You spared the rachni queen. Rescued Ashley. Transferred the Collectors base into the hands of the Illusive Man. Or you didn’t do any of this. BioWare keeps the main story of the Mass Effect series within a clear framework, but players can influence the nuances of the story with their decisions. The result is an army of fans, each with a special connection to their own Commander Shepard and a unique perspective on the events of the Mass Effect universe. Man or woman, hero or renegade, soldier or adept – Shepard’s image is made up of a huge number of decisions made in Mass Effect 1 and 2. But while these decisions often have galaxy-wide impacts, nothing you’ve done before can change the grim picture Shepard faces at the start of Mass Effect 3: the Reaper invasion has begun. A full-scale war with these sentient machines forces Shepard to answer for his actions and see what has been said since the very beginning of the trilogy.

Mass Effect revolves around a conflict of galactic proportions; Entire worlds and civilizations are at risk, and their fates depend only on Shepard. This scale amusingly contrasts with the rather modest size of the place where the adventures of the Normandy and its crew begin. The Mass Effect series is being developed at BioWare Studios, located in Edmonton, Alberta. The building is connected to an ordinary three-star hotel – the view from the office window, which is shared by studio founders Ray Muzika and Greg Zeschuk, only overlooks the restaurant and fountain in the lobby of this hotel. However, these unremarkable settings served as the launching pad for one of the gaming industry’s most ambitious and respected franchises. This is where the Mass Effect trilogy began, and where Mass Effect 3 and the battle to save the galaxy are currently being developed.
When BioWare first announced Mass Effect, the goals that the developers set for this project seemed unattainable. Not only was it marketed as a three-part story before the first one even saw the light of day, but the concept of decisions whose consequences carry over from game to game has never been done on this scale. But immediately after the release of Mass Effect, it became obvious that BioWare was capable of keeping its word. The game was hailed as a cinematic sci-fi masterpiece, and the even greater success of Mass Effect 2 only strengthened the series’ reputation and won the hearts of many newcomers. Now, when the epic story is coming to an end, all the achievements of the previous parts are about to bear fruit. “This is exactly what we wanted going into the trilogy,” says executive producer Casey Hudson. “Think about all the decisions you’ve made: each one leads to a long list of amazing moments that are, in fact, what Mass Effect 3 is all about.”.

Return of the Hero
The plot begins with the arrival of Commander Shepard on Earth in connection with the proceedings regarding the events of the recently released Mass Effect 2 DLC "Arrival". Only a few months have passed since the end of the suicide mission to neutralize the Collectors base, but the leadership of the Alliance is still not sure whether to believe Shepard’s words regarding the imminent attack of the Reapers. Although players have experienced the fury of these ancient machines firsthand, most inhabitants of the Mass Effect universe consider the Reapers to be an old story that poses no real threat. But everything changes at the same moment when intelligent cruisers launch a massive attack on Earth, easily capturing key areas.
“The action begins with footage from different places around the world – New York, London, Japan. You see what’s happening first by getting reports from major cities, says Hudson. “Then you look out the window and make sure that the enemies have reached here too.”.

Shepard knew this would happen sooner or later, but it was time to tell the Council "I told you so."!" No. The brutality and effectiveness of the Reapers’ attack is astonishing. This is not a battle that Earth’s forces would be accustomed to fighting – it took the coordinated effort of an entire fleet to destroy the Sovereign at the end of Mass Effect, and it was just one Reaper. Now hundreds of his kind are invading Earth and nearby systems. "This is the full-scale invasion you’ve been trying to prevent all along," Hudson says. – They captured the Earth and began to conquer other parts of the galaxy. "Mass Effect 3 will be about a full-fledged galactic war.".

Plan
As an invasion force seizes the cradle of humanity, Shepard quickly realizes that the battle for Earth is lost. The only hope is to flee, gather allies and organize a counterattack to retake the planet. “It’s a bit of a sad moment; you must give up and go on the run. This is what the first level is about: can the hero escape to fight another day, and what is the right decision here?? – Hudson says. – The answer to this question is your main task as a player. How to stop something that is unstoppable?»

