BioWare: 13% of Mass Effect players use default hero, 18% play female Shepard

by Mike Schramm on Jul 19th 2011 8:50PM

We've already heard that the female Commander Shepard, voiced by the talented and busy Jennifer Hale, will be featured in Mass Effect 3's marketing, marking the first time in the series that BioWare has done so. But VG24/7 has more about the female version of the Commander, and just how many players have seen her and Hale's performance over the years.

Turns out, according to BioWare, that 13 percent of Mass Effect players just use the default male Commander Shepard. 83 percent of players customize the hero in some way, and of those, only 18 percent use the female version. Director of Marketing David Silverman says BioWare doesn't have a "canon" version of the hero: "The beautiful thing about the Mass Effect series is the fact that the player gets to make choices that actually impact the game and make their entire game experience unique to them."

For example, none of you have ever played with my Commander Michael Shepard, honorable Vanguard war hero, one of the coolest Paragons ever, and also incredibly handsome. Shame you've never gotten to meet him.

Source: VG24/7

Tags: bioware, ea, female-shepard, jennifer-hale, mass-effect-3, microsoft, pc, playstation, ps3, roleplaying, rpg, shepard, xbox

Reader Comments (123)

I use the default shepard because that is how the game is marked toward me. I would feel weird creating someone else when bioware has shown me how he is "supposed" to look.

@Funkmaster General
Same here. Shepard has a face, and I don't want to bastardize it.

@Funkmaster General
True, I guess. I felt strange about changing Hawke's face in Dragon Age 2. Once a character has a face and a voice, it's hard to deny it in your mind.

@Funkmaster General @mywhitenoise

http://cloud.steampowered.com/ugc/578926032597248509/C81F09A197779CACA9902A788AC07FDE81F12BEA/

Did someone say bastardize?

@ClarkyAC

That's exactly what happens every time I get in to a character customization screen. I end up destroying any credibility a character would normally have.

http://imageshack.us/f/64/2011071900001z.jpg/
This being my latest monstrosity...

@Funkmaster General
Plus the first time (and last time) I made my own Shepard he didn't look very cool. Plus I could never make up my mind on how I wanted him to look so I just stuck with the default.

@Funkmaster General
I actually spend a legitimate amount of time customizing my character; I feel like if I make it more personal, I'll like him more (and therefore get him killed a lot less).
Plus, the normal Shepard is too fat. I made mine anorexic to compensate.

me too, I first did a custom shepard in ME1 and didn't get far before I reset and did default. Default shepard was finely crafted by artists, the face is one big unique texture, custom shepards are computer generated and look like generic NPC's, it cheapens the look of the main character.

I'll always stick with default because it looks a million times better than a mishmash of generic "one size fits all" textures. I just wish they would allow us to change the hair on default shepard, it would give us customization without ruining the quality.

@Funkmaster General I always go with a custom female. I want to play a character I want to play (I like looking at girl's arses), not what BioWare wants me to play.

@Funkmaster General Exactly the reason I use the default shepard. I could care less if people use the default jane over john lol. I like john.

i tend to customize mine to a degree. i'll usually just pick a random character palette to start then customize him until he doesn't look completely ridiculous. i ended up putting a wicked scar on my character in the first one, but much to my disappointment when the second one rolled around with less creation options my character's scar mysteriously vanished.

never tried playing as a girl, but maybe i should given how some of my favorite protagonists ever are females from Syberia, The Longest Journey, Beyond Good & Evil, etc. etc.

@Funkmaster General
Really? I guess that's one way to look at it. But for me, I will customize whatever they let me. It's feel like a waste of options if I didn't.

@liquidsoap89

I'd hit that

@Funkmaster General

Its the opposite for me. After I customized my shepherd in mass effect 1 - its really weird to see a different shepherd on the cover/trailers.

@Funkmaster General
Same.
I'm not playing dress-up in a single player game. I'm there to play the game.

I use the default male and female because those models tend to look better graphically than any of the custom ones. Funny to know I'm in the minority.

@deftonesmx17

That's my reasoning as well. Any time I try making a custom Shepard or Hawke they just don't look as good as the default one.
The default face has been designed from scratch to look good rather than made using a combination of settings from custom sliders.

@deftonesmx17
Speaking of minority, I try to make my guys in games like this look like me with a tan but they always looks black. Not that I mind, My RB2 guy is the biggest offender.

@deftonesmx17 not a female one welll atlest not for me. i hat to tweeck some things. here my Shep http://www.flickr.com/photos/59222824@N08/5832687576/in/photostream

Interesting figures, hopefully the marketing move helps Bioware.

My Shep is also a handsome Vanguard. I'm glad I am not alone in this respect.

I'd hate to say "booyah" to those who thought that the "canon" Mass Effect Shepard was the male shown in MS2 advertisements but uhhh.....

BOOYAH!
Ahh how it feels good to occasionally be five-years-old again.

@The Only Girl
Extraneous. Who cares? Go be five somewhere else.

@Boomzilla

You sound offended.
...I wonder why.

Wow, tons of people missing out on the significantly better acted Shepard. I actually went back to my male Shepard and was somewhat embarrassed that I was actually able to sit through 50+ hours of that.

@blackangel209 Same here. I made both a male and female when I first got the game and spent about 30 minutes on the male and over 3 hours on the female. I started playing the male first and after about 20 hours I felt something was missing so switched to my female and played through entirely. After finishing I tried playing the male again and realized why I didn't care for him. It seemed to me that he was forcing his dialog and I just didn't care for it. But when I played the female Shepard it seemed to flow better and kept me more interested... all 5 playthroughs. Part of it might be that I take a lot of time creating my female characters because frankly I want somebody nice to look at if I'm going to sink that much time into a game, but I really thought she nailed it.

