some of the elements of the original titles that no longer made sense to them.
While Walters suggests that this move exists in a middle-ground between completely altering the original games and addressing elements of those titles that make the team (and many players) a little uncomfortable, the decision is still drawing heat from some players who feel that the series has been censored and even ruined as a result of these raised camera angles.
Along with those who feel that the game’s more gratuitous shots are somehow a vital part of the Mass Effect experience (there are online communities practically built around them), some are saying that this is another example of the so-called social justice censorship debate that has involved everything from episodes of The Office and Community being altered and removed on streaming platforms to HBO Max attaching a disclaimer to Gone With The Wind. Others are claiming that it’s an act of unnecessary modification akin to the changes George Lucas made to the original Star Wars trilogy.
