[Update #2]: Mass Effect's executive producer Casey Hudson is clarifying his previous tweets on ME 3's love interests with more tweets. This is getting ridiculous.

Hudson's recent tweet on the matter states that it's "not necessarily true" that previously straight characters will now be open to same-sex relationships, and that players "Will have some new [love interests] in #ME3."

Hudson also tweeted that reports of there being no new love interests in ME3 are "an oversimplification" of an answer he gave in an April interview, and that "things always evolve in mid-production."

With all this attention being paid to who Shepard can and cannot sleep with, we hope the commander still has time to, you know, save the galaxy.

[Update #1]: Mass Effect series' executive producer Casey Hudson has further tweeted that same-sex romance options and other "wider interests."

"Happy to confirm #ME3 supports wider options for love interests incl. same-sex for m&f chars, reactive to how you interact w/them in-game," he tweeted.

The question is: If ME 3 isn't introducing new love interests, and the same-sex romance is based on how you interact with your companions, at what point did Shepard or his love interests flip sides or come out of the closet? Hopefully we'll get more details on this before the game's release early next year.

[Original Story]: According the Mass Effect series' executive producer Casey Hudson, the third installment will not introduce any new romantic options. Instead, players will be dealing with the potential love interests from the first two games.

Mass Effect 3 will still have new characters and squadmates, so it isn't like everyone you see will be a familiar face. However, when it comes to your affections, you'll be spending more time resolving your feelings for previous flames. Speaking to PC Gamer, Hudson explained:

In this one, we don’t really have new characters that are part of the romance stuff in the way that we did in Mass Effect 2, where we introduced a lot of characters...But we also have some interesting things happening, where you’ve got Ashley and Kaiden from the first game, you’ve got Liara, and there’s sort of a love triangle there. And then we gave people a bunch of new characters. People said “Well, I just want my Mass Effect 1 characters, and I’m not interested in any of these characters.” But then a lot of people had romances with those characters, and now the fun is bringing back some of those characters from Mass Effect 1 and putting them back in the mix, and looking at what you did in Mass Effect 2 and bringing some… interesting scenarios around those things.

So, don't think that you won't see consequences if you weren't faithful to your ME1 flame in ME2. Also, if you've been standoffish to every potential mate in hopes that you'd meet the perfect match in the final entry, you may want to start up a new Shepard.

(Source: PC Gamer via Evil Avatar)