Yesterday Bioware announced a brand new Mass Effect statue that would be limited to just 2000 pieces. However, the statue was a little odd as it depicted the corpse of the female version of Commander Shepard floating in space, replicating the scene from the intro of Mass Effect 2.

Priced at $135 the statue immediately drew attention for understandable reasons. Opting to create a statue of Commander Shepard’s cold, dead body was a bold choice, to say the least, and it was strange that no male version could be bought, too.

“The Mass Effect Shepard’s Death Statue depicts Mass Effect 2’s dramatic opening scene:  Commander Shepard expelled from a crumbling Normandy and hurtling through space to her untimely demise.” read the statue’s page on Bioware’s official merch page, which is now only accessible via the Wayback Machine.

Wait, why only on the Wayback Machine, I hear you asking? Well, that’s because around a day after announcing the statue Bioware has already cancelled it, seemingly due to it getting a rough reception.

Hi all,

Earlier today, we announced the sale of our latest Mass Effect Shepard statue. This statue was intended to be part of a series, commemorating some of the key and most emotional moments in the series. The way we announced it did not convey that properly, nor does it give…

— BioWare Gear Store (@BioWareGear) June 12, 2023

Bioware goes on to state that anyone who already pre-ordered will have that order cancelled and be refunded. Interestingly, the same Tweet that says this also mentions “until the proper launch.” indicating that the statue might still see the light of day.

I did note some people stating that they thought the statue was somehow sexualising and fetishizing FemShep, which seems completely absurd to me. Over at Eurogamer, for example, Liv Ngan said that, “The posing of FemShep is also a bit much – why the slightly arched back? Out of context, it looks a bit like Shepard’s death is being sexualised and fetishised.”

Yeah, I can’t see it. It looks like a pretty standard pose for somebody floating in space, but I guess if you want to see something sexual in it, you could. With that said, if you want to see something sexual in a sprout you could probably do that, too.

Anyway, while I think the statue looks underwhelming and that it was a very strange choice, I also don’t see any need to cancel it. This looks like a knee-jerk reaction from Bioware who were perhaps afraid they were going to get jumped on, as happens so quickly these days over entirely undeserving things (and also entirely deserving things, too.)