Mass Effect 3’s high level vision hasn’t changed

Despite a few changes along the way Mass Effect 3 follows the original arc BioWare envisioned eight years ago, producer Jesse Houston has told GameSpot.

“Mass Effect 3 really does follow the overall arc of how we envisioned it eight years ago,” said Houston. “But I mean ultimately as we’ve got closer and closer we’ve made changes along the way. I think that the high level vision is the same but things have changed. we’ve taken a lot of feedback from players to make those fine changes. Things like RPGS systems and stuff like that have come and gone, those kinds of things – it’s normal for that kind of ebb and flow.”

Houston added that everything the team does is for the fans.

“Our community is hugely important to us,” he explained. “Not just the BioWare Social side – also stuff like Twitter and Facebook”.

“Our fans are really who we build the game for. They are the most important people in our lives and we listen to them probably more than any other developer that I’ve ever seen. Every piece of feedback that crawls across the forums, I read it. As much as humanly possible, we act on it.

“At the end of Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 we looked at all the feedback that we could. We looked at the stuff that we wanted to act on that we could act one.”

Mass Effect 3 is scheduled for release March 9, 2012 for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC. Fans won’t have to wait that long for a glimpse of the final game in the trilogy, with Mass Effect 3 playable at GAMEfest this September. It’s also unlikely this is the end for the franchise, with BioWare stating it’s seeking the right way to continue Mass Effect.