2010 Unreal Engine 3 Trailer

look for some of these features in Gears of War 3 and Mass Effect 3 in 2011/2012.

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Rumor: BioWare's New Mass Effect Is A Multiplayer Spin-off

BioWare Montreal, which has aided in Mass Effect 2 development, was seeking multiplayer programmers earlier this year to "take existing single player user experiences and make them multiplayer safe." BioWare co-founder Greg Zeschuk has also said that there will be more games set in the Mass Effect universe outside of the series' main trilogy.

EA's John Schappert has promised "something far-reaching coming from Mass Effect" in the new year, something a December-timed reveal could drum up new enthusiasm for. Schappert could have simply been referring to the PlayStation 3 version of Mass Effect 2, however, which is due in January 2011.

Finally, former Raven Software (Quake 4, Wolfenstein) lead designer Manveer Heir moved to BioWare Montreal this summer to work on Mass Effect, giving the developer some well-known multiplayer shooter talent.

We've reached out to EA to seek comment on the details provided by our source and will update if they respond.

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A Glimpse At Bioware's VGA Game Reveal... Could it Be Mass Effect 3?

BioWare will reveal its next game at Spike's Video Game Awards on Saturday, December 11. From the one screen we received from EA and the teaser (posted after the break), we suspect it might be called Mass of Honor: Dragunov Age. Yeah, let's go with that for now.

Along with the BioWare reveal, VGA emcee Geoff Keighley also tweeted that the event would feature a new trailer for Batman: Arkham City. The show should also reveal the Guillermo Del Toro project over at THQ and maybe, just maybe, something involving Gears of War and Kinect.

Update: The sharp eyes of commenter Arth Vader picked up that the gun in the pic is either the M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle from the Mass Effect 2 Aegis Pack DLC or a reused asset. If it is the M-29, it would imply the game will be Mass Effect related.

Update 2: Recall that EA said last February that something "far-reaching" was coming to Mass Effect during the fourth quarter of the publisher's current fiscal year -- or in layman's terms: January 1 – March 31, 2011.

Update 3: Okay, now things are just getting nerdy. BioWare blasted out the adjacent QR code on Twitter which, when decoded, reads: 001101010011010100101110001110000011010000110101. When converted from binary (we told you: nerdy) it reads: 55.845. Of course, as everyone knows, 55.845 is the atomic mass of iron. Maybe the presence of the word "mass" in our findings isn't quite enough to go on, but we're sure you'll agree that the presence of the word "mass" coupled with a piece of fan fiction titled Mass Effect: Iron Rebirth is practically a smoking M-29 Incisor Sniper Rifle.

Update 4: And another QR code has been loosed upon the unsuspecting people of Twitter. This one translates into some binary which then translates into: 128.5°F. Converted to Celsius, that becomes -89.16666666666667 Celsius. "The coldest temperature ever recorded on earth is -89.2 degrees Celsius (-128.5 degrees Fahrenheit) at Vostok, Antarctica on July 21, 1983," says Wikipedia. This Mass Effect wiki page details Vostok, a "a medium system with four planets and an asteroid belt." The Soviet "Vostok Program" resulted in the first manned space flight. Oh, and that asteroid belt it mentions? The wiki page lists it as a "metal-rich asteroid." You know what else is metal? That's right, iron!

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EA: BioWare fans should “pay attention” to tomorrow’s VGA announcements

Here we go: EA marketing VP Patrick Buechner has dropped a not-so-subtle hint that a BioWare game is to be revealed at the incoming VGAs.

In response to a Geoff Keighley tweet about two exclusive announcements to be made regarding the event tomorrow, the exec replied, “Bioware fans pay attention”. Mass Effect 3, or your money back.

Keep watching. Several publishers chose the VGAs for big budget reveals last year. The 2009 version saw full-blown announcements of Batman: Arkham City, Halo: Reach, True Crime, Medal of Honor and more. This year’s VGAs take place on December 11.

