My rantings and ravings about Gender in Mass Effect Andromeda.

It‘s unlikely for me to play a shooter but after feeling burnt out and in dire need of a break I went through our playstation library and there it was:
A game that promised a vacation in space.



But before I could start shooting aliens and mine for resources and flirt awkwardly with every member of my crew, I had to pass one final test:

Am I a boy or am I a girl?

(sadly they forgot the angel option.)

What does gender even mean in this far away future?
Do our gender norms even apply?
Are there differences, not only between Scott and Sarah, but between the two available genders in general?

(You would think that if there are so many different alien species, some might have more or less genders, but no, even after a 600 year long flight across the universe we find that every species has the same two. )

Mass effect was praised for their strong tough capable (yet sexy) woman characters, and I also like to see them more than the mystic elvish pretty and dainty little fairy type woman in for example eldenring or bloodborne.
And truly, whatever answer you pick on the gender test (no, there is no multiple choice), it won't affect your capabilities on shooting every evil alien that is unfortunate enough to spawn near you.

So, why not play as Sarah? The people in the game are not programmed to react to your gender, no one will treat you differently outside of romantic contexts.
Can you even imagine being seen, talked to, living your life without your gender influencing the situation at all? I sure can‘t.

Sarah or Scott have no gendered problems or perspectives, nor do the NPCs.
Barkeepers, Warlords, Doctors, Scavengers, Cannibals and Monks, they all come perfectly 50/50 men and woman and give you the same quests and dialogs. Just like Sarah and Scott, most -if not all- characters in the game would equally work as the other gender, in my opinion.

But is it neutral?
Well, no. Mass effect is obviously made with a specific target audience in mind. It has been criticized for being cringingly male gaze-y, obviously with their character design in the first place but with the different care going into Scott’s gay sex scene and Sarah's gay sex scene, the first being very short and rushed trough, immediately fading to black when they lie down, the latter being straight up porn, with lots of tits and ass.

The whole story was written for Scott:
You get your typical Men™ experience, you being all manly and such, which I‘m sure, was expected and wanted from the game. If you play Sarah, you’re the same person with another body.

(Going so far that the animations for Scotts model where just slapped on Sarah, making her walk in cut scenes very goofy. Her facial expressions look uncanny and rushed, but I digress.)

You also get into the bar fight, you also never apologize ever, you also sit with your legs open.

And in a way I like that. Why wouldn‘t Sarah do all those things? There is no rulebook for what women should do and how to behave or move. She doesn‘t have to proof or defend her womanhood. Sarah doesn‘t have to be all girly. In fact, I would have been angry with a cliché representation.

Still, in a way playing as Sarah was a disappointment.
I want her to feel relatable.
To me.
I want the game to not get rid of everything that would alienate the male target audience.
I want the devs to cater to me. I want stories and perspectives that have truth to me.
I want the guys to make room. If they can have their fantasies fullfilled as problematic as those are, then I want to be able to play as woman with beautiful hair and a bedazzled gun. Why is her ponytail so sad and uglyyy :ccc

I wanted Sarah to have something else, something that shows me that she’s a woman because just having boobs and the voice is not cutting it.
I will not assume cisness per default.
But how to inject gender in your character when there is nothing, no character trait, no experience that is limited to nor required for womanhood? Especially when no one around her reacts to her gender?


There are no special relationships with other women, no solidarity, no understanding without explaining, because there is nothing to understand.
Sarah doesn‘t have to fight against a sexist system, no one wants to get her number, she doesn't have to fight gender roles. She lives in a society so indifferent about your gender only a videogame with limited writing can let you participate in.

The only one expecting her to perform femininity is me.

At the end of the day Sarah might not be a woman at all.

She‘s a version of Scott that I perceive as female because I picked her body, name and voice.
She is only a woman because I, the player, project it onto her, assume based on body, voice and name. At the end the day, she is nothing but a canvas for me, she is giving me nothing, she never tells me how she identifies.

A cocktail of how I expect femininity to be performed, contrasted with what I perceive as manliness™. The guy dude fantasy the writers wrote for their guy gamers; left in there for Sarah to embody.
Her whole programming screams of transness, never to be confirmed nor denied.
She is confusing and inconsistent in a way that is impossible to put your finger on because what the fuck does it all even mean. The whole gender thing doesn't make sense in the first place.

When I picked up the game, I wanted a vacation.
I wanted to escape.
I wanted to be somewhere better.
But mass effect andromeda doesn’t take you to a new world on the other side of the galaxy, we’ re still on the one we live in.

I was disappointed when my answer to where I want to fit in the binary didn’t have the consequences I wished for.
But it was a trick question to begin with.
Not only because the game refuses to give you anything other than the guy bro stereotype, but also because we don’t fit in there anyways.

Long story short: You can play the game as Scott, who is your typical guy dude, or as Sarah, who is… well, it’s complicated.

That's all for now

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So um sorry this post got so long.
Those are just my rantings and ramblings and thoughts and you know. If you have any thoughts i would love to know meow