Mass Effect Legendary Edition to Revise Juvenile Scenes Like the Miranda Butt Shot

If you head into Reddit, shout out that you thought the Miranda butt shots in the original Mass Effect trilogy was beyond juvenile and cheapened her story, you’ll be sure to get some straight guy telling you how it added ‘fun and comedy’ to the ‘deeply serious’ sci-fi series.

So, with that in mind, it gives me great pleasure to say that thanks to the Metro, we now know that deeply childish, near embarrassing scenes, such as the Miranda butt shot will be removed from the game. And, just so it’s clear, other silly scenes – such as the unflattering focus on Female Shepard’s skirt if she was wearing a dress during scenes – are going to be altered too.

The decision was made by character and environment director, Kevin Meek. Meek handled a lot of the animation, as well as camera angles, across the board, making sure that they worked right. For example, the infamous Shepard head spin, was set to be removed too but Meek later changed his mind when he realized the only way to see it was to mod the camera angle in the first place.

Meeks also addressed camera angles that, to be frank, were just plain silly. In Mass Effect 2, the angles of some shots meant that during a serious scene with Miranda you’d often see her butt for no real reason. It was later argued by Casey Hudson that they had scenes like this of Jacob too, hence he didn’t really see anything wrong with them.

Like most things Hudson has said in the past, this has aged like mouldy, stinky cheese, as the whole point of Miranda’s storyline was to show that she was more than just a sexualized woman that held power. Instead, the Miranda butt shots in Mass Effect 2 just felt like teenaged boys were scripting the scene to nudge you and give you a wink because ‘uh, booty’ am I right?

Regardless, we’re certain that some sad sack will go out of their way to mod the PC version of the Mass Effect: Legendary Edition to add those camera angles back in. Until then though, I’ll just grab some popcorn, head on back into Reddit, and use some angry straight guy’s tears for salt.

About The Author

Aimee Hart

[She/They] Aimee Hart specializes in queer fandom, video games and tabletop, having started her career writing for numerous websites like The Verge, Polygon, Input Magazine and more. Her goal now is to boost LGBTQ+ voices in the video games industry.

See author's posts