BioWare: Mass Effect 1, 2 "just a preamble" to Mass Effect 3

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 1 November, 2011

Developer working hard to create a "proper conclusion".

Mass Effect 1 and 2 were just a "preamble" to Mass Effect 3, developer BioWare has said.

BioWare Edmonton general manager Aaryn Flynn compared Mass Effect 3, due out early next year, to the Superbowl, and Mass Effect 1 and 2 to the regular season of American Football matches.

"We want to make sure that if someone is new to the franchise they feel very comfortable playing Mass Effect 3," he told Eurogamer.

"Certainly it's a very polished experience. In the story it starts at a time with a very singular focus and purpose in the galaxy. You could say the previous games were just a preamble to this moment. Everything has been building to this. It's like the Superbowl. Who cares what happened in the regular season? Now's the one that matters."

Mass Effect 3 begins with Commander Shepard on Earth and on trial following the events of Mass Effect 2. During the trial Earth is attacked by Reapers. Shepard then flies off to gather an army and launch a counter-attack.

The game marks the end of a trilogy of games that began life on Xbox 360 in 2007 - but for BioWare it closes off almost a decade's worth of work.

As such, Flynn promised fans a "proper ending", one packed with surprises.

"Fans want a definitive end," he said. "They'll be the judge of that ultimately when they play it and see how we do that. Certainly, what this game absolutely does represent is the culmination of almost a decade's worth of work for the studio and for Casey [Hudson] and his team in terms of exactly what we're trying to do with the game we kicked off almost ten years ago. They're working really hard to make it a real proper conclusion, something that's fitting to what they've worked on for so long, and what the fans are telling us they're dying to see.

"It feels good for them. They're excited about the story they're going to tell and what's going to happen in the game. They've got lots of surprises up their sleeve and stuff they've been holding onto for a while."

Picture of Wesley.

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.

You may also like...

Comments (57) Latest comment 7 months ago

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

  • Vortextk #1 7 months ago

    You know you just scare people with that whole "mass effect 3 is really all you need" business. I hope that's just PR double talk to get more people to buy it that didn't play the first games.

  • Madder-Max #2 7 months ago

    I want mass Effect to be linked to the previous 2. i do not want it to be a standalone'aiming to reach a wider audience' bag of bollocks

  • Darren #3 7 months ago

    Post deleted at 09:51:44 12-12-2011

  • Darren #4 7 months ago

    The first two Mass Effect games were outstanding in terms of atmosphere and storytelling so I cannot wait to play the last instalment and find out how it all ends. I just hope that the second sequel shows the same leap in quality that Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 had and not the downward one from Dragon Age Origins to Dragon Age II!

  • MaxFN #5 7 months ago

    REALLY? Who cares about singleplayer, skip it, jump right into the multiplayer! I'm sure it will be so much FUN, just like in Dead Space 2 multiplayer. Who the fuck needs singleplayer in the games like these?

  • marmaduke #6 7 months ago

    My Space Hamster had better still be alive on the Normandy when I get back there

  • MattEdWithCheese #7 7 months ago

    yeah I'm going to play through all 3 in succession when the new one's out!

  • GiarcYekrub #8 7 months ago

    I wonder how it plays with almost everyone dead

  • TelexStar #9 7 months ago

    One day, a day will will pass on this good green earth without EA hyping the shit out of their games.

  • fxmemfis #10 7 months ago

    Mass Effect 1, 2 "just a preamble" to Mass Effect 3
    I don't belieave. This is rather primitive marketing.

  • Spanky #11 7 months ago

    You'll have to buy the Space Hamster DLC to find out marmaduke.
    Edited by Spanky at 01/11/11 @ 16:02

  • Monsieur_Blade #12 7 months ago

    I've only just completed mass effect and I'm about 90 minutes into mass effect 2 but i still can't wait to play mass effect 3!!!!

    The combat, controls and graphics in mass effect 2 feel such a step up from mass effect! If they can improve everything again for mass effect 3 then we're in for one hell of a game!

  • DefendoCroc #13 7 months ago

    Dear oh dear, ME2 was a downgrade from ME1, i dont think i can even be arsed to try more watered down 'simplified' crap from BioWare.
    I didnt realise just how lame ME2 was until i played DarkSouls and remembered 'ME2 claimed to be an Action-RPG' .. bs.

  • Rajin #14 7 months ago

    @Darren

    Mass Effect 2 was two steps forward one step back(overall thanks to brilliant presentation a small improvement on some parts)

    They really need to fix the gameplay though, after 5-7 hours i was completely done with the corridors and copy-cat enemies(and there was a supposed variation)

    Besides..... can we really call Mass Effect 3 a RPG instead of a 3rd person shooter with rpg elements?
    Edited by Rajin at 01/11/11 @ 16:08

  • Xardan #15 7 months ago

    That is all i care about really. A true definitive magnificently epic end to an amazing trilogy.

  • Cosquae #16 7 months ago

    "Shepard then flies off to gather an army and launch a counter-attack"

    I don't suppose this time it could be as simple as picking up a phone and asking them if they're interested? Finding them at the end of long corridors got a little repetitive already and it would be nice if they were simply all found having drinks at the bar just outside.

  • v.profane #17 7 months ago

    Considering that ME2 was about 90% dealing with team-mates personal problems I'd hope it's only a "preamble".

  • anomagnus #18 7 months ago

    Some of the comments are still amazing. They never once said ME3 is a stand alone game, or that its all you need. They've siad it would be a complete game, so that even people NEW to the game would still enjoy it.

    But, agian, why bother reading the fucking article, when its far easier to have your opinion of ME3 pre formed, go straight to the comments section and spew bile

  • Hieronymus #19 7 months ago

    @anomagnus I think people aswell as myself when reading this are afraid they will include less "Choice results" from previous games in the third one. For me that's what makes Mass Effect what it is, making choices in ME1 and regretting them in ME3 . So here is to hoping they will.

  • Vortextk #20 7 months ago

    @anomagnus I did read the article AND I QUOTE

    "You could say the previous games were just a preamble to this moment. Everything has been building to this. It's like the Superbowl. Who cares what happened in the regular season? Now's the one that matters."

    I CARE about what happened in the "regular season" of mass effect, and when they came out THEY DID MATTER. You don't get fucking 9's for something that doesn't matter, especially when the first game had really clunky combat and bad tech problems; it got the 9's despite that.

  • DAN.E.B #21 7 months ago

    its the same shit when the PS3 version came out!
    it was all fuck that shit on 360 THIS is true version of the game!

  • RevanNL #22 7 months ago

    I'm getting so fucking sick of every single piece of ME3 news where someone from either BioWare or EA is yapping about how newcomers can get into ME3 with ease. It's impossible to do that and keep building onto the rich universe established in ME and ME2.

    I was really looking forward to ME3, but everytime there's an article about the game I get less and less excited.

  • Cosquae #23 7 months ago

    @RevanNL

    "I was really looking forward to ME3, but everytime there's an article about the game I get less and less excited."

    We call that 'SW:TOR Syndrome'

  • Ror1984 #24 7 months ago

    I'm sure it's just marketing speak, but I can't help but feel a little worried that BioWare keep saying things along the lines of: "Who cares what happened in the regular season?".

    I care. I really, really care. I hope BioWare do too.

  • agent55 #25 7 months ago

    If you didn't play the previous games (or at least the 2nd if you only have PS3), why in the hell would you jump into the 3rd game blind?!? This is a game built around a very deliberate narrative, it's ALL about the story in ME. That's just silly hearing someone from Bioware brush all that stuff off as if it didn't matter to the series.

