Bioware: Kinect controls for Mass Effect was an “accident”

Casey Hudson from Bioware has mentioned that Kinect controls for Mass Effect 3 was an afterthought, and they had never planned to include it, but a programmer managed to show how easy it was and they went ahead with it.

“We didn’t set out to make Mass Effect 3 a voice-controlled title. But a programmer was working in the studio, had the Kinect hardware, and was just experimenting with it,” he said to OXM.

“He realized that with the software that comes with Kinect, it was very easy to connect something that you can do in the game with something you’ve said, almost as easy as that.

“No research required – it was all there, done for us. We started thinking about what we could actually achieve with that. So many things came to mind – you could tell a squad member to attack your target, you could tell a squad member to switch weapons.

“While you’re busy with the controller, you can tell him to do something that you’re not physically able to do, because your thumbs aren’t free,” he added.

He also praised Kinect’s potential by calling it the future of interactive storytelling.

“It feels like the future of interactive storytelling. You’re just talking to a character, and you’re going deeper into their conversation, asking them questions and telling them things and after it’s over you pick up the controller, and it’s a cold piece of plastic, and you think ‘this is the old way, and what I was doing was the future’.”

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