Commander Shepard Dead 1
Image: BioWare

If you're particularly sensitive to minor spoilers for what is, at this point, a retro game, consider yourself warned. During the prologue of Mass Effect 2 (literally the first ten minutes), a convenient McGuffin is contrived as a way to reset any skills Commander Shepard might have picked up during the original game, with our hero jettisoned, broken, into the cold, unyielding vacuum of space... in need of rebuilding.

The moment is certainly a memorable one, an explosive opening to an excellent game. Someone at BioWare certainly thought so, too, going so far as to have it immortalised in one of the more bizarre pieces of video game merchandise we've seen since Dead Island: Riptide's historically obscene tribute to classical Roman sculpture.

Behold, the Shepard's Death Statue!

Commander Shepard Dead 2
Image: BioWare

The pricey conversation starter was on sale for all of a day before being pulled from the BioWare Gear Store, with the reason for its removal still unclear. The Gear Store's official Twitter account posted an apology for laying insufficient emotional groundwork for the gravity of the scene depicted (apparently), admitting that "the way we announced [Shepard's Death Statue] did not convey that properly, nor does it give the moment in the series the credit it deserves."

Did you manage to secure the infinitely collectable Shepard's Death Statue while it was briefly on sale? Rattle off the most memorable pieces of gaming merchandise you can recall in the comments section below.

[source kotaku.com, via gamesradar.com]