@blackangel209

Yea, I feel like that number is kinda low actually. Most of the people I've talked to about the game have played at least a little bit as the female Shepard.

I used default on ME1. I wish it would let me import my save and change the appearance.

@Boomzilla

I thought it did? I mean, it let me change things up when I imported.

@Boomzilla It does let you change the appearance. I had a custom Shepard in ME1 that ended up looking horrible, so when I loaded my save in ME2 I switched back to the default Shepard.

@Boomzilla

If you beat the game and try to play it again on a harder difficulty setting, it doesn't let you change your face at all, or your class. it was pretty annoying. I wanted to continue to play but as a different class and gender, but unfortunately you can't.

@Vladeon

Of cause it wont let you change your character if you do a new game +.

If you want a different class/look then create a new character.

I changed Hawkes face and I was like wtf. Bioware already put a decent hero face on him. I used the generic command Shepard though lol.

I spent hours customizing my appearance for my first playthrough Shepard in ME1. I couldn't imagine using anything else since that. Imported him to ME2 and will do the same to ME3. He just looks way better than default Shepard.

I made a custom femshep and she was amazing! The voice acting done Jennifer Hale is awesome and very well done.

Go female Shepard!

As a female myself, it is so nice being able to play and enjoy a game like this from my own perspective. It would not be nearly as immersive or wonderful if I had to play as a male. To have a female be in the advertisements is nice. Just another step towards female gamers being more recognized!!

Cue over the top Jennifer Hale love in 3...2...

@Vcize

...1...0. She's awesome and femshep is the correct way to play ME.

@EatSleepChuck

except that the whole point of this is that there's no "correct" way to play Mass Effect.

After I made my character I regretted it , because he didn't look as badass as the default Shepard .

@roberto916 Yeah, I tried a few times to make a decent Shep and it never worked out. The default look is fine.

I played FemShep for two runs and liked Jennifer Hale's voice work, but the fact remains that I'm a guy and I usually want to roleplay a guy. I still appreciate that I have the option of playing any way I want to even if I usually pick the defaults, though.

@epenthesis

When I play a 1st-person game, I tend to play a male character because I'm male. But when play a 3rd-person game, I'd rather spend the whole game staring at a female. I guess Tomb Raider taught me well.

And it sure doesn't hurt that Jennifer Hale is a bad-ass voice actress.

@roberto916 I have on occasion spent 2-3 hours in Mass Effect 1 just attempting to give my Shepard a decent face (worst of all you can not tell if it came out bad until you play the first 10 mins after the creator). What I really just want is to be able to change the hair and maybe the eye color of the default Shepard, regardless for this reason I stick with the default as I can't make anything that looks mildly good. The codes they implemented in the second one are a nice addition however.

I alternate playthroughs between Manshep and Femshep. I don't know why everyone else wouldn't as well? Why not make your gameplay as different as possible? The stats should be more like 30% femshep.

@Rocket Raccoon

Ditto, first playthrough is always renegade dudeshep and second is paragon femshep.

After that, all bets are off.

@Vcize

Huh, that's funny. That's almost exactly what I do, but I do the paragon female first.

@WiredKnight

Hah, I do Paragon dudeshep then super bitchtacular Renegade Femshep! :D

I only use Default Shepard because I HATE the options I have otherwise. Its the lesser of two evils for me. Would it kill them to include a male Shepard hairstyle with some actual hair...?!

And thank god they've gone out to say there is no "canon" Shepard. I'm sick of people prancing about and throwing the term around as if they know what it means. No, Male Soldier Shepard isn't canon, its just the default. Too bad no one ever pays attention to this kind of statement.

I play through once as customized male Shepard and once as customized female Shepard

Default Hero, that's been my biggest complaint about male Shepard since day one; He looks like Default Hero.

@Phoenix
Maybe I missed it then, but I definitely tried and couldn't do it.

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BioWare: 13% of Mass Effect players use default hero, 18% play female Shepard

Reader Comments (123)

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 8:55PM Funkmaster General said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:01PM mywhitenoise said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:04PM The Only Girl said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:43PM ClarkyAC said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:23PM liquidsoap89 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:26PM Alavan said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:45PM Special Agent Steve said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:54PM snapekillsdumbledore said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:58PM sortius said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 12:15AM platinumrug said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 12:24AM broken 4th wall said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 1:11AM Batzarro The worlds WOrst Detect said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 6:21AM OnToGloryReturns said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 10:17AM sag969 said

Posted: Jul 21st 2011 9:48AM Timerider said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 8:57PM deftonesmx17 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:41PM Private Awesome said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 12:13AM SuperWoody64 said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 3:35AM DokiDokiBawanga said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 8:59PM D4rk 0p3rative said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:02PM The Only Girl said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:13PM Boomzilla said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 2:20AM ShadowXIII said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:02PM blackangel209 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:29PM Raiderfan said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 11:53PM WiredKnight said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:03PM Boomzilla said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:05PM Phoenix said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:52PM Private Awesome said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:27PM Vladeon said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 12:38AM This Little Man Says His Name Is said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 3:51PM LeonardWashington said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:05PM Anticrawl said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:05PM paigero789 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:06PM ehuitema said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:07PM Vcize said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:17PM EatSleepChuck said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:20PM maveric101 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:10PM roberto916 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:17PM epenthesis said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 1:53AM Ruinkind said

Posted: Jul 20th 2011 3:56AM RX3115 said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:11PM Rocket Raccoon said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 10:26PM Vcize said

Posted: Jul 19th 2011 11:49PM WiredKnight said

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Posted: Jul 19th 2011 9:11PM DevilSei said

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