While some of you might think that multiplayer for Mass Effect 3 was an afterthought and nothing more than a way for BioWare and EA to get more money out of the game, the studio says that they always wanted to implement an MP component in the series, ever since the days of the first Mass Effect game.
“Tt was always a fun, intriguing idea to partake in the Mass Effect universe with friends [based around co-op],” said Casey Hudson said while speaking with Xbox World 360 (via CVG). The idea resurfaced again, during the development of Mass Effect 2. Then, with ME2 we revisited the idea, deliberating whether you could perhaps take control of one of the other characters for a while.” The idea did not see the light of day, though, due to some issues. “There were a lot of factors that would have compromised the single-player story.”
“The difference really was that, with ME3, we adopted a fundamentally different approach to what the thing is about, which is that there is a whole intergalactic war going on, which wasn’t the case in the previous entries,” said Hudson.
“So Shepard is still the hero, making the big decisions, deciding what’s going to happen with the universe and building alliances, but now there’s armies all over the place, fighting to just hang onto different locations. That provided us with a different idea; now in multiplayer you can play as that crew of special forces, journeying around and helping Shepard with the war effort.”
Mass Effect 3 releases on March 6 next year for the Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.
