DLC plans for Mass Effect

By Tom Bramwell Published 27 March, 2006

Between-game content.

Bioware's continued saying exciting things about Mass Effect, it's real-time action-RPG for Xbox 360 - revealing that it plans to keep things ticking over between instalments in the trilogy by releasing premium content on Marketplace.

Speaking at GDC last week, one of Bioware's joint-CEOs, Dr Ray Muzyka, said, "we're planning on extensive post-release content bridging between storylines, bridging the gap between products" and added that this would be "premium" content.

Xbox owners are no strangers to premium content, of course, having been given the option of paying for stuff in Xbox 1 titles including MechAssault and Project Gotham Racing 2; Microsoft recently said it'd be releasing downloadable content for the likes of PGR3, Perfect Dark and Kameo in the near future.

For Bioware's part, it's busy at work on Mass Effect, which is due out either this year or in 2007, and will be playable at E3 this year. For more details, refer to our previous coverage.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (10) Latest comment 6 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Rayn #1 6 years ago

    I'm really looking forward to this, can't wait.

  • Dizzy #2 6 years ago

    Hmmm... the famous "episodic content" making a comeback?

    I would rather not have them talk about new premium content while the game is in development. It feels a bit wrong... but I guess they were saying this in a positive way :)

  • Xerx3s #3 6 years ago

    Well, they need to balance it imo. Make some of it paid and other parts free. Or do a Halo2 (make it paid and free after a couple of months).

  • Blerk #4 6 years ago

    Premium content needs to die.

  • TheSnotGoblin #5 6 years ago

    Bioware are pretty good with their Premium content. They're still releasing free extra content patches for Neverwinter Nights four years after it was first released, all directly funded by the [rather good] premium modules they've been releasing (Release, release, release!! :D ). Wouldn't surprise me if they did a similar thing with other games, i.e. profits from the premium content funding the Live Team to keep working on 'free extras' for the game.

  • Xerx3s #6 6 years ago

    "Premium content needs to die."

    Well yes and no. Noone forces you to buy it. And it makes it for the developer more interesting to prolong its attention to their previous product (a good thing). And its only for a couple of euro's. On the other hand, i must say that ive never been botherd by downloading it apart from one game. The free content has allways kept me happy.

  • Furbs #7 6 years ago

    Premium content is the new expansion pack.

    Whats the problem?

  • Blerk #8 6 years ago

    Problem is they're designing stuff with premium content in mind. So to get the 'full story', you have to buy the extra bits. Previously those bits would have been in the game itself. This is 'not good'.

  • ccfb #9 6 years ago

    I dislike reading about ways publishers/developers are going to milk us for more cash instead of having info on the game we get to see first, as if it's some kind of USP.

  • Inigo #10 6 years ago

    I bought Neverwinter Nights: Kingmaker premium module from bioware over christmas. It cost the same as a movie ticket and was really worth the money.

    Mass Effect is designed to be a 3 part game so it makes sense to make small chapters to fill the gaps between the main games. It would have been interesting to see what happened inbetween starwars and empire strikes back.

    I just hope more money will go to the developers, instead of the publishers.