If you had Fox News to blame for Mass Effect 2 cutting a same-sex romance involved character Jack, then you win some sort of weirdo prize.

From an enlightening interview from The Gamer: 

“I was trying to chart out the arc of [Jack’s] romance, which for much of the development – it was actually very late that it became a male/female-only romance,” Leader writer for Mass Effect 2 character Jack Brian Kindregan told Gamer. “She was essentially pansexual for most of the development of that romance.”

So, ugh, what happened? Fox News. That's what!

“Mass Effect had been pretty heavily and really unfairly criticized in the US by Fox News, which at the time… maybe more people in the world thought that there was a connection between reality and what gets discussed on Fox News,” Kindregan continued. “The development team of Mass Effect 2 was a pretty progressive, open-minded team, but I think there was a concern at pretty high levels that if [the first] Mass Effect, which only had one gay relationship, Liara – which on paper was technically not a gay relationship because she was from a mono-gendered species – I think there was a concern that if that had drawn fire, that Mass Effect 2 had to be a little bit careful.”

Mass Effect 2, Fox News, Bioware, Jack, Jack Same Sex Romance, Jack Pansexual

For those unaware, Fox News has long been against a lot of video game aspects such as (alleged) too much violence, sexuality and the like. For the initial Mass Effect, they actually brought on people who never played the game to discuss the supposedly traumatizing sex scene between Commander Sheppard and alien bigot Ashley.

Whether you enjoy Fox News or not, and if you're a die-hard Mass Effect 2 (or series fan in general) you're likely not, its odd for a  developer to cave at the demands of an outlet that isn't catering to the same demographic as the video game company.

Bioware would, obviously, go on to do a bunch of sexual-preference-less characters in numerous series, including Dragon Age Inquisition, so at some point the developer stopped caring about what Fox News, or others, had to say about the content they were putting out.

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Franz Christian Irorita ·

To make sure a lot of this does not come out of context, the lead writer for Jack is clear she's not a lesbian. She was always meant to be pansexual.

“It’s funny to me because my understanding was always that she was pansexual. So I don’t know if that’s just something I inferred from the character or something that she said that maybe got cut. I was surprised there wasn’t a female romance possible because that was my understanding. I think it was the time, you know? That was, what – 2008/2009? The industry has changed exponentially since then, and BioWare was leading the charge on that. I don’t know if it came down to a budget constraint or maybe someone being like ‘this is too obvious’ because everyone was like ‘of course she’s a lesbian.’ But my sense was always that she was [pansexual] and it just didn’t get followed through. Of course, the community modded it immediately so you can have it your way.”

Nonetheless, now we know some of the reason the dialogue for Jack infers heavily a few things with little follow through. Obviously, some of the Mass Effect 2 fanbase will consider “lesbian vs pansexual” splitting hairs, but to her lead writer, it appears relatively important.