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It's been very quiet on the Mass Effect front since LoSB was released, it's about time something was announced to keep interest up - but we shall have wait and see, as hope brings disappointment sometimes.

The Top 7... Best new franchises of this generation - #1 Mass effect

Why it’s better than the rest: Most franchises take two, even three games to create a rich, multi-layered canon that you can lose yourself in. Mass Effect did it immediately, pulling you into an entire galaxy that was so well constructed and thought out, from alien civilizations to mythology to crushingly boring technical manuals, that you could easily mistake it for a robust, decades-old series. When you combine the conversational penchant of Star Trek with the lasers and doomsday machines of Star Wars, and mix them with stat-driven RPG elements and Gears-style gunplay, the result is a comprehensive franchise that’s almost better than its iconic inspiration.

Tossing aliens around with Jedi-like powers is brilliant fun, but the real joy of the game comes from the branching, repercussion-filled dialog trees. Fantastic voice acting brings the large cast to life, and even the low-level people you talk to have something to say or contribute. Naturally you can respond with politeness, but there’s always the Renegade option to temp you to the darker side.

Legacy: 2010’s Mass Effect 2 should be the blueprint for all sequels. BioWare kept what worked, tweaked what didn’t and jettisoned everything that drove us nuts in the first game. The scope was bigger, the worlds were larger and more detailed, even the expanded cast rocked, somehow making an outstanding series even better. By the time the credits rolled, some GR editors fired up another save file right away, ready to dive back in and make different choices in the 40-hour quest.

And unlike many other games, the decisions you make can affect the rest of the story, or even story elements in subsequent entries – entire sections of ME2 change depending on how you played ME1, and we expect ME3 to continue the trend in even larger ways. ME2 also delivered on a promise BioWare made for ME1 – frequent DLC that continues the sweeping story. Since its January release we’ve already seen two substantial additions, plus a handful of smaller stories and weapons updates that kept the game in a near-constant state of play.

It’s hard to specify games that are directly inspired by Mass Effect, as it’s such a herculean effort that only a few developers could even try, but there’s no doubt in our eyes it’ll go down as one of the biggest series of this generation and a high water mark for games as a storytelling medium. Now if BioWare could just make the body language as convincing as Uncharted…

And for the sake of “You forgot…,” know that we didn’t forget, we excluded. That said, these guys almost made the cut but either fell just shy of “best” or aren’t quite yet “franchise” enough to qualify: Uncharted, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Gears of War, Assassin's Creed & Professor Layton.

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Mass Effect 2 DLC on PS3 explained, interactive comic confirmed

As rumored over the weekend, Mass Effect 2's PlayStation 3 iteration will come packed with "6+ hours of bonus missions" -- rather than being PS3-exclusive bonus content, however, it'll comprise the game's three big expansions: Kasumi: Stolen Memories, Overlord, and Lair of the Shadow Broker. EA corroborated the news this morning by releasing the game's PS3 box art (found in full below the break), which clearly details its contents just inches above Miranda's flowing locks.

BioWare producer Jesse Houston also took to the company's forums to clear up what exactly will be on the Blu-ray disc (and what will be downloaded). "Of course Mass Effect 2 will be included. On top of that, Lair of the Shadow Broker, Project Overlord, Kasumi: Stolen Memory and the Blood Dragon Armour. Also included is, as on Xbox 360 and PC, an access code to the Cerberus Network. This will give you instant access to the same great lineup of Downloadable Content such as Zaeed and Firewalker."

Furthermore, he confirmed an "interactive comic" will ship with ME2 on PS3, cursorily detailing it by saying, "BioWare Edmonton (the group that made Mass Effect 2) teamed up with the fine folks at Dark Horse Comics to create an interactive backstory. While I can't release all the details about this yet, what I can tell you is that we want to create a stunning visual experience that not only tells the core story elements of Mass Effect 1, but also is fully interactive allowing you to be faced with some of the major choices which will have consequences your Mass Effect universe. This interactive comic's initial release will be exclusive to PS3 owners who would be otherwise unable to realize the full effect of choice in the Mass Effect universe and will be included on the Cerberus Network."

