Tali returns as a full-time squadmate in Mass Effect 3, Wrex probably doesn't

When Tom was out at BioWare's Edmonton office last month, executive producer Casey Hudson confirmed that our favourite Quarian, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, would return as a full-time squadmate. The obvious next question: would Wrex?

Casey Hudson: Wrex will be... basically everyone that's a main character is in Mass Effect 3. Everyone - every single team character in the entire series - is in Mass Effect 3, but not necessarily as a squad member. So Wrex will be there but not necessarily as a full squad member.

The squadmates we can confirm are Garrus, Liara, Ashley or Kaiden, James Vega, and the one that we can mention that we haven't mentioned before is Tali.

PC Gamer: Will some of the main characters who aren't full squadmates tag along for one mission?

Casey Hudson: Yeah. Basically when the story moves to deal with that particular main character, there might be a plot where they join you for a little while, and they're with you for that mission.

Casey says the returning characters, particularly Shepard him or herself, make the Mass Effect series unique.

Casey Hudson: I would argue that this is the only trilogy in games. There have been games where there were three, but in terms of planning it out from the beginning, with a story that was meant to span three games, and actually finishing all three games - I don't know if that's ever been done before.

Certainly bringing your character across and those decisions, that hasn't been done before. So we have a really, really exciting opportunity, which is to take all of the stuff that we've built and it's not now just about continuing it, but it's about letting people end it. And end it in ways that, especially if you've been following the series, you know what it would mean to end certain conflicts in certain ways. You know the values behind it, and the history behind it, and especially the people that are affected.

We talk about the Genophage, and how you could resolve that in different ways, because you know so many people affected by it: Grunt and Wrex and Mordin and these characters that you can actually put a face on. So it's pretty exciting to be able to finish it.

You can hear more about what Tom thought of Mass Effect 3 in the PC Gamer UK podcast , and we'll have more juicy info from Casey tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader .