Mass Effect 3 was Super Woke before the term woke even existed.

Tagged: EA, Mass Effect, rpg, video games, Woke

This topic has 14 replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 4 months ago by thomasparker1399.

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February 4, 2021 at 12:16 pm #207922
Anonymous
People are all for calling woke bullshit until you call out the woke bullshit in something they have nostalgia for. But I’m going to point it out anyway.
Mass Effect 3 was the blueprint for woke story telling before the term “woke” even existed.
The only box it didnt check was slut shaming attractive women and insulting men for existing.
Glad to see they are checking off both of those boxes with The Legendary Edition’s marketing and censorship.
“Mass Effect 3 wasnt woke! What are you talking about!?”
Correction: Woke story telling hadnt infested everything so the nonsense in ME3 wasnt as obvious.
Although, even back in the day, there were certain moments that seemed off to me.
“Why is Kaiden bi-sexual, suddenly?”, “Why is caring about humans being treated as villianious?”, “Why is the game only giving me the option to get mad about a joke I find funny?”, “Why does it feel like the game that’s about making choices feel like it’s pushing one choice so hard, I feel like it’s judging me if I dont pick it?” These were a few questions I was asking, as I played it, in 2012. A term just hadnt been assigned to the nonsense, yet.
If I played this game, for the first time, in 2021, I would hate it.
Here’s a small list (I copy/pasted from a reply I made in another post) showing examples of wokeness in ME3.
-The Paragon/Renegade system is a Democrat/Republican system
-Gay characters popping up everywhere when character’s sexuality, other than Shepard’s, never came up, outside of Shepard trying to date them
-Giving renegade points (which is reserved for shit like punching reporters and killing people in Me1/Me2) for, nicely, telling a gay dude you dont wanna listen to him cry about his husband
-The pilot that wants to cry about his husband has no other character trait but “I’m gay”
-Joker makes a dark joke about the Asari Homeworld after it’s destroyed and you cant laugh, you can just choose how you belittle him because Dark humor is evil
-The advertising around the game was hyperfocused on “We have a canon FemShep now!”
-The only female Krogan ever shown is superior to every male Krogan ever shown
-Ashley’s character is altered because in ME1 weirdos liked to cry “Ashley is rahcist”
-The Illusive Man is depicted as a straight up villain because he wants to look out for humanity, where as in ME2 he’s a morally grey character you can understand, even if you disagree with him (The globalist messaging, isnt even subtle, and all over the game.)
-The counsiler (whose name I forget at the moment) that’s kind of an ass but still a good dude that supports humanity in the first 2, all of the sudden is an extremist that wants to destroy all non-humans.
-Joker dating a robot and it’s treated as normal (As a whole, ME3 focuses way to much on the lovelifes and sexuality of other characters when, other than Shepard, the first 2 games, barely, do that shit).
-Replacing a Krogan squad mate with a Mexican (Latino Heritage) no one liked because “muh representation!”
-Protheons being revealed to be the biggest assholes ever because everything that came before has to be evil.
There’s many other examples.
February 4, 2021 at 12:23 pm #207923
Anonymous
I feel I should mention Samantha Traynor as an example of a gay character that is written very well and has a lot more going on than “I’m gay”. Traynor is on my favorite characters in the series because she’s actually written like a human being, not a check box.
Still doesnt change the fact that sexuality was a topic that was barely mentioned in the previous games but everyone feels a need to talk about it it in ME3 but Samantha Traynor is the way you approach a gay character and make them likable. It’s almost as if they created an actual character and gay was just 1 trait, instead of the entire character.
February 4, 2021 at 2:52 pm #207936
MrBidwell
I understand what you are trying to say, but some of your points are a stretch.
Following that logic, I could find a lot of Wokeness in Star Trek:TNG. That doesn’t make something woke.
By creating this post, I have a feeling you are only trying to piss off Roas, and if that’s the case, that doesn’t makes you quite a bit shallow.
February 4, 2021 at 4:56 pm #207944
Dash_Attack
Women and gay people aren’t inherently woke. Its all about execution and genre. The quality of writing has gone down in many mediums because of political correctness, but there was a time where you could have a progressive theme in a store and have it be good and not come off as a lecture because it still felt like entertainment.
February 4, 2021 at 7:49 pm #207966
Anonymous
I would hope Roas isnt so weak he cant handle me voicing my opinion. I’m not attacking him, I’m voicing my opinion that current SJW nonsense isnt recent as people like to think. ME3, to me, can be sited as one of the earliest games that implimented the shit that would become standard practice across the industry.
I’ve been saying Mass Effect 3 is woke since I realized the term woke exist and EA’s censorship and the fanboy’s defending it because “muh precious can do no wrong. Defend corporations! Consume Consume Consume!… the exact same shit we’re speaking out against” made me feel this is an appropriate time to bring it up. I say this as someone that says Mass Effect is his favorite gaming trilogy.