In previous games, your goals became clear quite early on. Find and stop Saren. Assemble a team and destroy the Collectors. In Mass Effect 3, you know you have to retake Earth, but the path to victory isn’t very clear at first. You won’t be lucky enough to find some kind of Reaper shutdown button lost in the darkness of space; you will have to gain the advantage while fighting off the constant attacks of the Reapers throughout the galaxy.

“There will be an evolution in your plans to escape the Reapers,” Hudson says. “You’ll start with one idea, which will evolve—there will be distractions—and in the process you’ll shape your plan to where you want it to be.”. Shepard will adapt the plan to new information you gain along the way to your final goal, but one thing will remain the same: you will need help.

Old war, new allies
In Mass Effect 2, Shepard traveled the galaxy recruiting special individuals. This won’t be enough in Mass Effect 3. Given the scale of the threat, you must rally entire civilizations and come up with a plan to stop the Reaper invasion.

While no one wants the Reapers to win, winning the support of an entire race is no easy feat. For many inhabitants of the galaxy, helping Shepard, abandoning all other matters, will only end in destruction at the hands of another threat. For example, in search of allies, Shepard will visit the homeland of the salarians, where he will find them up to their necks in a conflict related to the krogan genophage (this problem was widely covered in the first game and is addressed in the sequel). On a similar principle, the nomadic quarians are trying to regain control of their home planet, captured by the geth centuries ago. In both cases, there is a possibility of losing to the other side, and so Shepard is faced with the task of resolving these conflicts in order to free up resources and gain support.

But don’t even expect to win the galaxy’s loyalty by completing a series of kill-and-fetch quests. These storylines have been gradually developed since the beginning of the series, and the issues addressed in them are truly complex. “We identified all the different situations that would occur,” Hudson says. – What if, in solving these problems, you could unite all possible allies under your banner?? Perhaps in some cases this is not possible. Or maybe you won’t be able to figure out what the solution should be.".

In short, Shepard will need help from anyone who offers it. Sometimes this help will come from old friends, and sometimes from a completely new, unexpected side. However, each group covering Shepard raises the stakes, and rather than put the lives of the Normandy crew on the line, Shepard may be forced to sacrifice an entire civilization to end this war.

On the battlefield
Mass Effect 3’s narrative follows directly from Mass Effect 2, and the same can be said for its gameplay. Although the combat has been heavily reworked since the first game, players can expect a more familiar feeling this time around. “Given the reception that Mass Effect 2 has received from fans and critics—with all the enormous, thorough changes we’ve made—I think there’s reason to believe that the formula we’ve come up with has been successful,” Hudson says. “Now, it seems to me, we can loosen the reins a little in this regard.”.

Many of the improvements are quite subtle and will only be obvious at first glance to those who remember Mass Effect 2’s combat well. Improved cover mechanics will allow Shepard to maneuver more easily while remaining protected from enemy fire, and peeking from behind cover has been optimized. Shepard’s new move, the roll, adds dynamism to firefights, as does the ability to jump over rifts or low objects (without having to hide behind them first). Additionally, the introduction of stairs allows you to create multi-level areas without the need for giant inclined planes, giving more scope to the fight areas without them feeling like square arenas with cover thrown in here and there. But the best thing is that weapons are no longer tied to classes, so every character can now use any weapon.

Improvements have also been made to the artificial intelligence of opponents. In previous games, your enemies’ behavior didn’t vary much. They all took cover and occasionally leaned out to fire a couple of bullets. In Mass Effect 3, opponents will carry out joint attacks. “They’re aware of each other, they’re flanking each other, and they’re a lot more aggressive,” Hudson says. “On the battlefield, each of them has a very specific role, and they, like chess pieces, work together much better, because each has their own special tactics.”.
If you think that the features mentioned are standard for most third-person shooters, then you are right. However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the original Mass Effect’s gunplay was more about numbers than player skill – a reminder of the game’s RPG roots. “We realized that since our battles are in the style of shooters, then they will inevitably compare us with the best shooters in the world. So we had to rise to the right level,” Hudson admits. “Now, with Mass Effect 3, we can seamlessly complete this evolution with the necessary improvements.”.

