Mass Effect’s Mass Stories

Producer of Mass Effect 2 (ME2), Casey Hudson, reveals choices players make in ME1 will have big impact on both ME2 and ME3.

In an interview with IGN, Hudson hints at the upcoming E3 content, putting a lot of weight on the choices players make in the original game. “We wanted to tell an interactive story over the course of three games,” he said, adding that players’ choices in the first game “really start impacting the world you experience in Mass Effect 2. And by Mass Effect 3 you’ll see things really diverging and end up in completely different kinds of conclusions to the entire trilogy.”

The ME2 story will be very different depending on the state of the universe in your ME1 save file: “It’s the world the way you left it.” Since you can choose whether or not to save an entire race from extinction, players will likely see hugely different galaxies in ME2. Hudson also said that if you lack a save file, “you can jump into Mass Effect 2 and it’s an excellent entry point.”

Mass Effect was always conceived as a trilogy. Hudson commented “Mass Effect 2 is the dark act. It’s an opportunity to really explore the tougher, more brutal parts of the universe.” He mentioned Commander Shepard’s death and that they are “going to be showing what that means at E3 and why [his death] fundamental to what Mass Effect 2 is all about.”

BioWare is giving particular attention to exploration this time. “In Mass Effect 1, you would do a subplot and then things would terminate. In Mass Effect 2, everything you do really ties into the way things come into fruition in the end,” says Hudson, adding “these things start to really matter to the people you are accumulating on your ship. As you get towards the end [of the game], your decisions really start to snowball.”

Even with the improved interactivity, ME2 will be about as long as the original. However, Hudson promises there will be more replayability in the sequel, and “more choices and more paths that you can go out and diverge the story into.”