You can make all sorts of romantic decisions across the Mass Effect games, each with their own distinct narrative arcs. An unexpected one actually happens based on the choices you don't make, and it was so surprising, it caught a developer completely off guard.
In Mass Effect 3, if you don't lay it on hot and heavy with either Tali or Garrus, they will hook up. It's a nice bit of narrative flavoring that makes your crew feel more alive and autonomous; if you've a personal life on board the Normandy, so do they, and even your rejections have consequences.
Kris Schoneberg, a level designer on Mass Effect 3 and card-carrying Garrus stan, tells us she found out about this literally while playing the sci-fi RPG. "I was testing the save game, and I didn't know that occurred," she recalls to GamesRadar+.
"I am a Garrus [superfan], like you can't see it but there's a Garrus shrine over here," she explains. "I loaded up the save game, and I'm running around The Normandy trying to test the bug that I have. And I open up the door, and yeah, they're standing in the doorway, right?"
The galaxy's greatest sniper and your crew's most elusive member, having a sneaky little rendezvous together. The scandal, it's like something out of a soap opera. Distressed at the shock, Schoneberg took this to the writers and demanded answers.
"I put the controller down, and I marched over to the writer's room, and I was like, 'When? When was this?'" she remembers. "So relatable, highly relatable."
We've all been there, in real life and in video game form. Just goes to show, you've got to shoot your shot at any and all opportunities to do so. Otherwise it might be your crush hanging out with a mysterious quarian or a galactic war hero.
