Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer Previews and Interview

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Written by WorstUsernameEver on October 28th, 2011

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Described by Bioware as missions with 'procedural narrative', each map - lifted directly from an environment within the single-player adventure - is framed by eleven 'waves'. You'll see your squad of four players (yep, the co-op rumours were true) dropped in via a cinematic.

Early waves will see you repulse enemies - imagine a variant on Horde or Firefight and you're almost there. After you're hunkered down, the game will throw a variety of objectives - a range of 'annex' and 'disarm' archetypes - at your team to keep things fresh and add narrative oomph to proceedings.

These might include having to disarm a number of explosive devices (teammates protect the disarmer while a bar ticks down) or upload data (locate the correct terminal, then protect the zone). There are more in the offing but it's still relatively early.

I played a couple of matches of co-op, mixing powers and guns with decent success. Our network connection at the demo venue was poor, so we ran into some syncing glitches, but I got the gist of the experience. We could pick a map, scale it to a desired size (we chose "giant"), pick an enemy type ("Cerebus" for us) and a challenge level ("bronze") and then hope for the best. We played in a multi-room urban map, where enemies could snipe from catwalks and rooms away from the main bowl of combat often contained objective goals. We rotated through a few objectives; we had to hack terminals, disarm bombs, and often just kill all the bad guys. As we the waves progressed, the enemies got tougher. We were fighting foot soldiers at first, but later were tangling with snipers and cloaked enemies. I died getting choked by a giant mech.

We weren't playing the smoothest of games. Mass Effect's combat, while improved, still animates a bit stiffly, as players of Mass Effect 2 can recall. It suffers a comparison to Gears' gunplay. But tossing a singularity into the middle of a battle while my Turian buddy unloads a clip in the floating bad guys is fun. We had a good time.

Three things, however, still make Mass Effect 3 multiplayer special. First is the uniquely Mass Effect opportunity to play as both multiple classes (Soldier, Infiltrator, Engineer, Sentinel, etc.) and multiple races (Human, Asari, Krogan, Salarian, Turian, even Drell). While the gunplay may feel generic, playing as a powerful Asari biotic who can send whole groups of helpless enemies spiraling into the sky with her Singularity, or controlling a blood-enraged Krogan as he charges through the opposition like a bull through a meat shop, certainly don't. Neither does evolving and personalizing your online hero through a skill tree, assigning experience points earned through completed waves to your choice of abilities and specializations. Imagine the possibilities and combinations for one character, then imagine how those might grow exponentially with a superheroic team of four.

Second are the maps, set in areas inspired by Commander Shepard's journey through the main story mode. Of course most games' multiplayer arenas are taken from sections of the single player, but because Mass Effect is an epic RPG and you'll likely have spent hours exploring and getting to know each of these planets, visiting them again for co-op is more of a treat. We experienced a minor geek seizure when we realized we were battling across Noveria, the secret snowy base from the original Mass Effect, during our demo.

You can customise each of your characters' armour, and you can happily flit between every race and kit, levelling up each seperately. Aided by a relatively low level cap of 20, the setup encourages experimentation, while customisable weapons add further depth to an already layered RPG structure.

Our first mission sees us sent to a map called Slum, a tangled clutch of gutted out metal huts, rusting and stacked upon one another. Its detailed and well-designed, with plenty of cover to huddle in and a criss-crossing setup that allows for tactical manoeuvring between each higgledy shack. Despite appearances, control of this area is essential to the war effort, and the Reapers want it badly, sending heavily armed platoons of indoctrinated Cerberus operatives. As is customary, each squad of enemies come in waves that swell in size and difficulty as you progress. The first few waves are simple enough, dispatched with volleys of gunfire and special powers. Mass Effect 3's gunplay --while unquestionably the strongest of the series-- isn't tight or forceful enough to compete with dedicated shooters such as Gears, but there's a welcome Mass Effect flavour. Kit-dependant abilities such as grenades, biotic powers or medipacks are assigned to the d-pad, and are essential in thinning out the bad guys and helping your squad survive. The classes are distinct enough that a smart combination of different abilities will greatly improve your chances. Providing you work together, of course. An Asari biotic can rip a shield from a foe in order for a human soldier to line with lead, while a Krogan tank could draw fire and attention in order for a Turian sniper to pick off unaware stragglers. All species of the galaxy, working in harmony.

