Mass Effect 3: PAX 2011 Screenshots

Mass Effect Artbook Coming from Dark Horse

"The Art of the Mass Effect Universe" is a hardcover encapsulation of the entire franchise's visual work thus far, presented with (text) commentary from the folks at BioWare. The $40 book's due in February 2012 and will contain art from Mass Effect 3, placing it in vague spoiler territory in front of the game's March debut.

DARK HORSE AND BIOWARE ANNOUNCE THE ART OF THE MASS EFFECT UNIVERSE! August 25, MILWAUKIE, OR – Fans of the Mass Effect™ series looking to go deeper into the Mass Effect universe are in luck. Dark Horse is proud to announce The Art of the Mass Effect Universe, an expansive, hardcover art book showcasing the stunning and imaginative art behind the highly anticipated action RPG Mass Effect 3. With commentary from the creators of the Mass Effect series, The Art of the Mass Effect Universe invites fans to get a behind-the-scenes look at the critically acclaimed franchise. "Mass Effect 3 is the climax of the greatest sci-fi epic of our generation, so it's only fitting that Dark Horse up the ante as well," Dark Horse editor Dave Marshall said. "The Art of the Mass Effect Universe will reveal reams of never-before-seen artwork that was created during the development of this modern masterpiece." The Art of the Mass Effect Universe will be available for purchase in February 2012 for $39.99. From the award-winning developers at BioWare™ comes Mass Effect 3, the pinnacle of the critically acclaimed epic action RPG series. The galactic war has begun. An ancient alien race known only as the "Reapers" has launched an all-out invasion of the galaxy, leaving nothing but a trail of destruction in their wake. Earth has been taken, the universe is on the verge of total annihilation, and you must lead the counterassault to take it back. The price of failure is extinction. Only you, as Commander Shepard, can determine how events will play out, which planets you will save from annihilation and which alliances you will form or abandon as you rally the forces of the galaxy to eliminate the Reaper threat once and for all. Look for Mass Effect: Invasion, the latest comic series, to arrive on October 19, 2011. The collection of the previous series, Mass Effect: Evolution, is on sale September 21, 2011.

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Mass Effect 3 hands on preview and interview – a moral war

From the Metro newspapers of all places:

Gaming’s most epic sci-fi saga is about to come to an apocalyptic end, as GameCentral goes hands on with Mass Effect 3 and talks to associate producer Mike Gamble.

There have been many great Western role-players this generation, but BioWare’s Mass Effect series is arguably the most innovative and influential. Melding elements of both role-playing game and third person shooter the games exist outside of the boundaries of normal genres and exhibit some of the best storytelling gaming has ever seen. And now that story is coming to an end…

Although we’ve never been hands on with Mass Effect 3 until now we did see quite a bit of it at E3 in June and very little extra was being shown at Gamescom this week. You can find our original preview here, but this week we did also get to go hands on with what was referred to at E3 as the ‘Combat Demo’.

The story for this mission was… all in German. But thankfully the E3 rolling demos were also being shown behind closed doors, hinting at a backstory that involves Shepard and crew (specificallly Liara and Garrus in this instance) trying to help Mordin (the hyperactive doctor from Mass Effect 2) deliver a female Krogan to safety.

Long-time fans of the series will know that the violent (but not necessarily evil) Krogan were made infertile in order to stop them overrunning the galaxy. With the Reapers looking to wipe out all life it seems as if that process is being reversed – if you can get the female to safety.

This involves shooting an awful lot of Cerberus troops, who even though they were your allies in the second game are now being mind-controlled (or at least influenced) by the Reapers. The Combat demo demonstrates all of Shepard’s new moves, as he flips between cover and performs SWAT turns to look cool while hiding behind door frames.

Grenades are back too, you’ve now got stealth attacks, and we were able to make good use of the new ominblade melee weapon (an inflatable plastic version of which we’ll post to the reader who sends us the best haiku illustrating their love for the Mass Effect franchise).

