Mass Effect 2 Interview

IGN has posted the results of an interview they conducted with Mass Effect 2 producer Casey Hudson during a pre-E3 meeting. A bit of what to expect:
"We wanted to tell an interactive story over the course of three games," Hudson said. "So your choices don't just affect what's happening in the story, they affect all that's happening in the first game and 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."

As evidenced by the debut trailer, the story gets a bit grim in the sequel. "We look at each game in the Mass Effect trilogy as a three-act story," Hudson said as he explained the darker nature of Mass Effect 2. "But then as a trilogy we have our three acts. So Mass Effect 2 is the dark act. It's an opportunity to really explore the tougher, more brutal parts of the universe. They say in the first act you put a guy in the tree, in the second act you throw rocks at him, and in the third act you get him down. That's the fun of the second story is that now we know who these characters are, we know what the situation is and we can really beat up the hero of this story and take you to the most brutal parts of the Mass Effect universe... In terms of Commander Shepard's death... we're going to be showing what that means at E3 and why it's fundamental to what Mass Effect 2 is all about."