Mass Effect 3 to finish story arc?

BioWare has hinted that the current Mass Effect story arc will conclude at the end of the third game.

"We're looking forward to it and it should be more fun for us," project director Casey Hudson told Shacknews. "Mass Effect 3 will be easier because we don't have to worry about continuity into the next one."

While BioWare has always said that Mass Effect was envisioned as a trilogy, the developer has rarely spoken about how the series will end.

However, with decisions in the first game set to play a key part in the second, the news that BioWare is not thinking about how your choices impact the story beyond the third instalment may be telling.

In the meantime, there's still lots of excitement about how your choices in the first game will play out, and BioWare's Dr Ray Muzyka heaped on more suspense late last week when he told G4TV that your romantic relationship "could be reflected in Mass Effect 2".

"We're not going to say which ones, or if all, or some of them," he teased, following last week's explanation of how the game would work without an existing save.

We're currently polishing up our Mass Effect saves (my beloved Superevil Shepard blackmailed a diplomatic and killed a slave girl last night - get in) ahead of the sequel's PC and Xbox 360 launch on 29th January.