He also -- somewhat ambiguously -- described additional, exclusive DLC for PS3 owners, explaining that, "There will also be some DLC Bundles, such as the Aegis Pack as well as exclusive both Free and Paid DLC for all PlayStation 3 owners such as the Recon Operations Pack." Perhaps in an attempt to calm the seething forum member responses, the post was later edited with the explanation, "While I can't go into details, all of this content is or was available to Xbox/PC owners, but otherwise wouldn't be available to PS3 owners. More details about this will be released later." Though EA/BioWare have yet to give it a price, retailers are currently putting the DLC-packed release at a regular $60.

Source. BW Thread.

Gameinformer: Top 30 Characters Who Defined A Decade

and just look who'd made the cover(s):

not just Shepard, but the Illusive Man as well - nice! the full spread of all 3 covers, with all the characters is here:

cr: here.

Mass Effect 2 PS3: interactive comic to fill in the events of ME1?

The much discussed 'intro module' of the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2 wil include an interactive comic - which tells the story of the first game and allows players to make vital choices.

That's according to a translation of an interview with BioWare dev Casey Hudson in German mag Play3 - which is featured on the BioWare forums.

It's all in German, but has apparrently been posted by BioWare community rep Nathalie Edelmann. Translated into English, her post reveals:

Casey Hudson [told] the print edition of Play3 that Mass Effect 2 PS3 will include:

* The interactive comic (from?) Dark Horse informs the player about the back story and offers various choices.

* The three previously released DLC "Kasumi: Stolen Memories", "Overlord" and "hiding the Shadow Broker".

* An included code will allow access to all content published to date on the Cerebus Network.

Meanwhile, BioWare boss Greg Zeschuk appears to be quoted saying:

"The most important thing is that the PlayStation 3 is based on a completely different architecture. Visually it can come to some changes. In particular, the storage and distribution of the graphics chip differ dramatically. We will not again unleash the discussion, which has the two platforms for more power, since we can achieve our objectives on both platforms.

"If you develop games that you want to make accessible the broadest possible mass. And exactly this opportunity is offered to us. I think the game will feel a bit different on the PS3. Just by the controller, it will play differently."

Sounds good to us if true. We'll get in touch with BioWare for confirmation.

Mass Effect 2 PS3 is due for release in January next year.

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BioWare Doctors talk Mass Effect 3, DLC, SWTOR & DA2

Eurogamer: Do you buy Microsoft's claim that Kinect will extend the life of the Xbox 360 by five years?

Ray Muzyka: I'm pretty sure it'll extend it by some amount. It's hard to say exactly how much.

Greg Zeschuk: On the one hand I'd like to believe it as a developer, because the longer we can get out of a platform the better our games are going to get, the more we'll know about it. But we'll see. No one wants to run off and pull the lever on the next generation yet. Everyone's invested so much on this one. I remember the first couple of years of this generation was really painful. And so it's like, hey, pull the lever, let's do another one.

Five seems... It might be possible. I hope it's a long time.

Eurogamer: Is there much left from the current generation to push visuals? Are you getting to the point where this is as good as it gets on this generation?

Ray Muzyka: Every year you learn a few new tricks about how to optimise more and put a lot more into the animation and figure out new ways to blend animations and fidelity of character expressions and facial expressions and eye movements. The small adjustments make a big difference in the end. We're learning every year.

Our teams get better and better every generation of product. There's still more to do on this current generation of hardware. The next generations of hardware will probably enable even more, but there's still more to do.

Greg Zeschuk: The tools outside the game and your average desktop machine you use to build the content... it's crazy. If you think of the Xbox as a playback machine, we can make more and more complex animations and facial expressions outside it on these better and better workstations and then import those in.

We do a lot of stuff outside the game that generic box A will render regardless. That's what's extending it.

Ray Muzyka: The fidelity of textures goes up, the resolution is higher, more animation content. A lot of that is memory management and optimisation of the content flow.