Back to RPG
Some fans https://clemensspillehalcasino.co.uk/bonus/ of the original Mass Effect complained that the sequel strayed too far from its RPG roots by focusing too much on action. Although Mass Effect 3 takes the action-oriented approach of Mass Effect 2’s combat, the developers admit that they feel the need to rekindle the RPG spark of the series. To achieve this, BioWare isn’t going back to the old Mass Effect design groove; instead, the studio is adding more depth and customization to an already existing model.

In Mass Effect 2, Shepard died and was restored almost from scratch, which gave BioWare a plot-justified reason to reset and rework the skill system. This won’t happen again. In Mass Effect 3, you’ll pick up roughly where you left off in the previous game. “You’ll start the game with some of the very basic skills you’d have in Mass Effect 2, but they’ll start to evolve very quickly,” Hudson explains. – This is where we added more different options. We know that people wanted not only the ability to allocate skill points, but also a little more choice in the process.". This means that, for example, a biotic ability like Singularity can develop into several different forms as it improves; this time we will not be limited to two options at the end of the linear development.

The emphasis on choice is also evident in the field of weapons, which now have numerous possibilities for customization. You can get different barrels, sights and materials to improve your arsenal as you see fit. These modifications will not only provide tangible benefits on the battlefield, but will also change the appearance of your weapons, so you can give your favorite gun the look you like. “People are right when they say that we need to increase variety in the chain of actions: from buying materials in a store to customization; this leads to unique things and emotional attachment to them,” says Hudson. This system will allow Mass Effect 3 to restore some of the personalization that was in the first game, without having to wade through an exorbitant inventory or carry around dozens of different upgrades.

Know your enemy
The Reapers are no longer some mysterious threat lurking in the outer reaches of space. They started a war, and Shepard directly confronts them throughout Mass Effect 3. Not to say that every enemy encountered will be a giant cruiser (Shepard will most likely still take out random groups of mercenaries), but the Reapers and their troops are now your main enemies.

“You used to only see a few Reapers, but now you literally come face to face with them,” says Hudson. “You’re in the same space with them, fighting ships a mile long.”. Obviously, Shepard can’t take out hundreds of Reapers in a one-on-one battle, but that doesn’t mean players won’t have to get their hands dirty. How exactly you will destroy these unstoppable enemies will remain unknown until the game’s release.

Just as formidable as his opponents, Shepard will be able to get some help from unexpected places. We happened to see a scene where Shepard rides at the head of a column of Krogan transport workers, and at that moment the Reaper, who came out of nowhere, begins to destroy everything and everyone. A damaged turian fighter crashes onto the convoy, destroying Shepard’s vehicle as the giant enemy creeps closer. Faced with a hopeless battle on foot, Shepard seemed about to die, but at that moment a thresher bursts out of the ground and grabs onto the Reaper. Shepard runs in the shadows of the titanic creatures as they fight each other; the thresher gains the upper hand, wrapping itself around the Reaper and pulling the synthetic into the sand. The battle seems to be won, but lasers erupt from the ground, subtly hinting to Shepard that it is time to run away as quickly as possible.

“We want to bring that same scale throughout Mass Effect 3,” says lead cinematic animator Parrish Lay. “We created all these characters, this plot, this universe, and we feel like if we don’t make the most of it, our efforts will be in vain.”.
And, as if fighting the Reapers themselves weren’t enough, we’ll have to deal with their minions. In Mass Effect 1 and 2, the player fought with the so-called huskies. These cybernetic monsters are the result of implanting Reaper technology into people and extracting their biological resources for other uses. Unfortunately for Shepard, the Reapers can do this to almost every race in the galaxy, from bipedal species like turians and batarians to more beastly ones like the Rachni and Klyxeni. Twisted versions of familiar creatures make up the bulk of the Reaper ground forces.