  • mushroomyakuza #26 7 months ago

    Who cares what happened in the regular season?
    Um, I do? You know, seeing as I just poured, like, 100 plus hours of my life into those "seasons". Jackass.

  • MaybeLater #27 7 months ago

    It is easy to read negative connotations between the lines; 'very singular focus' for example could easily imply 'even more linear than ME2'and I think it is fair to assume that, if ME3 is very accessible to new players then the many hours of decision making made by existing customers are rendered somewhat redundant. The trouble is if you communicate with your customers in marketing spiel you have to expect a fair old wad of trepidation and mistrust.

  • Spuzzell #28 7 months ago

    @Darren "I just hope that the second sequel shows the same leap in quality that Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 had"

    I completely agree, if by "leap in quality" you mean "made a lot dumber and less fun, with bonus brain bendingly boring ball searching for precious metals"

    From everything I've read so far I fear you'll get your corridor 3rd person shooter wish. I'm resigned to playing Gears Of War in space at this point, anything better than that will come as a pleasant surprise.

  • Rajin #29 7 months ago

    @Cosquae

    Nah we call that the late Bioware Syndroom

  • jimr9999us #30 7 months ago

    ME 1 and 2 have been the only 2 single player games...oh, wait Fallout 3 as well...that I've finished since getting hooked on mmorpg's like a toothless meth addict.

    ME 3 will be an amazing cinematic action adventure experience as well. This is Bioware's Halo. I can't wait!

  • malmer #31 7 months ago

    @v.profane Which is exactly what made it so good. Character interactions are very important. Now that could be wowen into the main story aswell, but I loved just hanging out with them.

  • malmer #32 7 months ago

    Making a game work for newcomers is no problem in Mass Effect 3. They simply change the beginning of the game a bit if you create a new shepard and have something else if you've imported. Remeber reading it somewhere where they specifically said this was the case. So please calm down.

    Oh, and the multiplayer is really fun (and I usually hate MP, or maybe because of that). Atleast me and everyone who tried it at that time with me thought so.

  • Pulsar_t #33 7 months ago

    Let's face it: Are these any space operas beside Mass Effect?

    Thought so..

    Really tired of the fantasy tripe. Give us space space SPACE!

  • Vyggo #34 7 months ago

    @malmer Hope you are right. Still astonishingly dumb to seemingly marginalize the first two games like that.

  • v.profane #35 7 months ago

    @malmer ME1 had that but with a much better balance. If it wasn't for my completist tendancies I would have impolitely suggested that their daddy issues are rather less important than the impending eradication of all organic life in the universe. Way too much of the playtime was devoted to loyalty missions. What felt to me like it should have been the main part of the game (after your team is assembled) was a total anti-climax for me.

  • kassmageant #36 7 months ago

    you know that something is wrong if creators of one of THE most anticipated games of ALL time have to defend their viewpoints from constant rage of fans every time they open their damn mouth.

    Here's a tip Bioware, this one's for free - fans of your games are intelligent people. if you will try to make games for wider audience, by attracting fans of games like CoD, you don't have guarantee that they will bate, but i can guarantee you that you will alienate many long-time fans.

    Didn't you learned from DA2, goddammit?

  • Inmediasress #37 7 months ago

    @kassmageant
    Why would they?
    They became EA's property with souls and seems minds included and now they are a sort of Beta testing group for wierd ideas.

    They seem to push this whole "broadening the audience" crap way too far for anyone with an ounce of spine.
    Seems like they try to re-educate their own fanbase on what they should like and what they shouldn't wonder where that will lead them.
    They are somwhere halfway of dropping their old HC fanbase and making a new one of 12 year old kids who get wet dreams of asari.

  • agw #38 7 months ago

    @anomagnus

    Fully agree, people are getting too worked up over this. They are simply trying to make it clear that if you haven't played the first two, you won't be lost in this one. Obviously they are still going to have consequences of choices from the previous games and the like -- the new players simply won't recognize that they got the default results from previous games.

