Last week Casey Hudson, executive producer at BioWare, confirmed Mass Effect 3 has gone gold. With just a few far-too-long weeks left until the eagerly anticipated release of Mass Effect 3 excitement is palpable.
While it's briefly satiated thanks to the recently launched Mass Effect 3 demo it just isn't enough. Maybe we'll hunt down those copies being launched into space when they crash land to get our hands on it early.
Until then we've had to settle with a chat with Casey Hudson, who - if we're honest - just made the situation worse. In our interview Hudson lavishes details on Mass Effect 3's online aspects; mobile tie-ins; endings; DLC and more.
Have a read...
Mass Effect 3 has just gone gold, so what are you guys doing now?
As part of Galaxy At War, we've heard about the co-op gameplay, but can you talk us through the other elements of ME3's online side?
There's a lot of interest in being able to take a game experience like Mass Effect and bring other things that players might like to do if they are fans of the Mass Effect universe. You're not always at your computer or console, so we've got some cool new things coming out for people to play on the move.
We've got a really neat Datapad app for iOS, so you can still interact with the Mass Effect universe. But what we try to do is integrate that into something that is meaningful in the context of the story itself, and the themes of the game. So, that's where the Galaxy At War content comes in.
Even inside the Datapad app, for example, you'll be able to see your overall rating of success in the Galaxy At War, and you can get a sense of how you're doing in that war. You can then, from the datapad app, actually deploy your resources out to different parts of the galaxy, fight for control of those parts of the galaxy, repair your fleet and stuff like that.
So it's almost like a Risk-type board game?
It's kind of a metagame, because when you jump back into the game as Commander Shepard, you'll see the same overall ratings of how the galaxy is being controlled by the Alliance versus the Reapers.
If I'm, say, playing Mass Effect 3 on the Xbox 360, presumably I'll still be able to finish it without playing the iOS app?
It's interesting because, on the one hand, people really don't like the idea of any kind of fiction or any kind of gameplay outside the game experience that has nothing to do with it, and they also don't want to be required and essential. So we look at it as providing options for people to choose where they want to spend their time.
Some people love to go straight to the end of the story as fast as they can, because they love the action but don't necessarily want to do the role-playing stuff. And then there are people who are really into role-playing, and really immersing themselves in this world, and they'll want to explore everything that's in the single-player game. And it is a huge game - it's much bigger than we actually expected it to be.
Comments
14 comments so far...
humanhand on 17 Feb '12 said:
It all just sounds so good! I can't wait to get started on this game!
budge on 17 Feb '12 said:
I just hope that the game is a lot more polished than the recent demo.
The_KFD_Case on 17 Feb '12 said:
If someone had told me, after I played ME1 and ME2 or either one of those games on their own, that I don't have any plans on getting ME3 upon release and that my enthusiasm would have flat lined, I would have laughed and scoffed at them. Yet here we are and sadly, in my opinion, it does seem that BioWare has gradually turned in to what many feared after they were bought by EA. DA2 was disgraceful and this latest insistence on force feeding EA's Origin online DRM portal pap on PC users only exacerbates matters from where I stand. No purchase until an Origin-free version comes around...and if one doesn't come around then I guess there's always the YouTube followings that post the cut scenes. Hopefully eventually (maybe in a year or two) EA will stop screwing around and release an Origin-free version on Steam. I have other issues with Steam yet at least with Valve I feel like I'm still respected as a customer - that's not something I can say of either BioWare or EA these days.
To those of you who do decide to buy ME3 on release, I hope you enjoy it. I could go for the Xbox version yet frankly I have neither the time nor the inclination to play all the way through ME1 and ME2 again in order to have my own personal Cmdr. Shepard and his story choices for ME3. This is the polar opposite of how I thought I'd feel come ME3. Oh well.
dicky1993 on 17 Feb '12 said:
if there is loads of dlc, i hope it has a season pass
wishface on 17 Feb '12 said:
DLC? More moneygrubbing EA bulls**t. If it's not on the disc, you are ripping people off. I don't care whether or not you lazy f**kers go on holiday, stop ripping us off.
MALIK787 on 17 Feb '12 said:
@kfd case
You can convert me2 pc saves to xbox saves via a tool this guy created on the bioware forums have a search on google for me2 save converter or something
rkpaterson on 17 Feb '12 said:
I'm confused as to why I'm just not that excited by this game...I loved the first two.
nologo on 17 Feb '12 said:
played the demo on pc last night.. visuals are great.
i'm slowly moving away from playing my console.. graphics are quickly becoming really dated as pc graphics are just booming
MeanwhileGuy on 17 Feb '12 said:
Oh bugger off, it's not EA ripping people off, it's Bioware planning what they want to do after they finish the game. Which, y'know, they've worked extremely hard on and it probably in the final stages of tweaking. It's simply not possible for them to do everything they want within the dev time they get, and personally I'd rather them take their time with future content than shove a crappy, half-finished version on the disc for launch date. And I think your definition of getting ripped off is slightly wrong, for me, if the content was already on the disc, fully completed but locked off, that is a rip off, not content that wasn't on the disc to begin with and is released later via a download.
Plus, what's wrong with a dev team wanting to support a game for months after release? If it was released now with absolutely everything present, and then had no updates for single or multiplayer, there would be one hell of a sh*tstorm within the fanbase. In future I suggest you keep your ill-informed opinions to yourself, and personally, you don't even deserve the no-doubt fantastic DLC Bioware is going to come up.
SkyBlueJukeBox on 17 Feb '12 said:
I'll only consider buying this once I find out what Origin actually does. If it really is the spyware that searches through your programs to see what you've got it installed, like some people make it out to be, then it's not touching my PC. On the other hand, I've heard some people saying it's not all that bad. Does anyone know how it actually works, or could provide me with a link that gives me some details?
Sangor on 17 Feb '12 said:
There is nothing wrong with developers supporting their games. It's just a shame that the in-thing at the moment is to shout about dlc before the game is even released.
kbekl on 18 Feb '12 said:
its exactly the same as steam people are just bitchin as they dont like ea
i have origin and bought the first 2 games for £13 on a ea sale recently
as it currently sits steam is using 26,136k and origin is using 11,284k in task manager both 00 for cpu usage
The_KFD_Case on 18 Feb '12 said:
qSPARTANp on 23 Feb '12 said:
[quote=Oh bugger off, it's not EA ripping people off, it's Bioware planning what they want to do after they finish the game. Which, y'know, they've worked extremely hard on and it probably in the final stages of .
HI all,
DLC......If content has been created before the game ships it should be ON THE DISC! Day one DLC is Bulls**t! Imagine being being at the table when these guys are discussing what content they should leave out and NOT put on the disc at release so they can sell it to us on the Day of release or soon after, that is wrong, but if it is unlocked when you by the game new as an incentive, that is different. surely if you are trying to build the best most full experince you should ship all you have created or if it is not up to standard, chuck it in the bin. Working on DLC months after is again another matter, I am all for creating extra content but not at the expense of shipping an incomplete game to begin with. DLC is great if done properly, but is a slippery slope if ill-used. As we have seen there is to be Day 1 content for MASS EFFECT 3..............