To say that Mass Effect 3's reception was "controversial" would be an understatement. The controversial ending, the pace of DLC releases, the decision to turn the Normandy's ship AI into a sexy female robot... the list of complaints is endless. But among them, the villain Kai Leng might still be the most hated character in the game, if not the entire series. Even 14 years after the game's release, actor Troy Beck still seems embarrassed about having played Kai Leng.
In the latest episode of the YouTube channel Partychat, the hosts played clips of various roles from Beck's career. When discussing characters like Joel from The Last of Us and Higgs from Death Stranding, he shared warm memories of the creative process and praised creators such as Neil Druckmann and Hideo Kojima.
But as soon as Kai Leng appeared on screen, "Don't play this," Beck laughed and turned away. "Next one. No, hurry to the next." The video continued playing, showing his character being stabbed through the chest, and he just looked disgusted. "That's right, I deserved it," Beck admitted. "I shouldn't have taken this role in the first place; there were too many reasons."
Mass Effect 3 portrayed Kai Leng as the galaxy's top tough guy, but his tacky goggles, pretentious ninja demeanor, and katana made him look like a walking meme of "I study kendo." Even more awkwardly, although the character was设定 as Chinese, he was dressed in stereotypical Japanese tropes.
Every few years, similar threads pop up in Mass Effect discussion forums: "Is Kai Leng the worst character in the series?" "Who's the worst character, and why is it Kai Leng?" "What the hell is Kai Leng? Was his designer drunk?" There are even popular mods that completely obscure Kai Leng's face and remove all his dialogue. That's some dedicated hate.
The current criticism of Kai Leng may have gone beyond reasonable critique of the character—as online negativity often does—but the dislike for this character is genuinely real. It seems that not even Troy Beck himself is exempt.