Featured Image Credit: EA
Topics: Mass Effect, Bioware
One of the wonderful things about the Mass Effect trilogy is that everybody has a favourite companion.
Perhaps Thane is your main man? Maybe you like to cruise the cosmos with Legion? Dropped on your head as a child? You might love Ashley Williams. The possibilities are endless, but one companion that gets a lot more love than most is none other than Garrus Vakarian.
Everybody loves the heroic turian, but one thing BioWare didn't see coming is quite how much people would love him, if you catch my drift.
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Garrus is a popular romance option in Mass Effect 2, and the mere existence of actual Garrus body pillows (not to mention mountains of steamy internet art) confirm that the thirst is very, very real. It's something that took Drew Karpyshyn, lead writer on the first two Mass Effect games, completely by surprise.
During a recent AMA on Reddit (thanks, PC Gamer), Karpyshyn explained he was "surprised" people wanted Garrus as a romance option when he returned for Mass Effect 2. Remember his relationship with Shepard in the first game was strictly platonic, as much as players might have wanted otherwise.
"We always knew they'd come back as companions," Karpyshyn explained of Garrus and Tali. "I was a bit surprised fans wanted the romance options. Tali I could sort of see... you never saw her face, so it was easy to imagine something vaguely human. (But she had those weird feet!) Garrus blindsided me—but once we saw what fans wanted, we decided to deliver!"
Alas, anyone supporting the headcanon that their Shepard settled down with Garrus to have lots of human/turian babies will be devastated to learn that Karpyshyn reckons inter-species breeding probably isn't possible. Although he does point out that he no longer works at BioWare, and admits the developers position may have changed. I'm sure adoption is also totally a thing in space.
"The various species in Mass Effect are too biologically different to breed with each other," the writer argued. "Except Asari, of course... it's part of what made them unique. But that's just my personal take; I don't work on the series anymore so if BioWare wants to have Turi-quar babies, that's their choice."