Mass Effect: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Shepard
2. Male Shepard Nearly Sounded Completely Different
Played as MaleShep before? If so, you'll recognise his iconic tones in an instant. He's assertive but fair and the voice seems to fit perfectly to the character.
Well, you've got voice actor Mark Meer to thank for that. He ended up voicing Shepard across all three of the games, but at the start of production for the series, this was very nearly not the case.
When creating Mass Effect 1, Bioware needed to start putting together dialogue for what would ultimately become Commander Shepard. To do this, they needed an actor to get a feel for how it would work. Mark Meer was that actor, and was only ever intended to be a stand-in until another person could be cast.
The rest is history: Bioware loved Mark's take on the character so much, they decided to keep him and become the voice of the character for the full series.
Mark Meer loves portraying Commander Shepard too; he's gone in cosplay to conventions, and even sent out birthday messages while dressed as the guy!