Mass Effect series has 'so much to draw from' for future games

Mass Effect 3 executive producer Michael Gamble talks about how the next game in the series could visit the history of other large-scale conflicts in the Mass Effect universe.

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Mass Effect 3 will be the end of Shepard's story and, presumably, the Reaper threat. But, it's far from the end of the series. As the third installment nears completion, executive producer Michael Gamble talks about how exploring the established fiction could serve as a basis for future games.

"Without going down any specific path, you can think of many, many different areas throughout the IP, throughout the history, where there are large wars to be won, large battles to be had, and a lot of development to be done around where these races came from, how they came about."

"We have so much to draw from," Gamble told OXM. That sounds like those bits of back-story in the codex, like the first war with the Humans or the Genophage, could serve as starting points for a another game in the franchise.

Meanwhile, Gamble says the studio has already consolidated the various hanging plot threads from both games and bits of downloadable content, which may vary from player to player. "If you play and you've never played before, the dialogue choices that are shown reflect that," Gamble said. "If you don't import a save, it'll be more descriptive, giving you more back-story, it will assume you know less. Whereas if you did import a save, the dialogue choices will be more to the point of what you've previously played. So that allows us to satisfy the existing audiences and help new players who don't know who the characters are."

A demo of the game launches February 14, and the company kicked off a Facebook promotion today. The game is due March 6.

Editor-In-Chief
From The Chatty
  • reply
    February 2, 2012 3:45 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Mass Effect series has 'so much to draw from' for future games.

    Mass Effect 3 executive producer Michael Gamble talks about how the next game in the series could visit the history of other large-scale conflicts in the Mass Effect universe.

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      February 2, 2012 3:46 PM

      Mass Effect 4 confirmed, Origin exclusive DLC

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      February 2, 2012 4:01 PM

      I'd really like a game centered around the First Contact War between the humans and Turians. Not that it will happen, but it would be cool to see.

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        February 2, 2012 8:02 PM

        [deleted]

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        February 2, 2012 10:04 PM

        that story is kinda played out in the comics. it's a fairly short war in the grand scheme of things. i'd prefer something new and original.

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          February 3, 2012 7:16 AM

          I'd like a rachnid war story or maybe the war between the Turians and those giant guys I can't remember now but their reproduction has been destroyed due to some kind of genetic bomb. What the hell were they called again?

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          February 3, 2012 7:17 AM

          Sim Keeper!

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          February 3, 2012 7:35 AM

          Oh really? I only read the novels. I'll have to get ahold of the comics now.

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      February 2, 2012 4:09 PM

      Incoming Annualized Mass Effect based shooter.

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      February 2, 2012 4:13 PM

      Let's run that shit into the ground!

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      February 2, 2012 4:44 PM

      Give me an "Empire at War" style RTS and I wouldn't complain.

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      February 2, 2012 6:56 PM

      [deleted]

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      February 2, 2012 8:00 PM

      Alright guys, we're out of content. Begin operation prequel.

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      February 3, 2012 7:08 AM

      [deleted]

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      February 3, 2012 7:32 AM

      Knights of the Old Citadel MMO

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      February 3, 2012 7:33 AM

      I should play the ME2 DLC before ME3 comes out but I've never seen it on steam. Do you have to use origin or something to get it?

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        February 3, 2012 8:08 AM

        No, you can't get it on Origin either. You have to go to Bioware's site, pay money for Bioware Points, and use the points to buy and download the DLCs. It's no wonder Valve changed their tos to require DLC for new games to be sold on Steam too, it's a shitty experience with the way some games like ME2 handle that junk. I still haven't bothered with it.

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      February 3, 2012 11:04 AM

      I absolutely love how epic the ME universe/history is. It's probably my favorite.

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