BioWare says that the Hainly Abrams character “was not included in a thoughtful or caring way”.
Mass Effect: Andromeda developer BioWare has released a statement via Twitter today regarding a transgender character from the game. Hainly Abrams, the character in question, is a scientist encountered in a minor side-quest within the game. When prompted about her past, she reveals to the player character that she used to be a man named “Stephan”.
BioWare apologizes for her implementation, saying that she was “not included in a thoughtful or caring way”. It apologized for anyone who interacted with and was hurt by this conversation.
“This was never our intent, and an unfortunate by-product of the iterative process of game design and a change in structure of the character’s dialogue,” it added.
You can view the reportedly offensive scene in the video to the right. Complaints from the LGBT community apparently arose because Abrams seems like a “token” transgender character, who very quickly and ham-fistedly reveals her transgender origins with almost no prompting.
“Once the changes are implemented, Hainly will only reveal certain information to Ryder after they have developed trust,” said BioWare.
Source: BioWare
