We know quite a lot about Mass Effect 2. The game will be darker and grittier than the initial release, Commander Shepard could die in the game, depending on the way in which the player sets up the finale, a new threat to the Galaxy will be revealed and battled, combat has been revamped in order to make it more engaging and exploration has been developed. Still, the developers have so far not talked about romance options and whether explicit scenes will be appearing in Mass Effect 2.

Greg Zeschuk, who is the co-founder of BioWare and one of the main people working on Mass Effect 2, addressed the issue with CVG, saying that “It’s interesting because I think the Mass Effect thing was completely over-blown. There wasn’t even really [an unclothed character]; it was like the side of a leg. I think some of the press took huge advantage of the situation. The reality was that it was the kind of stuff you’d see on evening television.”

He added that “If you’re trying to have a relationship with a character we want to reflect that and the impact of the connection with that character. And if that involves some sort of intimate scenes, we want to provide those for the player.”

When the original Mass Effect was released, the media had a field day describing the content it packed. As always when it comes to videogames, the emphasis was on the questionable moral values that Mass Effect would instill in the children that play it and the amount of explicit scenes was overblown by news anchors that did not even bother to play the game or to watch the “offensive” sections they talked about.

BioWare seems to be unconcerned about the possibility of more media attacks and probably believes that they can only be of interest to those who do not understand the design philosophy that the company follows.