The team included many female and alien characters

Mar 20, 2013 08:35 GMT  ·  By

The Mass Effect series from BioWare is one of the video game franchises where female characters have played important roles over the years and one writer working for the company believes that the increase in diversity has contributed to a bigger audience for the series.

Ann Lemay explains how she created the first potential all-female cast for a piece of Mass Effect 3 downloadable content called Omega, with the addition of Turian operative Nyreen.

On an official blog for publisher Electronic Arts, the writer states, “should the player choose to play as the female Commander Shepard, features a triumvirate of interesting, diverse, and powerful female characters. And it was never an issue.”

Apparently, just one week had passed since Lemay explained her idea for a powerful female Turian character that could balance the presence of the Asari gang leader Aria and the moment when the new character cast was approved.

She adds, “In all of my years in the videogame industry, this request process was the simplest and smoothest I’d ever gone through, particularly for the creation of a significant female character.”

Nyreen is not the first strong female character of the series and many of the gamers that have gone through all the three Mass Effect titles have also chosen to play as a female version of the main character, Commander Shepard.

The choice was influenced by the superb vocal performance that Jennifer Hale delivered, infused with emotion and thoughtfulness that the male version of the character often lacked.

With the launch of The Citadel DLC for Mass Effect 3, the BioWare team seems to have ended content delivery for the game.

Rumors suggest that the studio is already working on a new title located in the same universe, with a new protagonist and launch set to take place on next-generation consoles sometime during 2014.