News probes are still coming back from our trip to BioWare to see Mass Effect 3 being built. Executive producer Casey Hudson tells us that they've been using the Mass Effect 2 DLC we've been playing as prototypes for ideas they want to put into Mass Effect 3.
Fair warning: the first part of Casey's answer is about how surprising Mass Effect 3 is, and in the second part he tells us something that happens right near the start. He also refers to some stuff that happens in the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC for Mass Effect 2. Spoilers follow.
PC Gamer: What was the biggest area of improvement that you wanted to focus on in Mass Effect 3?
Casey Hudson: One thing that we're doing is just making the entire experience feel a lot more... it's the moment to moment unpredictability, the variability. Anything can happen. We've got these action moments, little micro-cutscenes and stuff that lead in and out of actual gameplay. We've got lots and lots of epic situations that you're in for gameplay and combat stuff that we've never done before.
Some of the stuff we did in our DLC was very successful, and were in a way prototypes for what we're doing here. So when you fought the Shadow Broker, there's a different scenario for how you're fighting this huge guy who's smashing parts of the environment, and charging you, and you're working together. Or you're on the back of that big ship, and there's wind. And we had the whole car chase thing in the Shadow Broker. So with some of these things we're just kind of experimenting with stuff to broaden that envelope of gameplay that we're doing in Mass Effect 3.
PC Gamer: So what kind of stuff in Mass Effect 3 does that relate to?
Casey Hudson: Well, without me giving away specific situations... a moment on Earth where you're trying to get away from the Reapers. You're on a building where the structure's collapsed, and you're sliding down the glass face of a skyscraper, and you roll at the bottom. It's a moment, but you feel like you're part of it. And these kinds of things are throughout the game: grabbing a turret and mowing down a few of the guys before you go on to the next thing.
But a lot of it is also narrative based, so in shows like Band of Brothers, the group will be fighting their way through and then they'll meet up with a tank, and they'll crouch along with the tank as it moves up to the next thing. So we're doing moments like that, where we're letting the narrative be more and more part of the combat.
Casey also told us why you shouldn't shoot the hideous sacs on a Reaper Rachni , that Tali will return as a full time squad member , and that there'll be no new love interests in the third game .
He's since tweeted , though, that he's "Happy to confirm #ME3 supports wider options for love interests incl. same-sex for m&f chars, reactive to how you interact w/them in-game." Either something's changed, or some familiar faces are getting bi-curious - we've asked for a clarification.
We'll have another chunk of Mass Effect 3 details tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader .
