My Shepard isn’t saving the universe in Mass Effect 3. I wanted her to, but as I play through the final instalment, she’s still stuck half-way through the immeasurably dull scanning missions that would ensure Mordin and my other best people survive Operation: Certain Death. Instead, I’m playing with someone else. She looks the same – red hair, the right eyes, the same voice and the same no-nonsense approach to saving the galaxy. She’s even had many of the same experiences. But she’s not my Shepard. She’s Bioware’s – the sum of their choices.

And while I’m sure I could find a Shepard closer to my own, ready to import, from Mass Effect 2 Saves, that’s even worse. Mass Effect is inherently a sum of Bioware’s choices – a few more in character creation hardly makes much of a difference. But to just climb into someone else’s story? That feels… weird. In an era where ownership of our own characters is an increasingly rare privilege, you may as well ask to borrow another gamer’s underpants…

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