BioWare Pre-E3 Interview
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Q: Late last year BioWare officially announced Mass Effect, their Xbox 360 sci-fi RPG. Can you give us an overall status report on the game and how it is coming along?
A: Mass Effect is looking terrific! In every way we've made steps to innovate and improve our approach to creating an interactive game world. So experiencing it all together is an incredible, truly (next-gen) experience. The atmosphere of Mass Effect is surprisingly immersive and emotionally gripping, making the gigantic story concept all the more compelling - it's like a spectacularly beautiful science-fiction painting brought to life.
Mass Effect is the first in a trilogy of sci-fi action RPGs in development for the Xbox 360. Set in the year 2183, you play the only Human SPECTRE a sworn defender of galactic stability. You'll lead en elite squad against the advancing armies of a legendary agent gone rogue, before discovering an even greater galactic threat. In addition to an epic story arc, Mass Effect allows players to visit a vast number of uncharted, unexplored planets to discover new alien life, ruined civilizations and powerful technologies; in the end, nothing will hold you back in your heroic quest. Mass Effect is an original intellectual property created and owned by BioWare, and published by Microsoft. The story will evolve over three main games each with a huge and satisfying conclusion. Downloadable content will continue the story in between games, so that there is always new content to play in the Mass Effect world, especially when combined with the exploration of (uncharted worlds). Players can create their own personal character for Mass Effect, and then play that character through the biggest interactive science-fiction adventure ever told!
Mass Effect's combat is quite unique and innovative for a story-based action-RPG; it is real-time squad-based combat played in a third person format. You'll be in command of a squad of three (your main character included) and each character will have a choice of specialty-class skills that will offer different and compelling tactical advantages in combat. Combat is very tactical, as you can allow your squad to use their own AI or give detailed commands that allow your team to coordinate their actions on the battlefield. Each character on the battlefield can bring unique skill-sets to the table and it will be up to the player to both cultivate those powers and also to think tactically to survive. You'll be able to draw from a wide range of aggressive combat feats, including both dangerous tech-based attacks and also powerful Biotic powers which manipulate mysterious physics forces to unleash tremendous energies on the enemy.
Speaking of characters, the virtual actors in Mass Effect are truly state of the art they have to be seen to be believed. Detailed, incredibly realistic facial movement with full lipsyncing and dialog (including dialog from your main character) and smooth, realistic animation help convey the feeling you're interacting with real personalities in the game, and help move the story along in a very natural way. And we're innovating in dialog a lot too, to make the story that much more compelling. We plan to share some exciting new details about the game at E3 2006 and show off all these cool features in person there Mass Effect is BioWare's main focus at the E3 show this year.
