BioWare Writer Gives His Take on Subject Zero

BioWare writer Patrick Weekes dropped by the Penny Arcade forums to respond to comments about Mass Effect 2's newly revealed Subject Zero character. A quick summary of his responses:
That's one of the reasons that they (uh, "we", I guess) released that video. Subject Zero is a pretty good example of somebody who'd never have been in your squad in the previous game.

And as somebody who was painfully cuddled by one of those big-boy mechs yesterday, having a squad member who can bounce those guys off the wall is pretty handy.

...

Glad to hear that SuZy is in no way a polarizing figure and that nobody has decided that they aren't getting the game because it might have a topless tatskank throwing a mech around.

I could explain that Suzy's enhanced biotics come from the fact that her biotics are augmented through solar power, and the tats are solar panels, which means she always needs to have them exposed. This would be not true in any capacity, but it might make some people feel better.

The simpler explanation is that I personally utterly loathe her character. She presses a number of buttons I don't like in real-life people, and she's written well enough that she comes off like a real-life person -- a real-life person I detest. Other people respond to her extremely favorably.

Which is why, for me, she stays on the ship. And... well, not to get spoilery on you, but if this were ME1, I'd be really excited when it came time to leave someone to guard the nuke on Virmire. We're on a suicide mission. Some people might not make it. Sacrifices have to be made. (cough)

This is why we've got more than 6 this time. Having so many lets us take risks and make the characters cover a wider range. The goal in ME1 was for you to kinda like (at least) most or all of them -- if you loved them, great, but we tried to avoid taking hard-line chances (and hell, see Space Hitler for how well even that worked). The goal this time was for there to be characters you love and characters you loathe.

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So if we include her and she's romanceable, we're being sexist by letting you conquer the exotic other.

If we include her and she's not romanceable, we're being sexist by only letting you sleep with conventionally attractive people.

If we include her but modify her appearance (no tats, no shaved head), we're being sexist by making all the female followers conventionally attractive.

If we don't include another female at all, we're being sexist for not having enough female squad members.

This is why many game developers stop listening.