But as competent as the third person combat has always been in Mass Effect, and as usefully improved as it now seems, it’s still by far the least important aspect of the game. We enjoyed the demo but what we were really interested in was seeing how the galaxy had been changed since the second game and meeting up with what by now seem like old friends.

Luckily we got to discuss all this with Mike Gamble, who’s the franchise’s associate producer and has worked on all three of the games so far. He was able to hint enticingly at Mass Effect 3’s other new features and what sounds like an appropriately epic end to the series’ first trilogy…

GC: The impression we get about Mass Effect 3 is that it’s primarily aiming to combine the approaches from 1 and 2, which are actually two quite different games. So you would have the deeper role-playing elements from 1 but the better combat from 2. But is that really what you’re doing? Because you also talk about increased accessibility, and accessibility isn’t necessarily a role-playing byword…. 

MG: Exactly, so I think at a high level if you want to summarise it that way that’s actually probably a good way. We take the deep RPG systems from 1, but when you say that they’re still completely optional. You don’t have to spend the time customising your Shepard, you don’t have to spend the time levelling up and acquiring all the specific powers. There’s always the option to just play the game as a Shepard soldier, but I do think the RPG elements are important and we’ve made a conscious effort to bring the role-playing elements back. 

But we’re also refining the shooter element too, with things like cover, SWAT turns. Even what might seem like little things like ladders and stuff like that. That actually adds a huge new element to the gameplay in terms of being able to actually now have multi-floor, combat spaces instead of just flat combat spaces. 

GC: So our understanding is that the Mako [the armoured personal carrier from the first game] is not in 3 and that there’s no equivalent vehicle either? 

MG: We haven’t made a decision either way as to whether or not there’s going to be any sort of vehicle combat or vehicle exploration in 3. We haven’t decided. But I think the general consensus is that we're keeping it away from the main storyline. It’s not going to be integral to it, but that said exploration is still a pretty key tenet within the series. 

GC: That’s true, because although the Mako combat could be hugely annoying, it did seem to be throwing out the baby with the bathwater by getting rid of the vehicle sections completely. As you imply, it really showed the size and scope of the galaxy; and just the excuse to see those amazing sci-fi vistas was well worth it in our eyes. And yet the Hammerhead downloadable vehicle for 2, all that seemed to do was add some weird platforming sections… 

MG: What you’re saying is exactly the problem, which we’re trying to solve. So, we have this huge galaxy, right. We don’t want to limit it to just the areas where you do missions, we want the scope, but at the same time you don’t want to make the other areas redundant and useless. Currently we’re looking at a couple of options and we’ll be able to share them in the next couple of months. Rest assured that that scope is still going to be there and showing how big the galaxy is, but the way in which we focus and the way in which we deal with content through that is what we’re working on now. 

GC: Is Lair Of The Shadow Broker, one of the last and certainly the best, slices of downloadable content an indication of the style of mission you’re aiming for in Mass Effect 3? It did seem to feature a little bit of everything in terms of the unique setting, the strong combat, and the touching romance element. 

MG: Oh absolutely, there’s two a track approach to DLC. We like to do the smaller micro-content packs. There are customers and fans that absolutely love the customisation options they offer. But when we release a main pack we make it the main focus of what we’re working on at the time, just like a main game. Rest assured we’ve learnt that lesson and definitely we want to use that approach in Mass Effect 3. Obviously we haven’t announced any downloadable content yet, but that’s the approach. 

GC: Many of the missions in Mass Effect 2 involved you trying to get someone on your side or doing someone a favour. But it’s hard to imagine doing anything like that now, when there’s such an important war going on. Where is the space now for the more trivial quests in the new game? Do you even have those styles of mission in the new game? 

MG: We don’t! Mass Effect 3 is all about the Reaper war. So you no longer, for example, have to gain the loyalty of Garrus. Garrus sides with you because basically Reapers are attack his homeworld and… 

GC: So he’s finished his calibrations? 

