13 Video Game Characters You Didn't Realise Were Based On Real People

5. Commander Shepard - Mark Vanderloo

Mass Effect's Shepard takes many forms. His appearance can be tweaked to your heart's content, indeed to the point where 'he' is actually a 'she'. Strangely, it seems that no matter how you customise him, the space commander needs to fit within a certain 'good-looking' threshold. You can't, for example, make a round-faced Shepard, or one with an abnormally large forehead. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIZarEw9mPo But no matter what your personal take on Shepherd is, in the popular imagination he'll always be that dude on the cover of all the Mass Effect games - the short-haired, abnormally handsome soldier providing a blank canvas for you to imprint your own character onto. In a way, it's fitting that the default Shepherd model is indeed a model himself - dashing Dutchman Mark Vanderloo, who is the leading man for Hugo Boss' black and white ad campaigns, as well countless other major designers.
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Contributor

Gamer, Researcher of strange things. I'm a writer-editor hybrid whose writings on video games, technology and movies can be found across the internet. I've even ventured into the realm of current affairs on occasion but, unable to face reality, have retreated into expatiating on things on screens instead.