Fans have expressed outrage at the apparent reveal that developer BioWare used a stock photo as the basis for one of Mass Effect 3's main characters.
Angry gamers sent a barrage of e-mails to Kotaku's tips hotline last night with links to the stock photo and the spoilery reveal from the action-roleplaying game, which was released yesterday for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.
Warning: The photograph below contains spoilers for one of Mass Effect 3's characters.
The photo shows an in-game picture of Mass Effect 3 character Tali, who appeared in both previous games but has never removed the mask covering her face. Tali's newly-revealed face seems to be a modified version of a stock image by photographer Matthew Leete, which is freely available for commercial use to anybody with a Getty Images account.
"This HAS to qualify for some form of lazy art," one gamer told us.
Reader Matthew Reichardt sent us this picture of Mass Effect 3's Tali lined up next to a stock Getty photograph.
"Looks like more BioWare bullshit to me," another gamer said.
BioWare is no stranger to Internet hatred. A large contingent of gamers seem dedicated to attacking the development studio. They harassed BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler during an Internet campaign last month. Yesterday, review aggregator Metacritic had to delete some of the user reviews on Mass Effect 3 for violating its terms of use in what appeared to be a unified effort to spam the game with low scores.
We've contacted BioWare and publisher EA for comment and we'll update if we hear anything.