MG: (laughs) Exactly. You’ve got your teams, right. What you have to do is basically work to resolve a lot of those outstanding large scale conflicts. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the rachni and the geth and the quarians. Those are huge large scale conflicts that actually, without resolution, can definitely hurt the overall galaxy at war. So those are the things we’re focusing on. So the scope and scale has definitely increased in Mass Effect 3. 

GC: Okay, so simply those kind of missions just won’t be there? 

MG: I can’t say conclusively that they won’t be there, but the focus is all around that. So, people are asking what the critical path is through the story. But all the side quests, all the optional content, feeds back into the whole galaxy at war theme. There’s not like separate satellite pieces. 

GC: Just a quick point, but we didn’t realise that the Reapers are attacking many other planets. So it’s not just Earth? 

MG: No. Earth is basically where they first attack. It’s like the first point of contact and this comes as a huge surprise to everyone. But at the same time calls are coming in from other parts of the galaxy that the Reapers are also there. So you go through very many places that the Reapers have attacked, destroyed, etc. 

GC: Has the idea of ship-to-ship combat ever been considered for the games? Everyone always asks about co-op and multiplayer, but space battles seem to us at least as good a fit for the series. 

MG: Um… no, we’re not going to do ship-to-ship combat, I can pretty much tell you that. There are no plans for it and we like to focus even more on our relationship based stuff and that kind of stuff. And to tell you the truth there’s already some stuff from Mass Effect 3 that’s adding another layer for quests. 

GC: Mass Effect 3 is being described as the last part of a trilogy isn’t it? 

MG: Yes. So, everything you know about Shepard basically concludes in this game. We’re not going to bring him back later or anything like that. 

GC: Okay, so if there is a Mass Effect 4 Shepard won’t be in it. Or at least she/he won’t be the protagonist? 

MG: If there was a Mass Effect 4 it would not be Shepard’s story. 

GC: In Mass Effect 3 how will you accomodate those that haven’t played the previous games and so haven’t made the moral choices that are remembered and used from one game to another? 

MG: So I think overall what we’re trying to do, for those of you that haven’t played Mass Effect 1 or 2, we’re trying to establish basically the best possible way so you can see the most amount of story content. Obviously we encourage you to go and play the earlier games, but we’re also looking at other mechanisms to explain the gaps between the games and at the same time we are really determined to work out the easiest and best way to get new players started. 

GC: So would it be an interactive comic, like Mass Effect 2 on the PlayStation 3? 

MG: Nothing is really solid yet. That’s really the next step now that the story has been finished. We have to basically figure out that branching path and how everything is affected. 

GC: One of the things we’re worried about is that we made what we believed to be a morally sound decision about what to do with the geth at the end of Mass Effect 2. But as far as the game is concerned we got awarded renegade points for the decision. And now we’re worried everyone is going to think we’re evil when the plot point gets raised again. 

[At this point Gamble, who has clearly been struggling with a very sore throat and cough the entire interview, exhibits an almost Pavlovian response at the topic of morality and immediately leaps up into his chair for the new topic – his illness for the moment forgotten.] 

MG: So right now we’re getting into that whole, ‘depending on how your moral compass works’ and moral relativity. There are some choices in Mass Effect which appear morally correct to some people but not others, and to feed into Mass Effect 3 we have a lot of situations where there’s not really, in a lot of cases, a really good or bad choice in terms of morality. There’s just varying shades of grey, with varying different consequences. There’s always going to be sacrifices and in Mass Effect 3 that comes out. Speaking to your exact point there I don’t think you have much to worry about in Mass Effect 3. They will know your choice, but you won’t necessarily be made to feel you made the wrong choice.

