Recently a woman who reportedly worked on the animations for BioWare’s upcoming ARPG, Mass Effect: Andromeda has been getting some major backlash for the game’s animations. Yesterday the woman became the victim of online harassment and received numerous vulgar messages on social media. One blog named the ralphretort titled an article, “A Cosplayer With No Video Game Experience was the Lead Facial Animator for Mass Effect: Andromeda” and even PewDiePie did a video roasting the poor graphics of the game.
Yesterday, Allie Rose-Marie Leost was targeted with misogynistic messages across all her social media accounts. Leost’s identity was reported through a blog post on TheRaplhRetort alleging that she was the lead animator for the game. According to the post, the author is upset at Leost because of the awkward facial animations in the upcoming space RPG and speculated that the only reason she got the job was because she performed sexual acts.
The attacks made against Leost are very similar to the death and rape threats that several women received during the 2014 GameGate controversy. Originally started as an online crusade against Canadian feminist, Anita Sarkeesian who is infamous for her video series Tropes vs. Women in Video Games. The GamerGate controversy also had several other feminists chiming in and challenging how women are portrayed in video games.
After the blog post, and backlash received, BioWare general manager, Aaryn Flynn tweeted a statement, explaining that the reports of Leost having any involvement in Andromeda‘s development are false.
— BioWare (@bioware) March 18, 2017
Mass Effect: Andromeda is set to released on Tuesday, March 21st on PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.