BioWare attempts to calm Mass Effect 3 multiplayer fears

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 27 October, 2011

Nothing "walled off" to those who refuse co-op.

Those who refuse to play Mass Effect 3's multiplayer will find there is nothing "walled off" from the single-player campaign, BioWare has insisted.

Completists will get an "amazing ending" just by playing single-player, BioWare Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn told Eurogamer.

Mass Effect 3's multiplayer sees up to four players team together in standalone missions against waves of enemies. Their completion influences what's called your Galactic Readiness, which you can increase by playing single-player and/or multiplayer.

Some fans have reacted angrily to the news, and expressed concern that Mass Effect 3's multiplayer will negatively impact the traditional single-player campaign.

Not so, according to BioWare.

"It's a fun and novel way to increase that number and open things up by having a diverse range of experiences," Flynn explained. "At the same time, you don't need to. You can stick to the single-player campaign. I'm sure there are a lot of completists out there who want to do that. They'll have amazing experiences and they'll get to see all the cool stuff they want to see just by doing single-player stuff.

"It's very optional. There's nothing walled off to you because you didn't play multiplayer and you're going to be running around at midnight saying, I need three friends! Quickly! We've got to find a BestBuy that's open! No. You'll get your amazing ending and amazing experiences just by playing single-player if you want that way."

However, Flynn admitted BioWare expected questions around multiplayer from those "who were passionate about the series". He said that as more information is released, fans will "understand what we're doing".

But why add co-op to what has been a single-player only franchise in the first place?

"Multiplayer has come up in the past at the studio," Flynn explained. "But with Mass Effect 3 it felt like the right time, especially because of the setting. The technology matured nicely. We had good success with the single-player campaigns. We thought, now it feels like the right time, with the setting we have, of an entire galaxy at war, to put something together that can be fun with multiplayer.

"With Mass Effect 3, we were setting up an entire galaxy at war. It made sense that we could tell some pretty cool stories and weave a very interesting multiplayer mechanic into that setting, and that's what we decided to do."

Flynn hopes the addition of multiplayer will broaden the audience for Mass Effect 3. "The idea there will be players who are very social gamers and want to play with their friends, maybe they'll pick the game up now because now there's a way to play."

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About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (41) Latest comment 7 months ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • SheffAl #1 7 months ago

    Go away, Bioware.

  • LR100 #2 7 months ago

    I think quite a few people will be more annoyed if there are achievements associated with the multiplayer modes in ME3.

  • vibroguy #3 7 months ago

    so there's going to be different endings? fuck you bioware. Was really looking forward to this until now

  • Syrette #4 7 months ago

    Yeah, I won't buy it if there are any multiplayer achievements.

    That'll teach EA/Bioware not to add in stuff we don't need.

  • bad09 #5 7 months ago

    No need to calm my fears Bioware I have no interest in your crap shoe-horned in multiplayer whatsoever! :lol:

    Just don't mess up the single player and please try and make it a bit more like the superior first game this time.

  • abigsmurf #6 7 months ago

    Nothing was "walled off" in Resident Evil 5 either, but the co-op still spoilt it for people who played single player.

  • Chelladox #7 7 months ago

    Nothing walled off, yet you get a different ending in singleplayer when you complete multiplayer? How does that work? :p

  • Rizo #8 7 months ago

    I would rather they use the resources to increase the single player content.

  • RevanNL #9 7 months ago

    Broadening the audience????? The people interested in ME3 have played the previous games to death, you're not going to get new customers with ME3. That's like Fox expecting to broaden the audience with (in 1983) Return of the Jedi, or New Line cinema expecting to broaden the audience with LOTR: Return of the King

  • Whitster #10 7 months ago

    @vibroguy There's always been multiple endings in ME?

  • stryker1121 #11 7 months ago

    How dare he try to quell the hand-wringing of the alarmists!

    That said, why doesn't BioWare just come out and say this MP stuff is basically a beta test for a full multiplayer Mass Effect game once the trilogy is complete. I don't care what this guy says--putting MP at the end of a series of games is a dumb idea..at least from a creative standpoint. It may indeed "broaden the audience" b/c lord knows there's not enough multiplayer shooters out there.