*SPOILER ALERT* THE ENDING OF MASS EFFECT 1 AND 2 IS DISCUSSED IN THE NEXT QUESTION. *SPOILER ALERT*

GC: The question of the geth is definitely one of the most interesting choices in the series, but our favourite overall is at the end of the first game. Our Shepard is a very moral character and also a good talker, and so she was able to talk Saren out of his indoctrination – at which point he took his own life. For us that was a great moment in video game storytelling, especially for an action game. And yet at the end of Mass Effect 2 it was just a fight with what looked like an end-of-level boss from Contra. Will there be more non-action based story resolutions in Mass Effect 3, compared to the last game? 

MG: Yes, absolutely. So, the conclusion and resolution to conflicts, storylines – it’s not always going to end in combat. There’s a lot of choices in how you do them and they can end in a variety of ways. The Sarien example that you gave is I think is a good example of one way to do that. It does exist elsewhere in the game. 

GC: OK, that’s great. That sounds really good. Thank you. 

MG: My pleasure. 

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Bioware Interview with Patryk Olejniczak

Pukse interview with the amazing artist who won the SDCC fanart competition and a job at Bioware as a result:

Gamescom: Mass Effect 3 - The Highs of Hands-On (IGN)

Gamescom represents the very first time we've gone hands-on with Mass Effect 3, and while doing so may not have revealed any shocking revelations, there are certainly some very cool changes that fans will appreciate. For those keeping score, the section we were able to play through was shown at E3, and sees Shep trying to get Mordin Solus and a female Krogan off-world. The Krogan may hold the key to reversing the Genophage that left the Krogan race almost entirely sterile, but she's in quarantine, which means a series of steps to get her out. Naturally, the Commander meets some serious resistance along the way – from Cerberus in this case. You can see the sequence – as well as some incredible action set on Earth - in the video embedded further down the page. Here are five things we loved during our hands-on session:

1) The Omni-blade! Snikt! 

It's all very well to have a multi-purpose holographic device attached to your arm, but if you can't stab people with it, well, it's not that useful, now is it? Ladies and gentleman, forget the Omni-tool and welcome the Omni-blade, Shepard's latest toy. This orange holographic blade sits on his arm, and is one of the precision instruments with which he'll carve his revenge into the guts of his enemies.

Using it is simple – just get close to an enemy and stab. The camera moves in close and judders, giving the attack a really punchy feel. It also helps Shepard feel like more of a bad-ass at close range. Honestly, it can be a little clunky trying to take down moving enemies with traditional weaponry at close quarters, so the Omni-blade greatly simplifies things, letting Shep gouge a great big hole in his enemy's chest with one smooth motion.

2) Upgrading Powers 

Remember the upgrade system for powers in Mass Effect 2? You'd pump stat points into each power, upgrading them along a fixed path until the final upgrade would give you a choice of two variations on the power. It was cool, but for Mass Effect 3, BioWare is giving players more this or that choices. Take Liara's singularity power. You spend a point to purchase it, and each subsequent upgrade costs more points – much like the old system. The second upgrade increases its duration, the third its radius, then for the fourth, players have a choice between extra duration or wider radius, for the fifth it's a choice between increased damage and faster recharge speed and for the final upgrade it's another choice, between having a 50% larger size for the first ten seconds or having the ball of gravity collapse in on itself and explode when the power ends.

It means players will be able to customise every power they have in pretty cool ways – sometimes literally. In our hands-on we bumped our cryo ability way up, meaning that cryo ammo would often either cool and slow enemies or outright freeze them, opening them up to be shattered into a million pieces with any further damage. Weapons can also be modified, letting players upgrade different stats, like fire rate and clip size.

3) Cover Evolved 

It may not sound glamorous, but the revamped cover system definitely makes combat in Mass Effect 3 more flowing. What's changed? Well, Shepard can now move from cover point to cover point, move around corners in cover and commando roll to evade fire/get to cover. And like the last game he can still vault low cover objects, but the system seems less clunky. The team has stated that the combat is going to be more challenging in this game, so ensuring players have the tools to smoothly and tactically use the battlefield can't be overstated. In short, we've used it and we like it.

