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Liam from ‘Mass Effect: Andromeda’ is based on Donald Glover

Brad Jones
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mass effect andromeda donald glover childish gambino
Next year, Donald Glover will take to the stars as Lando Calrissian himself when he appears in the as-yet-untitled Han Solo movie. Star Wars isn’t the only sci-fi franchise the actor has contributed to, though, as we now know he played an inadvertent role in the development of Mass Effect: Andromeda.

Yesterday, BioWare Montreal’s former lead user interface artist Eric Bellefeuille posted concept art from the early stages of the game’s development on ArtStation. His work would have been carried out while other designers were working on character models and other such content, at a time when placeholder content would be used when final designs aren’t available.

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As you might imagine, BioWare spent plenty of time perfecting the characters in Andromeda — these screens demonstrate that Nakmor Drack was once called Narmo Drack, and Vetra Nyx was originally dubbed Vale Nyx, according to a report from Gamespot.

It seems that before the character model for Liam Kosta was finalized, Donald Glover served as a placeholder. This kind of practice is not uncommon, but it’s always interesting to gain a peek behind the curtain of the development process.

Eric Bellefeuille
Eric Bellefeuille

One of Bellefeuille’s concepts for a squad menu features a picture of Kosta that closely resembles the actor, far more so than his in-game character model in the finished product. It’s difficult to tell whether this is concept art that was intentionally drawn to look like Glover, or an earlier design that was later revamped.

It’s not difficult to see why Glover was chosen to lend his appearance to this early version of the game — the man is about as ubiquitous as it gets when it comes to the entertainment industry. As well as his aforementioned starring role in the Han Solo movie, he’s set to star in the remake of The Lion King as Simba, his television show Atlanta debuted to widespread acclaim last year, and there was a similarly strong response to his latest album, “Awaken, My Love!” He may not have made an official appearance in Andromeda, but he’s sure to take the world of video games by storm sooner or later.

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