Mass Effect Series Interview
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The guys at OXM/Total Xbox managed to round up BioWare's Casey Hudson, Preston Watamaniuk, Mac Walters, Dusty Everman, and Mike Gamble for an extensive six-page and spoiler-heavy interview about the development of the initial Mass Effect trilogy and what the future holds for the continuation of the sci-fi RPG series. A generous excerpt:
Let's go back to the beginning. What was your very first job on the Mass Effect series?
CASEY HUDSON: I was the project lead from the start of the series, coming off a fun, successful project with Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. KOTOR was the first full game that I led, and it had plenty of challenges of its own. But taking on a new generation of technology and building a new sci-fi universe was definitely a step up in difficulty and risk.
Our first job was to start laying out the fundamentals of our new universe. Would there be time travel? Teleportation? Alien races? Who am I as a player, and what is my role in the universe? These things would form the basic parameters of the stories we'd be able to tell.
PRESTON WATAMANIUK: The first thing I did on the trilogy was start working out details of the IP with Casey and Drew [Karpyshyn, former lead writer] - species, ships, background, etc.
MAC WALTERS: Developing lore for the series was first up. But the first content I worked on was small plots and characters on the Citadel. Chloe Michel, the volus and elcor ambassadors, the asari consort and her staff...
DUSTY EVERMAN: [I was] lead cinematic designer - after a detour onto Jade Empire, I came back as lead technical designer and implemented the Normandy.
MIKE GAMBLE: My first job was as a development manager. I was responsible for working with the team on Mass Effect 2 to deliver the Cerberus Network mechanism.
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Any good anecdotes about the team working on a specific character, locale, or game feature you'd like to share now that the series is over?
PW: I think the day I remember most is when I walked into the writing room and stated that Tali had to die if you chose the geth at the end of the quarian/geth campaign. I was also insistent on her death having a dramatic interrupt and eventual twist for the player where they could not save her. I really love that moment.
DE: On the Normandy in the first Mass Effect, Kaidan wiping his brow and Liara getting out of her chair weren't really cinematic moments - they were load tunnels giving the system time enough to load in Kaidan or Liara's conversations.
For the longest time in the development of Mass Effect 3, the Normandy had a functioning elevator that you could step into and out of. Just like the Citadel elevators in the first Mass Effect, though, the speed of the Normandy elevator got longer and longer, so we had to cut it at the last moment. You can see the resurrection of it in the Citadel DLC as you ride down to the cargo bay for the final fight.
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Which character death was the toughest for you personally? Which elicited the most argument on the team when it was planned?
CH: Anderson was one of the best characters in the series, and in some ways his character had a more personal relationship with Shepard than any other - it started before the beginning of Mass Effect and he was a consistent father figure/ mentor through all three games. I loved Keith David's performance, and it made Anderson's death a powerful and sentimental moment.
The death that we probably discussed the most was Mordin's. It was unique in terms of the logistics around letting the player maintain a lie throughout the mission, and ultimately make a life or death choice, while giving the player the right moments to make decisions, revisit moral positions, and take actions that are appropriately foreshadowed so you know what you're doing.
PW: Tali's was the toughest death for me to plan. She was a foundation character who had been with the series from the very beginning. Making it possible for her to die was something I felt needed to happen, given the circumstances.
MW: Anderson's death was a tough one to write. The [voiceover] session was even more emotional when we recorded it. Thane was debated a great deal - not so much whether we should kill him, but whether we should cure him.
DE: Only two gaming moments have ever gotten a tear out of my eye, and Thane's deathbed was one of them.
MG: Mordin was the hardest for me. I think Mordin was tough for the writers, too...