4) Squad Controls 

Mass Effect players have always had a fair amount of control over the members of their squad. After all, at any time you can bring up the radial menu and tell your squad mates which enemies you'd like in the air/in giblets/frozen/concussed/etc, and they'll give it their full attention. That level of control has only increased for Mass Effect 3. We weren't able to test out the Kinect voice commands, which enable you to simply state what you want each squad member to do, but it is clear that the game is going to be pushing players to use their squad controls – in particular the waypoint system – more during battles. One moment in the hands-on has a couple of enemies holding up shields coming towards the player, and it's a simple matter to position one of your squad to draw their fire while you – or the other squad member – flanks around them. Mind you, it's even easier to command Liara to use her singularity power to suck them into a swirling ball of gravity. Gravity – is there anything it can't do?

5) Meching New Friends… …or destroying them, as the case may be. 

The end of the hands-on featured a battle against the Cerberus Atlas, a towering bi-pedal mech piloted by a Cerberus agent. Using squad members to draw its fire and avoid copping rockets in the face gave us the chance to get around behind it and dish out some damage to its shields. The team has demonstrated a couple of encounters with much larger enemies, so you can expect this to be a mini-boss that will likely pop up a number of times throughout the game. We hope so, because the team mentioned that if players can take out the pilot without destroying the mech, they'll be able to hop inside the cockpit themselves.

While the area we played was pretty contained, essentially featuring a number of mid-sized rooms, each with a number of cover objects, there are going to be some amazingly cinematic settings for the action and narrative. The sequence on Earth, for instance – which you can see in the video above - is staggering. The sheer scale of the Reaper invasion is truly intimidating and impactful. One thing's for sure – our hands-on today was just the first step down a road that has the potential to be one of the greatest gaming experiences of recent years.

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New Mass Effect 3 screens from Gamescom 2011

Gamescom, from Cologne in Germany:

and some concept art of Tuchunka:

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Mass Effect 3 Squad leader Trailer

Mass Effect 3 Interview: BioWare Talks Shepard, Kinect, RPGs (NowGamer)

Mass Effect 3 has had fans speculating since it was announced, with the future of Shepard - and the galaxy - hanging in the balance once and for all. In our exclusive Q&A, Casey Hudson, Executive Producer for the Mass Effect franchise discusses Kinect, Final Fantasy, Cloud Gaming, the mechanics of the sprawling Mass Effect universe and the future of Shepard.

We've seen the Kinect features demoed (dialogue, squad commands) - were any other ideas discussed? Are there more to come?

No, a total and fundamental integration of Kinect would really require us to design a game from the ground up specifically for that experience, and with the 3rd title in a series it wasn’t the time to re-invent how people play our game. But we did see the voice control as a definite value-add, and with Kinect it’s relatively easy for us to implement.

Much is made of the information ported in saves between games - how significant are those profiles in Mass Effect 3 and how do you ensure things like DLC packs have an impact even though not everyone plays them?

We designed ME3 to be able to handle all different kinds of player backgrounds, whether you’re totally new to the ME universe or you have played every game and DLC so far. Each experience, and the choices inside it, simply set different situations and outcomes that you’ll experience in ME3. The result is that if you have had a deep experience with decisions in past games, you’ll see those having real impacts on the ME3 storyline. But if you’re coming with no prior experience with the series, ME3 introduces itself to you in a way that’s custom-designed for you.

Star Wars:The Old Republic producer Daniel Erickson told us a while back that his game benefitted from using BioWare's tried and tested dialogue system. Has Mass Effect 3 looked to any internal/external games for mechanics or inspiration?

At this point we’re mostly incorporating a blend of things we want to do and things fans have asked for, to get closer to the vision of Mass Effect that we all share. I think Mass Effect players know exactly what the experience should be about, and we’re using that as more of an inspiration than looking to other games, which in general are trying to solve for very different design goals.

What do you see as the biggest, or perhaps most unexpected changes in Mass Effect 3 compared to the original Mass Effect?

The feel and intensity of combat is one of the things people will take people by surprise. I think we’ve come full-circle in terms of capturing an amazing 3rd person shooter experience in a game where you also control a diverse squad and have access to spectacular powers. There’s really nothing in the world like ME3 combat. We also are going places in the story that are bigger, more shocking, and more emotionally powerful than we’ve ever done before. It’s a pretty amazing range from gigantic action scenes down to the most delicate personal moments, and I think players are going to have an experience unlike anything they’ve played before.

Jesse Houston recently talked about 'past mistakes' with regard to customisation options, and melee attacks - are there any other areas in which fans have directly influenced features in Mass Effect 3? How do you go about floating new ideas to fans during development without giving them away in full?

Ultimately there is a bit of a dichotomy in game design, regarding feedback. On the one hand, we must listen to the millions of players around the world who know what it’s like to play our games even better than we do. At the same time, we must still be game designers - we can’t simply implement all requests exactly as described by fans. So to continue to surprise and entertain players, we need to interpret the feedback, and convert the countless requests, criticisms, and hopes into elegant and innovative designs.

What do you see as the current holy grail for RPGs right now?

To be honest, I don’t know. I never consider myself an RPG developer, and I don’t really worry about traditional genre conventions other than our own goals for making a great game. Typically our goals - creating interactive story, compelling progression, intense combat, and exploration -result in games that are classified as RPGs. But my intention is always to make the best possible story-driven games, and for me and my team, the next great design that we’re excited about is what we’re doing with ME3.

BioWare recently noted FF: The Spirits Within as a visual inspiration for Mass Effect - what about the games? Are you influenced by any other Japanese culture?

We have many sources of artistic inspiration, but we mostly look to the real world for inspiring reference on architecture, clothing, weapon design, etc. One of the things that really helped us actually is that when we started ME1, we essentially condensed our various inspirations down to design principles. Designs consisting of the spaces created by long arcs and straight lines, costumes generally being comprised of two main color tones, weapons typically having two barrels, etc. We built an entire guide book on how everything should look. With that in place, and an entire game of designs to support it, we’ve established an aesthetic that can now easily be applied to new designs.

A Mass Effect MMO isn't in the works (yet) and the future of the series is currently being considered - you must have loads of ideas?

We obviously have a lot of great opportunities to develop aspects of the Mass Effect universe, but certainly our focus for now is creating a tremendously satisfying experience with Mass Effect 3.

Shepard's story could finish its arc in Mass Effect 3. Do you think it will be the last we see of him?

I know the precise answer to that, but can’t tell ya.

What was behind the idea of using the female Shepard to promote Mass Effect 3?

It’s more of a community initiative – something we can do to reflect the support for the female character experience that fans have expressed. We saw that there were some fun things we can do for players to view the game as one that stars a female character, through alternate box art etc. It was amazing to see the reaction of the audience at Comic-Con, where we revealed possible options for the female character that will be used by some of our marketing material going forward.

Mass Effect 2 was recently demoed on Gaikai - do you see cloud gaming taking off?

Yes, games will transition to “the cloud” as time goes on, much like the transition to streaming movies on Netflix etc. There are some severe technical hurdles in the short term, but I remember when the idea of streaming movies over the internet seemed ridiculous.

Wii U was announced at E3 - what are your views on the console? Have you got any ideas about how you'd make the most of its unique features?

It’s an interesting system. One of the challenges and opportunities with that kind of device is that it takes a while to really figure out what the amazing forms of gameplay will be – but it also has enough flexibility to potentially do things that are totally unprecedented in games. It’s very exciting, but I definitely need to think more about it and spend more time with the actual hardware.

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