Why is Mass Effect a trilogy?
Category: Xbox 360, Posted: 04/07/2008 at 11:56AM CDT by Creighton DeSimone, Staff Writer
Ka-ching. That's the sound Mass Effect developer BioWare has heard since November. It's like a lullaby that allows executives to sleep easy. Quite often that same sound is what drives developers to create sequels to games. BioWare, however, claims otherwise.
According to an interview with MTV's Stephen Totilo, Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare, said they wanted to try something new after Knights of the Old Republic. "Something that's big and ambitious. What about a trilogy? ... it allows you to have different pacing in parts of the story. So we're excited about the next installments."
As someone who respects story over all else, it's nice to hear Mass Effect was planned to span three games. This way BioWare doesn't have to cram all the details about their galaxy or characters into one game and then hope it sells well. By being upfront about how many games it's going to take to tell the story, BioWare can get away with not telling you everything in the first game.
That was part of the problem with the Halo series. The first game was a complete game; told a great story, had great characters, and basically properly introduced the FPS to a new generation of console gamers. Halo 2 only existed because Microsoft waned to sell more hardware, and the third game only existed because Bungie ran out of time making Halo 2. Strange circumstances to create a trilogy, no?
The little I know about the Mass Effect story intrigues me. I'm interested in seeing where the story goes; I'm a sucker for science fiction and a franchise like this isn't something that's going to drop off my radar.
BioWare seems to have had the right idea planning the whole thing from the get-go. It's way more interesting than hearing a developer say, "we just really like making oodles of cash and draping ourselves in it." Shepard wearing a money suit would really take away from the emersion of the game.
- Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit 07/02/2008
- Dragon Ball Z: Burst Limit 07/02/2008
- Deadliest Catch: Alaskan Storm... 06/30/2008
- Supreme Commander 06/30/2008
- Final Fantasy Tactics A2: Grim... 06/30/2008
- Secret Agent Clank 06/28/2008
- View More
- Hands-On: Super Street Fighter... 07/02/2008
- Hands-On: Guitar Hero: Aerosmi... 06/03/2008
- Hands-On: Guitar Hero: Aerosmi... 06/03/2008
- Hands-On: Guitar Hero: Aerosmi... 06/03/2008
- Battlefield: Bad Company impre... 06/02/2008
- Hands-On: Guitar Hero: On Tour... 05/30/2008
- View More
Kyle Stallock
Updated June 4th, 2008
Indie Games Journalism
Brendon Lindsey
Updated June 23, 2008
Blu-Ray Review: Jumper
Frank Ling
Updated: June 6th, 2008 Laid off at game job
Eddie Inzauto
Updated July 4th, 2008
Second chances
GamerNode needs your help. Register
now and join thousands of gamers in a
crusade to spread the word of
GamerNode!
Join the Node Army!
- To all my fellow Nodians 07/04/2008
- World's Longest Thread 07/04/2008
- Natalie (trailer) 07/04/2008
- You laugh, you lose. 07/04/2008
- Faces of GamerNode 07/04/2008
- Velocirapetorz 07/04/2008
- Resident Evil 5 07/04/2008
- Personality Type 07/04/2008
- Post your desktop. 07/04/2008
- The 'Living in City 17' Thread 07/04/2008
- View More
Nice game, nice story, bring on 2 + 3.
agreed on the sequels... i want them...
i had heard that the game wasn't technically originally planned to be a trilogy from the very start, but very shortly after (in the planning they realized fairly early on that the game was too big for a single game, so they decided to make it 3...). I read this in an interview before the game came out, gameinformer i believe...
and as for halo 2 and 3. I thought that they planned it to be a trilogy shortly into the development of halo 2 if not prior to that. And, was halo 2 really a system seller or was it out there to capitalize on the existing install base? (not saying it didn't sell a few systems, but by that time a lot of people had an xbox...)
If they plan for a trilogy while working on the second of the titles that's not the same as something planned and laid out as a trilogy from the get-go, in my mind.
brendon's right