  • Drunk-Si #12 7 months ago

    @Chelladox It sounds a bit like rather than doing a load of mining/sidequests to get the best ending in ME2, for example, you can sidestep those parts of SP if you rack up enough points through Multiplayer games.

    I still think it's bollocks but I'll just ignore it. No harm done.

  • zegerman1942 #13 7 months ago

    "Mass Effect 3's multiplayer sees up to four players team together in standalone missions against waves of enemies." So Horde mode then. Is that what goes for Co-Op these days?

    Do the entire campaign, or a seperate campaign for co-op then that's great, but adding some multiplayer horde mode just seems a bit meh.

  • DBLue #14 7 months ago

    Whatever, the industry's recent focus on multiplayer has been so depressing I'd rather stop thinking about it. I just want the main campaign to be good. If MP is fun, too, it's a plus - if it's crap and obviously shoehorned in for the sake of appealing to an audience which was never the target of the Mass Effect series in the first place, I'll pretend it's not there and no harm will be done.

  • Triggerhappytel #15 7 months ago

    It needs a snappy name to truly succeed though - how about Hoard mode?

    No, that doesn't fit. What about Firefought?

  • strangerism #16 7 months ago

    the point here is that bioware doesn't invest in creativity anymore:

    Bioware creative director: how do we expand the gameplay of this game into something more awesome, gratifying, immersive, intriguing, lore expanding?

    Bioware creative designer: ohh yeah I got it!! let's do an horde mode

    Bioware creative director: awesome!! Let's call it Galaxy at War.

    Galaxy at War could have been better off implemented as strategic/managerial turn-based mini war game in the mass effect world.

  • beatwolf #17 7 months ago

    Bioware...just die already!

  • photoboy #18 7 months ago

    Waste of development resources.

  • Xardan #19 7 months ago

    @photoboy The thing is it isnt a waste for Bioware and EA because multiplayer almost always means more sales and less trade-ins.

    This is what people are forgetting. They are doing this because they are forced to largely by the state of the industry and market.

    Times are a' changing and they have to change or be left behind.

  • haderach512 #20 7 months ago

    Things will be quite simple for me. If despite what the guy says there is "walled off" content, the reviewers all over the net will point to that, in which case I won't buy the game. If he is right, no harm done, I'm only interested in the single player experience.

  • Rack #21 7 months ago

    Don't worry, you get the amazing experience of seeing the galaxy crumble for you not having a sufficient readiness number. Or you get the amazing experience of grinding the **** out of some shitty resource mini-game.

    If they manage to be quarter-way competent at optimising the PC version though I'll just use a trainer to bump up my readiness rating. A touch immersion destroying but what the hey.

  • postmarked87 #22 7 months ago

    Oh my god! Is it possible to read one single article relating to a pc game without all of you whining and bleating about something utterly trivial? I only game on a pc and find myself to be perfectly happy most of the time (say, with Crysis 2 being DirectX 9 at launch or this announcement that Bioware says will not impact single player) and yet, when I get on this website, every single one of you are moaning and complaining about how you're not going to buy this or that game to "punish" the developer for some tertiary issue that barely impacts the experience. Oh yes, you say you're not going to buy it, but we all know that you do in fact want to play it and will either buy or pirate it without fessing up. It must be very disheartening to develop for PCs when your vocal audience is so fickle. Just my two cents.

  • madjim #23 7 months ago

    This is the conclusion of Shepard's story. I don't care about MP, I just want to believe that this will be the best ME campaign ever. It can't be otherwise, it just can't.

  • spekkeh #24 7 months ago

    I can definitely see how playing this coop with my wife, and then proceeding to ignore her and bang Miranda right in front of her eyes, could lead to whole new shared experiences and emotions that wouldn't be there in singleplayer.

  • ShiroBen #25 7 months ago

    To translate:

    "Money, dear boy."

  • Mentat_Idaho #26 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:51 12-12-2011

  • Mentat_Idaho #27 7 months ago

    Shoe horning multi player into our single player and single player into our multi player. Does everything have to be all things to all people?

