10 Underused Video Game Characters You Fell In Love With

2. Jack - Mass Effect

Mass Effect Jack
Bioware

Jack is easily one of the most fascinating characters in the entire Mass Effect franchise, which makes her relative lack of focus so frustrating. Oh sure, she's a companion in both 2 and 3, but she's rarely if ever the focus of the action the same way that her heated rival Miranda or fan favorite Garrus are.

But at least Jack got a very well handled personal arc across the latter two Mass Effect games, where she goes from a chaotically feral, violent, nigh-psychopathic criminal, to a still-chaotic-but-clearly-trying-her-best school teacher.

Yes, you read that right, Mass Effect fans who didn't bother with 3 when they heard the ending sucked, Jack is a school teacher in 3. And she censors herself constantly around her kids. And it's amazing.

The way Mass Effect 2 handled Jack's trauma, letting her situation be as complicated and messy as these sorts of things are in real life, including having you be able to slightly influence her path, but not truly control how she deals with her baggage since that's HER battle to fight, was nothing short of beautiful.

As with anything else this well done, we just wish we got to see more of it.

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John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?