    The superbowl is still an epic event even if you didn't watch the rest of the season, but if you did watch the rest of the season, you will have a much deeper understanding of what is going on.
    Edited by agw at 01/11/11 @ 21:34

  • SheffAl #39 7 months ago

    Those guys sure know how to fart through their mouths.

  • ASHBERY76 #40 7 months ago

    Mass Effect 1 was not preamble asshole.ME2 fair enough.

  • metroid455 #41 7 months ago

    We want to make sure that if someone is new to the franchise they feel very comfortable playing Mass Effect 3," he told Eurogamer.

    this is the whole problem right here, it sounds to me like EA is saying ME 1&2 are irrelevant just play 3 and your done ugh
    Edited by metroid455 at 03/11/11 @ 10:52

  • metroid455 #42 7 months ago

    @DefendoCroc thats pretty much how I felt about ME2 aswell

  • stryker1121 #43 7 months ago

    Dumb analogy that will do nothing but piss off long time fans of the series alreadya concerned that ME is going the generic TPS route. Keep your mouths shut BioWare cuz anything you say will lead to nerdrage.

    Didn't ME2 have an interactive comic thing at the beginning for newbies that allowed them to make the choices presnted in ME1? If that's in ME2 as well, then BioWare should come out and say that's the reason newcomers to the franchise won't miss a beat. Calling ME1 and 2 the "regular season" is asinine.

  • dagas #44 7 months ago

    I just hope that it's not just action and explosions. I play ME mostly for the characters and interacting with the world. I hope that despite the Reaper invasion, that there is still time to "just talk for a bit" as Shepard put it.

  • anomagnus #45 7 months ago

    Get of the fucking high horse Vortextk.

    If you had read the entire post, you'd have clearly seen this paragraph

    "Fans want a definitive end," he said. "They'll be the judge of that ultimately when they play it and see how we do that. Certainly, what this game absolutely does represent is the culmination of almost a decade's worth of work for the studio and for Casey [Hudson] and his team in terms of exactly what we're trying to do with the game we kicked off almost ten years ago. They're working really hard to make it a real proper conclusion, something that's fitting to what they've worked on for so long, and what the fans are telling us they're dying to see.

    They've spent the last 6 months reassuring fans they were going to pay service to their needs, but as always, people like you will pick out one sentance and run with that. Read the whole thing, and take all statements in context. Anyone with a bit of wit could see he's just getting excited. In one sense he's totally correct. As i approached the end of the malazan book of the fallen, a series of books that took nearly 11 years to write, i didnt care about everything that came before as i was on the final 300 pages of book ten, i was caught in the moment as we approached the culmination of so much work. That didnt mean the previous 9 and half books weren't some of the best work i had ever read. Thats what hes referencing, and you know it, but you're just out to get your bitch on. You can tell he knows he's lost the run of himself by the more restrained, and far more detailed last paragraph, where he spends considerable time balancing out his statements.

    Learn to read things in context, instead of quoting one paragraph.

    No, wait, don't bother, you've clearly made your mind up anyway, like the rest of the hating minority, so go off, get your bitch on for the rest of your life, about how Bioware has ruined ME, ruined your life, and ruined the world, because its certainly what EG thrives on these days, the tears of jaded, emotionally retarded posters, the likes of which throng bioware news posts these days.
    Edited by anomagnus at 02/11/11 @ 07:26

  • zoidberg #46 7 months ago

    @DefendoCroc Yeah, I thought ME1 really tried to be an RPG... ME2 was already just an action game... It's rolling downhill, it's just that most only played ME2 or are 12 years old.

  • Eraser #47 7 months ago

    Ok, I hate how more and more developers are doing this.
    They've created a hugely successful series, two games that have a huge fanbase, people who absolutely adore these games to death and then here comes the developer and basically says "the two games you've loved so far are just useless shit. They mean nothing."

