Mass Effect 3 will be a bittersweet moment for fans; an ending of epic scale incorporating hundreds of variables from the previous games. Casey Hudson, project director for the BioWare franchise talked with
PC Gamer about how decisions from
Mass Effect and
Mass Effect 2 will transfer to the highly-anticipated finale's ending and how players can grade their success.
Using the survival of squadmates from
Mass Effect 2 as an example, Hudson talked about the game featuring varied degrees of success, "...you’re going to want to do more, and be more successful, and make better choices throughout. And then that, combined with more personal or more moral choices about how to deal with things… those things will ultimately affect part of the end game, which is pretty amazing," Hudson said.
Hudson also described the versatility of
Mass Effect 3's narrative and what it means for players. For example, those who power through only the main narrative might have a very different and less satisfying ending. But isn't taking the short route always so?
"You can have some kind of ending and victory, but it’ll be a lot more brutal and minimal relative to if you do a lot of stuff," Hudson said. "If you really build a lot of stuff and bring people to your side and rally the entire galaxy around you, and you come into the end game with that, then you’ll get an amazing, very definitive ending."
One thing
not to expect is for choices to make this final entry easier, even if they might have done so or seemed morally right in the title in which they were featured.
"I think a way to think about it is if you made decisions early on, you’ll see them affecting this. And the decisions you might want to make that go against those prior things are gonna be harder," Hudson said. Pointing to the choice regarding the Rachni Queen from
Mass Effect, he further elaborated that, "Killing the Rachni might present opportunities in
Mass Effect 3 that you wouldn’t otherwise have, but if you don’t take those opportunities and you
That's a lot of "it," "then" and "that," so basically what Hudson might mean is that if your Shepard suddenly starts acting in opposition to the decisions he or she made previously, the game will be harder to complete. Or he could mean that your moral compass will be challenged regardless of choice, which would certainly be unsurprising considering some of the decisions Shepard has made throughout the epic space opera.
In either case, expect
Mass Effect 3 to challenge and engage on the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC next year, but don't expect it to forget and forgive.
