Mass Effect 3 has a ‘balance’ between action and RPG

BioWare has confirmed its intentions to give the concluding part of its epic space opera more of an action adventure theme than previous titles.

“This is definitely the best chance we have in the series to really break out and go truly blockbuster,” BioWare marketing director David Silverman told CVG.

Silverman thinks it’s the right time to get new players on board. “It’s a natural entry point for new players: giant alien race launches all-out war, you have to rally the forces of the universe to counter and see if you can take them down. That’s pretty clear.”

“You don’t need to be like: ‘Well, what about when I had this love affair?’ It’s like, who cares? It’s all out war!” I do hope, for Mrs Silverman’s sake, that David is never conscripted.

BioWare is hoping for huge success with Mass Effect 3, Silverman adds. “We’re hoping for a big hit. It’s the best game we’ve ever made at BioWare Edmonton. The stuff we’re doing – making the gameplay more action-adventure-y, making it on a par with some of the best action games you see today, whilst on top of that adding in these RPG elements that maybe people were upset we didn’t focus on as much in Mass Effect 2 – it strikes a balance.”

But will it have more RPG elements than in previous games, David? “Absolutely. Hands down. We’ve done a lot of research about what people liked about Mass Effect, Mass Effect 2 and other games too – what they like about Gears Of War, Assassin’s Creed, Halo, Call Of Duty and lots of RPG games too.

“We’ve looked at all these games to see what’s resonating and what’s not. On the one hand, we don’t want to go too far down the RPG rabbit hole where Shepard starts rolling dice, but on the other hand we don’t want to ignore that coolness – where people can customise parts of their character and making them feel that it’s them in the adventure. We capitalise on that in spades in ME3.”

Earlier this month BioWare said its high-level vision for Mass Effect 3 hasn’t changed.

Mass Effect 3 will be released for Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on March 9 2012.

Silverman didn’t mention if the game would throw in six magical unicorns, a bottomless pot of gold, and unending happiness for anybody who even so much as glanced at the game’s box, but let’s just assume he was thinking it.