Not only is Shepard battling a terrifying army of Reapers, he’s also being hunted by his former employer. “Cerberus is here to stay,” Hudson teases. “Whereas in the last part you worked closely with them, now they are among those who want to stop you.”. The organization’s motives for starting the hunt for Shepard are carefully hidden by BioWare, and players will not learn the truth until they play Mass Effect 3 themselves.

Putting the team back together
Of all the questions that fans have about Mass Effect 3, perhaps the most persistent and loudest is "Who will return to my team?"Over the course of the series, players have become attached to certain of Shepard’s companions, a fact that BioWare does not lose sight of.

If all the characters from previous games return as permanent party members, the new faces will get lost in the crowd… and the party selection screen will turn into a garbage dump. The trick is to give players a satisfying resolution to the relationships they’ve been building, while also tying it to the role the character will play, from cameo to mainstay.

"It’s a pretty broad task and it varies from character to character," Hudson says. – Some characters will form the core of the story. They are members of the squad. The entire structure of the plot, in a certain sense, is based on them. Others will be simple party members, and you can decide whether to take them with you or not… Someone will appear for the duration of several missions, but for this time he will be part of the party. And someone will appear only as a cameo.".

Don’t worry that BioWare forgot about the Legion, your romance with Ashley, or the fact that you didn’t lose anyone in the attack on the Collectors base. While we don’t know the exact role of these characters, they wouldn’t be introduced into the Mass Effect universe only to be immediately scrapped. You can be sure that you will see all the main characters in one capacity or another (see tab for more details).

Choice and its consequences
The popularity of the Mass Effect series is based not least on the fact that it became one of the first signs in the field of player decisions. Instead of just dealing with decisions that affect one game, BioWare has promised that your actions will affect subsequent installments. But how can you take into account such a large number of variables and not lose face to the player??

“We have a system that now calculates options and branches much faster, playing different branches in parallel,” says Ley. “Say, in one big video you saved so-and-so, but didn’t save so-and-so, and you had an affair with so-and-so – this system can calculate the sequence of these events to the end, building a cut-scene so that it matches your decisions.”.

The attack on the Collectors’ base at the end of Mass Effect 2 used a similar technique, but only for one sequence. Since your personal version of the galaxy will play such a large role in Mass Effect 3, the technology has been polished and now works much smoother – no more noticeable loading while the game tries to figure out what decisions you made.

You will also notice the consequences of your decisions outside of cutscenes. For example, if Garrus died during Mass Effect 2, he will not miraculously resurrect. He’s no longer there. If Garrus survived, then he will be able to join Shepard and, perhaps, give him a special task to complete. But players shouldn’t feel cheated if they lost a few comrades in previous installments; The developers’ goal is to reward players for how they enjoy playing the game, not to bully them by withholding content. “It will be different, but not worse,” says Hudson. – That’s the fun of multiple playthroughs. It won’t happen that something simply doesn’t exist. You will see what is different, what has happened and what has changed.".

Interview with Casey Hudson
We spoke with the executive producer of Mass Effect 3, who was at the very origins of the franchise.

IN.: Mass Effect 2 took the series in a darker direction. With the galaxy on fire, should we assume the trend will continue??
ABOUT.: Perhaps. I don’t want to say that there is an atmosphere of helplessness there, but given the scale of the threat, the thought is constantly present in my head: “How can we win??"It will take a lot of joint efforts, you will have to give it your all. Mass Effect 2 was stylizedly dark – cold, sleek, whereas here it feels more like an all-out war. You have no time for excesses, and there is no confidence in victory. Deep down you know that sooner or later everything will come to an unpleasant point, and losses will not be avoided even if you win.

IN.: Can you say anything about why Shepard thinks the Reapers can be stopped??
ABOUT.: At their core, such stories must be somewhat hopeless. Then you start finding reasons to believe. But if I reveal this reason now, then the story will not have the desired effect during the game, because you are waiting for this moment X. So we’re keeping quiet about this.

IN.: But there are certain parts of this plan that BioWare is keeping secret?
ABOUT.: Exactly.

IN.: The Illusive Man was a central figure in Mass Effect 2… what can you say about his role in the new game?
ABOUT.: He will be in Mass Effect 3. He is one of the main characters in our setting, and this is proven again in Mass effect 3. Overall, all the main characters are there – considering they survived.
IN.: If all characters can use any weapon, then how does a class like Soldier stand out from them??
ABOUT.: There is still balance in the skill area. Even if you make weapons universal within classes, there are still class abilities, such as biotics or technical skills. But the soldier also stands out because only he can carry all types of weapons at the same time. Other classes can choose any weapon they like, but they won’t carry more than two or three guns with them, unlike a soldier.

IN.: Will the distribution of Shepard’s skill points transfer from ME 2?
ABOUT.: We always have to look for a balance, as we don’t want to torture players who haven’t played the previous games. On the other hand, there should be some kind of reward for doing certain things in the past. In general, we must continue to lead the character through the story from the very moment when we left him, but with an eye on new players, although there will be certain bonuses for past achievements.

IN.: After the Mako in Mass Effect and the Hammer in Mass Effect 2, will you be including vehicles in Mass Effect 3??
ABOUT.: I think it will be more like Mass Effect 2, where this gameplay element is not critical. We have a lot of ways to make the game fun – it doesn’t have to be like anything we’ve done before; we will dilute old ideas with a pinch of something new.

IN.: What about planet scanning??
ABOUT.: Well, we’ll change this part of the game. We haven’t really thought about what we’ll do with it yet, but it will be very different from what you saw in Mass Effect 2. We had unexplored planets and Makos, planet scans and N7 missions; this part of the gaming experience is always important – non-linear exploration of the galaxy, doing different things. But in Mass Effect 3 we’ll change that again.

IN.: How will you introduce new players to the events of previous parts?
ABOUT.: We’re going to do something similar to what we did with the PS3 version of Mass Effect 2. We’ve introduced a "Previously in Mass Effect" element that, even after importing saves, you’ll see. It’s just that then you’ll just see all the decisions you made. But if not, this element will periodically pause and ask you what you would do… essentially a save maker that will take you to the main game and tell you what’s going on.

IN.: Some of the original Mass Effect choices, like the fate of the Rachni queen, didn’t have much of an impact on ME2. We will see the consequences of such decisions in the threequel?
ABOUT.: There are certain choices you could make in Mass Effect 1 – and the comic book in the PS3 version – that will have pretty significant consequences in Mass Effect 3. Various things could happen, and you will have access to equally different things, and they will affect your ending. This is what we wanted to do from the very beginning; from the very first game, making decisions that can change everything on the way to the final.

IN.: The ending of Mass Effect 2, where Shepard dies, could only be achieved by trying very hard. Given the stakes in Mass Effect 3, will players have to work harder to get the "good" ending??
ABOUT.: We create the game so that your probability of success is approximately the same. We have a set of different endings, which is similar to the situation with Mass Effect 2, but it will still work a little better. After all, this is our big ending; it is quite unpredictable – many factors are intertwined. It’s not that hard to get the worst ending here. You just need to make the appropriate decisions.

End
All things Mass Effect aside, there’s one thing that’s sure to excite and frustrate fans of the series in equal measure. This is the end. The war that began when we first played Mass Effect in 2007 is reaching its climax, and we’re about to see the galaxy change because of our decisions.

"The great thing about Mass Effect 3 is that it’s going to be harder to make because of decisions made in previous games, but that’s what it’s all about," Hudson says. The layouts of the decisions from the first two games are exactly what fans are waiting for, but on the other hand, it will all be complete. The end of the trilogy means that developers no longer have to worry about series continuity; BioWare no longer has to think about how Shepard’s choices will affect the next installment. Players will feel the pressure of what’s at stake because they could lose it all. The result is an explosive finale with plenty of breathtaking moments and twists that are sure to show why Commander Shepard is one of the leading heroes of this generation of consoles.