It's tempting to gloss Mass Effect 3's art direction as "like Mass Effect, but with more bullet holes". The first two games gave us a decent-sized dose of pyrotechnics, setting the Citadel alight and ripping the Normandy open right under your feet, but the third game goes further. Much, much further.
Reapers are blotting out the stars, planets are being pummelled from orbit, ships are exploding by the hundred. Keeping the original Mass Effect vibe intact amidst the carnage has been a struggle.
"Yeah it's been quite gruelling," art director Derek Watts remarks, wiping his brow. "Mars isn't destroyed, and the Citadel is pretty much together so we do have those breaks from constant destruction, but it was a concern.
"It was nice to have some areas completely destroyed though, to get the effects going with the lighting and the rubble," he admits, twinkly-eyed. "We referenced a lot of stuff from Baghdad."
Before we discuss what Mass Effect has in common with the Iraq War (among other real world parallels), a bit more on the Citadel - ancient alien facility of disturbing origin, seat of galactic government, and the nearest thing Mass Effect 1 had to a hub city. Mass Effect 2's cut-down variation on the theme disappointed some players, and BioWare has tackled those complaints head-on with Mass Effect 3.
While we've yet to lay eyes on it, the Citadel appears to be a hub environment once again. "We spent a lot of time getting to the phase we wanted," Watts explains. "Mass Effect was so hard to get done, and Mass Effect 2 we were trying to rush through a lot of other things. It usually takes a few phases to get things to where we want them to be. We ended up with a nice open area, with some other areas branching off, like a hub."
The Presidium is now playable once more and bigger than ever. "We changed a few things which bothered us, which people won't even notice. Some things though, like the Presidium - we wanted to open up a lot more and use it. Most of the places in the Citadel you've never been before, we were able to do most of those, as many as we wanted, like some of the docking areas and offices."
As with the writing, BioWare's artists have been liberated by the fact that this is Shepard's final act, free to poke about without worrying about paving the ground for a sequel. It's not complete carte blanche, mind. "You always want to be ambitious with the third one, but story dictates how much time you'll be standing there and thus how much time you can invest in those areas.
"We always designed it from the first game to be able to open up and fan out - each one of the blades is about the size of Manhattan. Citadel is a fun area. The original even had curved floors but we've realised they are a nightmare. It's always a bit of a performance issue because it's such a vast space. The most Mass Effect area in the game is the Citadel."
10 comments so far...
bamozzy on 3 Feb '12 said:
The graphics are looking so much better than they were before (and they were quite impressive then). I hope they play as well as they look. It just proves to me that games are still getting better year on year (generally) and that the current consoles still have quite a bit to offer and have life left in them. If they were plateauing then I would say we definitely NEED a new console but as it stands at the moment I am more than happy with the current generation and would rather spend my money on games than a console. Besides unless they have FULL backwards compatibility I would also need to buy games as well....
This is definitely my most anticipated game of 2012 and I am really looking forward to re-aquainting myself with MY Shepherd and crew - I managed to get through the end of ME2 with ALL my crew surviving
Having read some of the articles though, I understand that ME3 takes place directly after one of the DLC (which one? I didn't get any of them) What will happen to my import and will that part of the story be told to me? I have not revisited any of the Mass Effect games as I don't want them to impact on my play through of ME3 (I am more than happy with my decisions I made first time).
I have also heard a lot about the game styles (Story, RPG and Action) and despite hearing what 'story' and 'action' are, I have not heard much about the 'RPG' mode. Is this a combination of both?? Does it have ALL the story and decision making and a lot of the Action elements too? Can you modify/upgrade abilities and weapons in this mode only?
March seems so far away..... LOL
xPearse on 3 Feb '12 said:
Why did you mention north korea, I didnt notice anything about it in this article. I used find for north and korea on both pages and didnt get any results. Explain why you mentioned north korea.
OXM ETboy on 3 Feb '12 said:
Did you read the second page?
"There's one building which we modelled a bit too closely, which is actually a building in North Korea. They don't play Mass Effect so they probably don't care, but it's a 100 storey building in North Korea and it's completely abandoned."
jadey837 on 3 Feb '12 said:
I hope this game is not timed, I dont like the sound of this:
"You always want to be ambitious with the third one, but story dictates how much time you'll be standing there and thus how much time you can invest in those areas
I like to take my time in my games and explore everything, i dont like to feel that i have to rush
Falcia on 3 Feb '12 said:
It won't be timed in gameplay, he's just talking about how they only have so long to create the game, so they can't spend forever lovingly crafting one small level that people will only generally take ten minutes to finish (that's just a general estimate, not an enforced time limit.) I can't think of any point where Mass Effect has been timed apart from maybe one or two "the bomb is about to blow up" sections.
CunningSmile on 3 Feb '12 said:
The DLC in question was the Arrival. It won't have too much of an impact as there weren't really any choices in it (it was fairly sparse in all), but it does act as a prologue to ME3 and sets up how you came to be were you are. Personally I think they should have done a Dead Rising 2 style DLC/Demo and fleshed out Arrival a bit and used it to really show off the new features in ME3 without possily ruining any parts ofthe game.
And if nothing else spend a few points to get Lair of the Shadow Broker. It was great, one of Bioware's best DLCs ever and really filled out a lot of Liara's story.
xPearse on 3 Feb '12 said:
I never said I did read it but yea I looked after and say it there, didnt have time to read had to go out.
RedViper313 on 3 Feb '12 said:
Thank god the citadel is bigger it was disappointing to see the citadel shrink in ME2 and cant wait to have a look around the presidium can not wait
bamozzy on 3 Feb '12 said:
I had heard that was a good one - might have to invest in it.
Don't think I will bother with 'Arrival' then. It is a pity that the Demo doesn't act as a prologue to the main game - it sounds as though 'Arrival' would have made a perfect Demo storyline and then the Game would kick off from where that ended. I think all demos should be Original content and NOT be part of the game - especially in story based games as they often spoil the main event. A prologue demo would be much preferred as it would make you want to play the story.
SidTheSloth on 6 Feb '12 said:
Hey Ed, sorry to be a whiny b*tch, but for articles like this is it possible to put the actual location details inside the article so sad acts like me who are trying to avoid all info about ME don't have to read it? You guys are pretty witty so sure you can come up with an equally enthralling title that'll get people to read without making me a sad grumpy git
Having said that, now i've seen the headline (not read the article so don't know any context etc) north korea seems somewhat left field!!