I also notice you didnt disprove any statement any made. Clicking the dislike button and white knighting for another person isnt proving me wrong. That’s Twitter logic. I’m above that.
I brought the receipts to back up my claim. Where are your receipts?
Stretching? Where am I stretching? Everything I stated happens exactly as I said and it’s more than 1 or 2 things. I could make a list twice that size if I wanted to.
I’m not saying to hate the game or dont buy it. That’s on the individual. I do like the game and, if they werent censoring it, it would be a day one purchase but it doesnt change the fact ME3 was a pioneer in putting the woke agenda into their game. They were just more clever about it than most devs/publishers these days and had the benefit of it not being so oversaturated, a hint of wokeness makes people sick.
I’ll be interested to see what people that will be playing for the first time have to say about it, after being exposed to the bullshit it helped make mainstream for so many years.
ME3’s Multiplayer is also the earliest case of Loot Boxes I’m aware of. haha.
February 4, 2021 at 8:05 pm #207972
Anonymous
Of course, gay people and women dont mean woke but I guess you decided to ignore the part where I praised Samantha Traynor for being a well written gay woman because acknowledging that would go against the false narrative you are, subtly, trying to paint with that statement.
The fact is, for the most part, ME3 doesnt do it well. It’s in-game morality system tells me I’m a bad person if I feel because saving the universe is more important than listening to a dude talk about his husband. The choice based game tells me I’m a bad person if I like dark humor by giving me no option but to get pissed at Joker after he tells a funny joke. The entire fanbase thinks the the guy they put in place of a Krogan Squadmate sucks so, again, woke fail. The counciler being a terrorist was a plot point that shoehorned as fuck and invalidated a decision from an earlier game. Again, fail. Do I need to go on?
The game’s succeeds in strong character moments and story conclusions. “It had to be me. Someone else might have gotten wrong” and “Fear is an emotion reserved for organics” are strong moments that make you appreciate some of the best characters of the series.
But those moments dont change the fact the game’s story could have been so much better and the game’s ending wasnt the only narrative problem.
February 4, 2021 at 9:26 pm #207981
MrBidwell
Do you realize how aggressive and unreasonable you sound @EndCancelCulture?
You went on a positive post and tried to completely trash it.
I’m pointing out that some of your allegations are stretching it and again, you try to trash what I say and call it Twitter behaviour.
You are also saying that I am white knighting Roas, although I am only calling out that your behaviour is not great.
It really sounds like you are suffering from SJW PTSD, where you are seeing everything through a much darker lens than it is in reality.
February 6, 2021 at 4:08 pm #208176
Scuttlest
Premium
Never played a Mass Effect game so I won’t claim to have any affection or nostalgia for it. But lots of people are nostalgic for ME3? Back when it was fairly new, all I ever heard was people hating it, something about the ending being really bad. (To the point they made some sort of damage-control DLC story.)
I know Mass Effect is made by Bioware, my only experience with Bioware is the first KOTOR. Which, for the most part, isn’t woke. (Juhani is a lesbian, but not only is she a super minor character you can completely skip recruiting, but it’s a fairly small part of her character. Her own story more focuses on her difficulty controlling her angry outbursts and her flirtations with the Dark Side. Also, a programming error in KOTOR resulted in her being able to confess to the protagonist regardless of gender, so she came off as bi even though the writers intended for her to be a lesbian, haha.)
February 10, 2021 at 3:33 pm #208571
m76
Have you been watching the american krogan’s video on it? LOL
While there are some elements in ME that are progressive it is a far cry from being “woke” by the modern understanding of all that comes with it.
Calling Mass Effect simply woke is like when the shills of STD say that Star Trek was always woke.
Haveing a gay character is not woke. Having a character whose only purpose and personality trait is being gay, now that’s woke.
April 15, 2022 at 11:12 pm #264936
PhilTheStampede
I thought the same thing in 2012. I just called it “virtue signaling”. That was a term back then. They took a lot of shortcuts, but being inclusive for inclusivity’s sake wasn’t one of them. Anyone defending it just liked the game, plain and simple. It was the weakest entry. The only redeeming quality was the combat, which was also the very reason I believe the game was worse. EA likely demanded the combat become more shooteresque and they had to add the coop microtransaction mode, which was fun, but probably took up a lot of valuable resources and time in a TWO YEAR window to make an RPG conclusion to a choice-based trilogy. Oof
April 26, 2022 at 1:00 am #265864
Mel
I don’t think that ME3 was terribly woke. It was fine, my frustration from playing it the first time came from how this game was terribly cut, along with some profile issues with Shepard (getting PTSD because of one boy after everything he/she saw? Really?).