  • anomagnus #28 7 months ago

    Its unreal that this is probably the 5th time they've had to make a statement on this, and STILL people are giving out. Christ, some people really need to step back and evaluate what is emotionally important to them.

  • Ptarmigandalf #29 7 months ago

    Bandwagon-jumping wankers.

  • bobfish09 #30 7 months ago

    Anyone else find it ironic that with one EA title (BF3), everyone is complaining about the addition of Single Player and in another EA title (ME3), everyone is complaining about the addition of Multi Player?

  • 32768Colours #31 7 months ago

    It made sense that we could tell some pretty cool stories and weave a very interesting multiplayer mechanic into that setting, and that's what we decided to do."

    It made no sense that we could tell some pretty cool stories and weave a multiplayer mechanic into that setting, but that's what EA decided to do."

    /fixed
    Edited by 32768Colours at 28/10/11 @ 13:36

  • Jwarl #32 7 months ago

    Why not wait and see instead of all this hate. There is an extremely good reason to add multiplayer and that is to justify the online pass. Games cost a small fortune to make and after the initial sale all subsequent profits go to the pre-owned game market. If we want more fantastic games then they need a way to make money out of the pre-owned market.
    Reading these comments, especially the ones that are paraphrased repeats of previous comments, makes me wonder about the IQ of posters here

  • Rack #33 7 months ago

    @bobfish09 More like consistent. Shoehorning a half-assed single-player mode into a multiplayer game is the same thing as shoe-horning a half-assed multiplayer mode into a single player game. At least you don't unlock benefits to the multiplayer by playing Battlefields single player though.

  • Inmediasress #34 7 months ago

    I am pretty sure there will be a shit storm when this hits and content will be "walled of" I would bet on it.

    The simple reason is that basically he says you do get an amazing ending but you could get a different ending playing MP so that means in plain talk that it is "walled off".

    By the way has anybody else noticed how Bioware reps always yap and moan about broadening the audience, mass appeal and wahtnot, like they made this into their relegion.
    Honestly, it's really getting creepy now.
    Not that shoehorning a useless MP mode in a SP game that is the last part of a trilogy sounds like a good idea to broaden the audience.
    I don't even know what kind of audience are they searching for, ceartainly not me.

    My opinion is, after following Bioware trough these changes in their games, that they use their own franchaises to beta test their stupid ideas or soemones(EA) stupid ideas and no matter the cost they make their fans swallow it, in the procces of searching for the ultimate audience that doesn't exist.
    Just like searching for the holy grail.
    Edited by Inmediasress at 28/10/11 @ 16:02

  • Bluetooth #35 7 months ago

    Pretty sad, the way the games industry is going. Week 1 DLC and now this shit.

  • shave_my_donkey #36 7 months ago

    @Inmediasress and you have played said shoehorned multiplayer mode then?

  • RMPage #37 7 months ago

    @strangerism I think it should have been something like Global Resistance, the Risk-esque RTS MMO that Insomniac made to go alongside Resistance 3. That was a fun multiplayer app that I ended up playing for a few weeks and didn't take anything away from my R3 experience - in fact I actually just got some extra stuff for the competitive multiplayer, so that was cool

  • jimr9999us #38 7 months ago

    "...broadening the audience"

    From pandas to multiplayer every damned choice dev's make these days is about market share.

    Here's a question to ask: Who is my CORE audience and will it be FUN?

    I'm seeing DA2 meets CoD. -sigh- Maybe I'm just getting old.

  • Toodle122 #39 7 months ago

    I know it's cool to hate on the multiplayer of ME3, but seriously. I swear none of you are actually researching this.

    First of all, there is no separate ending for those who have played the multiplayer, it alludes to that right there in the article and is mentioned in many other articles. Secondly the multiplayer elements are being created by a small team inside Bioware Montreal, whereas the main game is being developed in Bioware Edmonton, so no resources are being lost through developing multiplayer.

    Do your research before you sound off.

  • shave_my_donkey #40 7 months ago

    @Toodle122. at least somebody here isn't being a twat. plus 1 to you sir

  • CraigMcG #41 7 months ago

    shit