Greg Zeschuk: You can optimise stuff for years. It's like this never-ending thing and being smart.

Ray Muzyka: Compression algorithms for audio, texture compression algorithms and animation compression. Even a lot of it is real time rendered now, too. The fidelity of that's going up so it's just as high as the pre-rendered animations now.

Greg Zeschuk: The key thing is knowing there's a future and then you're willing to invest that time to optimise. What's always happened is everyone goes, oh, it's just five years. So by year four, forget it. It's a question of when you start working on the next platform. The same guys make this one get even further. It's like, when do you actually swap them onto the next big thing?

If this one can extend, then that would be great.

Eurogamer: Let's talk about Dragon Age II. What's the plan for the franchise? Do you have a story mapped out for X amount of games?

Ray Muzyka: We haven't announced other products in the franchise yet, but we are working on some other ideas in the Dragon Age universe already.

It's more of a universe view as opposed to a chronological story view. We've always seen it as a world and there are many stories being told throughout this world.

We're bringing it to a new area, like Free Marches in Dragon Age II and some other areas, Kirkwall and so on. Dragon Age: Origins had some different areas in Ferelden. Other products in the Dragon Age universe will probably bring it to other places, still.

So it's more of a world view, and there are lots of cool areas we haven't explored yet. So we're excited to show fans those.

Greg Zeschuk: It's probably fair to say it's less precise than the Mass Effect trilogy concept, because Mass Effect had a real distinct trilogy. But a similar amount of thinking went into it.

Dragon Age: Origins, there's an enormous amount of back story. When we create a property like that, you think about major world events. It's fun then to make the games around the major world events.

Ray Muzyka: There's a whole timeline written out, a story arc that goes before and after the Dragon Age: Origins events or the Dragon Age II events. It's neat to see this roadmap of history. We're just showing a snap shot of time in this universe. There's all this other cool stuff on both sides and all this other stuff that's there and gives the world a place.

You might run into characters from other parts of the world. It's not just a random character running around. The two games overlap – geographic and timeline overlaps. The last part of Dragon Age II occurs during the tail end of the Blight, when you're fleeing Lothering. You see some flames and you're a refugee at that point and you ascend to greater heights as a champion.

Eurogamer: Have you decided on the massive world event you'll use as a basis for the third game?

Ray Muzyka: Maybe.

Greg Zeschuk: It's called the great Beard Shaving.

Eurogamer: Are we done with DLC for Mass Effect 2?

Greg Zeschuk: We're told we're still in development. We're not done yet. We're still ongoing.

Ray Muzyka: We haven't announced details of the next ones yet. We're still working on stuff in the Mass Effect universe actively. We haven't announced any details of what that is yet, but we're working on lots cool stuff.

Greg Zeschuk: We have a pretty long DLC plan for Mass. We're still doing lots of stuff there.

Eurogamer: Mass Effect 3 is a confirmed game.

Greg Zeschuk: We haven't officially announced it.

Ray Muzyka: That might have been what I was talking about. There's a whole range of different things. My answer didn't say anything about DLC. We just haven't announced anything on Mass for the future.

Eurogamer: When will you make some noise about Mass Effect 3?

Ray Muzyka: We have said it's a trilogy, so it's a good guess there's a third one coming. Beyond that, we haven't announced it yet.

Eurogamer: When will you announce it?

Ray Muzyka: Some time.

Greg Zeschuk: On the right day we'll announce it.

Ray Muzyka: Next up we have Mass Effect 2 on PS3. That's our next focus for Mass Effect.

Eurogamer: When will Star Wars: The Old Republic be out?

Ray Muzyka: Next year.

Eurogamer: Can you at least say whether it'll be the first half or the second half of the year?

Ray Muzyka: No. We're just saying 2011.

Eurogamer: EA Louse. When you first read it, what was your immediate reaction?

Greg Zeschuk: We're disappointed in the sense of someone having that unfortunate perspective. That's how I would describe it.

