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I'm going to put everything I post for our Mass Effect week in this thread. To kick things off, here's a chat with one of Mass Effect 3's writers about its most controversial aspect: the ending. He had other ideas that didn't make the cut. https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1356286434588708864
OK, here's some more interesting news: after the first Mass Effect game, BioWare toyed with the idea of making a Han Solo-esque game in which you travelled the galaxy as a smuggler type, instead of as a super soldier. https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1356577028921769986
Seven years later, a playable prototype of manually-piloted space exploration was made for Andromeda. One dev told me it was great, but was cut due to ambition in other areas, such as increased focus on the Nomad - maybe we'll see it in a future game? https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1356584624600801280
I have always wondered if BioWare entertained the idea of making it possible to save Thane... As it turns out, some writers toyed with the possibility, but a codex entry meant Keplar's was "bogusly incurable" and would need whole new missions to retcon. https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1356934198796427265
Some of you may have heard rumors about this game before, but we've learned the real reason as to why Mass Effect: Team Assault - a multiplayer FPS set in the ME universe - was cancelled: longstanding tensions between BioWare Edmonton and BioWare Montreal https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1356958026511634433
i was going to save our biggest mass effect week stuff for friday but i couldn't keep this one contained any longer https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1356993850410205189
this is interesting: i've been speaking to people who used to work at bioware recently, and, when asked if they'd return to mass effect, lots of them have cited elite dangerous as the kind of game they'd ideally want to make (independently of one another) https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357006732631945217
In news that should shock absolutely nobody, Mass Effect 2 - often regarded as the best game in the series - had the least crunch. It was also playable a year before launch. Crunch was "really bad" on ME1, while there was "more of a rush to ship" ME3 https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357030153558380550
OK, this is a big one. Here's a report on how Andromeda, which only introduced two new species (which, as it turns out, were the same species) actually had designs for up to ten new alien types. They were cut for budget, scope, and... cosplay potential. https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357312151426334721
this is a fun one - apparently, a missed digit meant that only 400 reapers showed up on earth in mass effect 3. the thing is, there were actually supposed to be 4,000 - it turns out that shepard and co. got off pretty lightly https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357329394747011074
I also had a chat with the writer who created Samara about her romance, or lack thereof. A lot of fans seem to think this is because of the "Justicar Code," but in reality, the Code says nothing about romance - it's much more complex than that. https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357375449115078665
Here are five ME3 devs on the game's controversial ending. Interestingly, impressions from within BioWare at the time seem as varied as the reception ME3 got from fans. Some disappointment, some satisfaction, lots of strong opinions on the Extended Cut https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357396127318999040
Here's something I've seen chatter about but never concrete proof of... Garrus Vakarian, who has one of the most beloved romance arcs in video games, was never supposed to be a romance option. At the time of ME1, he was just going to be your pal like Wrex https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357645278048886784
Here's a big one to round out the week on how ME2 was built around its iconic final mission. Character writing was clinical, with archetypes, acquisition + loyalty missions, and confrontations all explicitly used to raise the stakes of the suicide mission https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357711020312178690
Here's a piece on creating Kasumi and Zaeed, who were supposed to be in the base game but were cut due to time + budget constraints before being resurrected as DLC. Some big challenges in writing characters with less screen time, but both turned out great https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357714789485735939
This next piece is on the making of Jack - where the idea for her came from and how it was reworked throughout Mass Effect 2. I still think she's one of the best characters in the series, so I'm delighted I got to chat with her writer https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357755788085891077
I also spoke to several writers about worldbuilding and lore in Mass Effect. Honestly, the attentiveness to detail in this series is incredible - it's no wonder it's one of the most impressive video game universes ever created https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357758354651832320
OK, heading out for the weekend. This is my 500th article at http://TheGamer.com and my last piece for our Mass Effect week, which I hope you all enjoyed. Here are five devs who worked on the series talking about their fave characters: https://twitter.com/thegamerwebsite/status/1357768313393319939