    Especially Molyneux has a hand of doing this with Fable. When Fable 2's PR machine was steaming ahead, he said Fable 1 was basically an abortion of a game and Fable 2 was the best thing since sliced bread. When Fable 3's PR machine was spinning, he said Fable 2 was a failure and not what he intended it to be, but Fable 3 would fullfill on that promise.

    I'm no fan of either of these series, but I just don't think it's cool of a developer to talk in such a relatively disrespectful way of previous games only to promote their newest game.

  • ruisranne #48 7 months ago

    I spent 140 hours on Mass Effect 1. I Loved and still do love that game. if I had time, I'd play through it again and still would feel like the first time in the universe. I played Mass Effect 2 for about 70 hours, and this fucker says they mean nothing?

    Fuck you. I'm really not excited about Mass Effect 3 anymore after all this bullshit.

  • metalangel #49 7 months ago

    @Eraser This game is million selling! It's beloved by its fans!

    "Yeah, but we want even more people to want to play it, and I guess that means that everyone who didn't, didn't because it was too hard and complicated."

    Remember when the sequel added features over the original? Now they take them out.

  • username84 #50 7 months ago

    Bring back planetary exploration and the bouncing buggy.
    Also make scanning for minerals less shit.

  • Ternon #51 7 months ago

    Let's just hope ME3 is not horribly dumbed down as ME2 was, it practically had no RPG elements besides dialogs...

  • Madder-Max #52 7 months ago

    hey Anomagnus. if you are going to get your bitch on then at least learn how to spell. Its 'sentence'
    Edited by Madder-Max at 02/11/11 @ 10:49

  • Madder-Max #53 7 months ago

    pre·am·ble
       [pree-am-buhl, pree-am-] Show IPA

    noun
    1.
    an introductory statement; preface; introduction. Synonyms: opening, beginning; foreword, prologue, prelude. Antonyms: epilogue, appendix, conclusion, afterword, closing.

    2.
    the introductory part of a statute, deed, or the like, stating the reasons and intent of what follows.

    3.
    a preliminary or introductory fact or circumstance: His childhood in the slums was a preamble to a life of crime.

    4.
    (initial capital letter) the introductory statement of the U.S. constitution, setting forth the general principles of American government and beginning with the words, “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union. …”

    it s the use of the word preamble which causes the most concern as I thought that 1 and 2 were part of a trilogy:

    trilogy [ˈtrɪlədʒɪ]
    n pl -gies
    1. (Literary & Literary Critical Terms) a series of three related works, esp in literature, etc.
    2. (Historical Terms) (in ancient Greece) a series of three tragedies performed together at the Dionysian festivals

    ME 1 & 2 are standalone games that can be played in their own right. ME1 set the scene (and in particular explained that the reapers are vulnerable in hibernation in Darkspace, and the fact that it took an entire fleet to bring down 1 reaper when its sheilds were down)

    i think all concerns are entirley justified

  • slivir #54 7 months ago

    ME1 had a much more enjoyable story arc than ME2 did. Sure, crew member's side missions were interesting but the overall plot of the second entry was quite poor imo.

    I hope they do finish the series off properly with a bunch of interesting twists and turns. Please don't let the story be just: go here - recruit krogan; go here - recruit turian; give speech; go final battle. Ugh.

  • TheDarkFurie #55 7 months ago

    Who cares what happened in the regular season? Now's the one that matters.
    Oh dear... So lots of hanging plot threads then?

  • rogermellie #56 7 months ago

    This time I hope they remove the "mission/level complete" messages.

  • mavi525 #57 7 months ago

    Why do developers work so hard to try and alienate their own fan base sometimes? If they had just done what they had say they were going to from Mass Effect 1 onward's they would have had a following they could have counted on to buy the games. Instead they've come out at the start of every new Mass Effect and said the last ones didn't count. Was the continuity throughout the series not one of it's original selling points?!