Ray Muzyka: It was sad to read that kind of stuff. We just won a top 100 employers award for BioWare. We invest a lot in quality of the workplace. It's really important to us. We take it seriously. The BioWare Mythic team is part of the BioWare group. I know the people that work there. They care. They feel the same way that the other leaders across BioWare and EA feel.

Talking about BioWare specifically, we invest a lot in that. That's one of our core values. We do a lot of things to try and make sure people are taken care of. That's our approach and it's unwavering and it's steadfast. We're committed to that.

That kind of stuff – we don't respond to rumours and speculation by people that are ill-informed. We're committed to quality in the workplace.

Eurogamer: My feeling was it had a degree of credibility.

Ray Muzyka: It's hard to know what their speculative motivation is. It's hard to speculate on that. It's rumour.

Eurogamer: So you don't consider it to have been from someone who works for EA?

Greg Zeschuk: How do you know? The reality of it is when you take an anonymous space it's like, you don't really know where it's from. Regardless, we're always focused on making the best possible workplace. That kind of stuff doesn't really come into play for us – whatever crazy online communication.

We try to focus on making a great place to work, making great products. But you never know. If it's anonymous, there's no proof of anything. You can claim anything, right?

Eurogamer: To me it read as if there was a degree of inside knowledge. It felt credible to me.

Ray Muzyka: The way we like to respond to actual feedback is we act on it. We meet with staff at every studio on a regular basis, and we try to describe some of the things we do to achieve quality in the workplace.

I do this and all the GMs at every location do this. We sit down and do an open forum with all the employees and get feedback from them. We welcome one-on-one feedback. When we get stuff we can improve and act on we do it.

Rumours and speculation delivered in an anonymous fashion – it's really hard to respond to that. So we don't. Instead we focus on every day making the workplace a great place for all the people we work with. We're committed to that.

Eurogamer: EA Louse talked about how much The Old Republic has cost to make. How much of a risk is it? Is it financially a massive risk?

Ray Muzyka: It's a tremendous opportunity. It's a big bet, but it's the right kind of bet to make for EA. It's the right kind of bet for BioWare to make. It's taking everything we know from the last 15 to 20 years of development experience and place some amazing people onto the team, with MMO experience as well as RPG experience.

The team is a group I'm really proud of. They're working really hard to deliver this great game. It's got a lot of content. It's taking the best of features from other products like MMOs and putting them together with something BioWare's known for: the story, choice and consequence, but not losing anything in the translation - exploration, combat, customisation, progression.

So in that sense it's really a smart decision. It's a pretty good bet for a studio group like BioWare to be building right now. We see it as more opportunity than anything else.

Greg Zeschuk: Hey, entertainment's risky by nature. You put out an album, sometimes it's successful, sometimes it's not.

We're bringing to bear an incredible amount of talent and focus on something that also happens to be the biggest brand in the world. Everything works out, we're all pretty happy.

Eurogamer: Has it got a genuine shot at actually challenging World of Warcraft?

Ray Muzyka: We don't talk about the competition that much. We play all our competitors' games. We have great respect for all of them. Blizzard is a group we have a lot of respect for. They do great work.

We're not worried about the competition because we're striving to make the very best games of their type when they come out. We have a great licence, a great partnership with LucasArts. Star Wars, it's pretty popular. A lot of people like that. We're embracing that licence fully. We love it. And we know millions and millions of people out there love this universe, and we're delivering a great game experience in that universe.

And it's a great BioWare type experience in a massively multiplayer space in a Star Wars setting. Those seem to be some pretty good factors that have set us up for massive success. Beyond that, we just build the best game we can.

We're certainly making a game that has a lot of value long-term and it's going to be a great experience for fans who love Star Wars or BioWare games or MMOs generally or just a great online experience with their friends.

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hmm not much talking about anything Mass Effect - disappointing really, but as usual they concentrate on 1 game at a time (excluding TOR), once DA2 is launched they'll launch into the ME3 hyperbole no doubt.