Your three companions are actually real life people but your weapons and powers are still tied to your class selection. From Adepts to Vanguards every class and most races are available to customize. As you complete objectives and mow down waves of enemies, your character upgrades just as they would in the single player campaign. The gameplay is nearly identical to the single player with the addition of the biotics and skill sets. Rather than pausing the game to make your selection, you are given only two options which are tied to your bumpers/triggers.

In one of our sessions the objective was to disarm three sets of explosives all of which were on a timer. Meanwhile, hordes of Cerberus troops would drop in with snipers and even heavy mechs. If at any point a player would die, you could revive them by simply standing over their body and pressing the action button.

Anthony Gallegos, PC Editor: I've heard people talk about how they wanted Mass Effect co-op gameplay, but I don't think that this is exactly what they had in mind. Granted, a campaign where two people are making decisions would probably be a nightmare to design, but this new mode focuses on the part of Mass Effect I've always enjoyed the least: the combat. The new melee attacks and tighter shooting helps, but I'm not sure how interested I'll be in sinking hours into a mode that's all about fighting. Am I being a bit too hard on it?

Colin Moriarty, PlayStation Editor I don't think you are. Any sort of multiplayer in Mass Effect is the exact last thing just about anyone was clamoring for, and I was really hoping that BioWare would keep the sanctity of this being a single-player series, even in a world that seems to demand more and more multiplayer-centric features. To me, what we played reeked a bit of Mass Effect's version of Horde Mode from Gears of War 3, except not nearly as fun or fluid. The thing is, could what we saw and played actually have the potential to catch gamers by surprise? Is this something that Mass Effect fans are actually bound to enjoy?

3) The Depth Is There
The goal in co-op mode isn't just to survive waves of bad guys until you are eventually overpowered. Each mission has a finite number of waves, and if you make it all the way through, you get a nice experience bonus. But even if you fail, you retain the XP you gained. That XP is the core of my favorite part of ME3's multiplayer: the leveling. Each class has a full set of skills like you'd see in the single-player campaign, including different branches for each power. As your character gains levels, you earn more skill points to apply to your abilities, like increasing health, learning new biotic powers, or decreasing cooldown times. All of these upgrades carry over from match to match, and the persistence gives you the satisfying sense of building a powerhouse from the ground up.

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5) Play As Other Races
Shepard works alongside most of the major races in the galaxy, but players never control any of the other species in the single-player campaign. Co-op gives you the opportunity to step into some alien shoes. In addition to humans, players can choose to be a Salarian, Krogan, Turian, Asari, or Drell character. All of my hands-on time was spent playing as a human, but I'm looking forward to checking out what the other species offer. While largely a cosmetic choice, each race will have some sort of unique capability, but BioWare isn't giving out precise details yet. Even without any specifics, I expect to see a lot of Krogans storming around in co-op.

There have been multiplayer rumours for a while and the official BioWare line has always been '˜no comment'.

AF: Right.

How early on in development was the decision made to include multiplayer?

AF: Oh, quite early. Thinking day one early.

What has been the hardest thing from a development standpoint?

AF: Well certainly, it's Edmonton's first multiplayer game in almost a decade, so we had to make sure we got that right. We had to learn all that stuff again and make sure that's all good. There's some interesting story things we had to do to do it, so there were a few development hurdles to overcome.

Were you concerned thematically with how multiplayer would fit in?

AF: No because I think we've got this idea of this idea of the entire Galaxy at War, it's a good setting and a good backdrop to that, so we thought that made sense. We worked hard to make it consistent so there's still an incredibly strong single player campaign and Commander Shepard's story.

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