Commander Shepard

Commander Shepard
Mass Effect character
The default male (left) and female (right) Shepards, as presented on Mass Effect 3's cover
First appearance	Mass Effect (2007)
Voiced by	Mark Meer (male) Jennifer Hale (female)

Commander Shepard is the player character in BioWare's Mass Effect game trilogy: Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2, and Mass Effect 3. A veteran soldier of the Systems Alliance Navy military and N7-graduate of the Interplanetary Combatives Training (ICT) program, and the first human Citadel Council Spectre, Shepard works to stop "the Reapers", a sentient synthetic-machine race dedicated to wiping out all organic life. Shepard's gender, class, first name and facial appearance are chosen and customised by the player. Mark Meer provides the voice for male Shepards, while Jennifer Hale voices females. Since the player can choose the gender of Shepard, much of the dialogue revolving around the character is gender neutral with only a few exceptions.

Alan Shepard was the source of the character's name. Shepard's armour developed over the series, and was originally intended to be red-and-white. Though both genders were given equal importance during development, marketing felt there was a need for a single identifiable hero for promotion of the game. Various merchandise has been made, including several figurines. Shepard has appeared in cameo appearances in other Electronic Arts games and will be mentioned in Mass Effect: Andromeda, though they will not be appearing in any future Mass Effect titles.

BioWare wanted players to feel special and empowered from the start of the game. Unlike other role-playing game protagonists, they felt Shepard should not be an entirely blank character for the player to create, in order to create a more "intense" experience; with Mass Effect being more cinematic than other BioWare video games, they felt they needed an "extra bit" with a sense of a specific flavour that can be caused by a memorable character, such as Star Trek's Captain Kirk or 24's Jack Bauer.