And regarding the gay pilot one time I was able to do convince him go straight (!!!) and hook up with that female friend of his. That was fun.
April 26, 2022 at 3:56 am #265875
Hazu
i didnt find it woke (the original, not the remake ofc). It was clearly liberal, but not woke. We had options.
right now, most games are not giving us any options…
June 22, 2023 at 12:46 pm #301974
Ceejus
Late to the party here but OP is actually spot on about this. This game was woke AF for its time. The naysayers here haven’t made very convincing arguments against the OP’s points. I get it though; the original ME Trilogy is beloved and I can totally understand people wanting to live in denial over this aspect of it. It’s probably the only series I still love playing despite the identity politics garbage they worked into it. There’s actually even more stuff than what he listed.
I swear there’s a codex entry in one of the games that mentions white skin having become rare. It’s possible that it’s actually in Andromeda, but I could have swore it was in the original trilogy.
There’s always an SJW infatuation with interracial mingling exclusively when the male human is “BIPOC” and the female human isn’t (Kasumi mentioning in both ME2 and ME3 that she’s head over heels for Jacob even despite her history with Keiji Okuda, Anderson & Kahlee Sanders, Jacob & Miranda having a romantic history, and Ashley being head over heels for James in the ME3 Citadel DLC). Again, the woke aspect isn’t the inclusion of interracial mingling, it’s the fact that it only goes in one direction.
The SJW whining about Ashley was always unwarranted; she actually goes full-on woke in ME1 if she’s in your party when you talk to Charles Saracino (who represents Terra Firma) and aggressively calls him a rrrrrrracist. Pretty sure she even does this in regular conversations on the Normandy closer to end game in ME1. No surprise that it wasn’t enough for the mob though.
Zaeed (the only straight white male squadmate) is the only one the player’s Shepard is forced to be a douche to during the respective loyalty mission. He’s literally the only squadmate that’s made out to be villainous no matter the outcome. Once he starts smashing the valves at the Blue Suns base on Zorya, you have three dialogue options: all of them have Shepard scolding him. If you take Zaeed’s side in the end, you get far less dialogue out of it and Shepard seems neutral or indifferent at best no matter what.
You are definitely made to feel like a genocidal villain if you sabotage Mordin’s genophage cure in ME3. It’s as if the game wants you to completely forget that the Krogan would have wiped out every other race had it not been for the genophage (which would have been the actual genocide ironically). This should be portrayed as more grey in ME3 than villianous.
Let’s not forget ME3 completely did away with the option for Shepard to be a true “Renegade” which basically robbed the game of most of its comedic value. By the time 2012 rolled around, western society was already in its beginning phases of going mega soft thanks to social justice gaining steam. It was so much fun to play as Renegade Shep in ME1 and ME2.
Don’t even get me started on Andromeda. That game even by 2023’s standards was pretty woke. Watching that original trilogy voice actor cast reunion on YouTube a few years back was painful. The feminist agenda was being pushed hard by every last one of them. Go back and watch it and you’ll see it’s practically the focal point of the entire thing. Couple all this with the fact that Casey Hudson left BioWare a second time, there’s next to no one left from the original BioWare, and the fact that Anthem proved just how much BioWare sucks now, and it doesn’t paint a particularly promising picture for ME5. I’m expecting it to be more loaded with identity politics than any game we’ve seen before.
- This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by Ceejus.
June 23, 2023 at 6:13 am #302029
Vknid
Moderator
“woke” is the new word for it but leftist marxist garbage has been in media since at least the 80’s. At this point our media is saturated with these themes to the point where “the message” is the entire point and that makes it very easy to detect. In the 80’s and 90’s they were still making entertainment and would just include a couple of things in a movie or show that one would now consider woke. If we use the “boiling the frog” analogy, where we are at now is the pot is so hot we feel it. In the 80’s they had just begun and just turned the heat on low.
“Hiding Out” – 1987
Classroom scene: teacher tells a classroom full of teenagers – in summary (sex is a spectrum and everyone has experienced things on all points of it)

“Here is the spectrum of human sexuality.
All right, at one end we have heterosexuality
And, at the other end,homosexuality.
I know this is not a subject that we feel free
to discuss easily and openly, but…
I have to remind you that if we don’t share,
if we don’t communicate, then we can’t begin
to understand who we are. At one time or another,
whether you choose to acknowledge it or not,
every one of us, every one of us,
has experienced feelings at all points
along this spectrum including homosexuality.”
July 28, 2023 at 1:50 am #303708
thomasparker1399
Absolutely! Mass Effect 3 pioneered progressive themes by portraying varied personalities, choices, and inclusivity. Its forward-thinking narrative is still resonating with players.
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