BioWare: Mass Effect 3 Story Has More Than a Thousand Variables

[Logan Westbrook]

BioWare: Mass Effect 3 Story Has More Than a Thousand Variables

Mass Effect 3 picks up where its predecessor's story left off, but that story could have ended in any one of hundreds of subtly different ways.

Fans of the Mass Effect series know that your actions in the first game shaped the way the second played. Not just the big events either, but little ones like how you interacted with a particular NPCs or how you completed certain sidequests. There are no plans for Mass Effect 3 to rock the boat on this score, but BioWare admits that the number of plot variations for people who had played the first two games is pretty big.

ME2's project lead Casey Hudson said that if someone has played through both Mass Effect 1 & 2, then the number of variables was over a thousand. He added that the big details for the plot were decided in advance, but for the smaller things, BioWare took records of what choices players made, and then passed that information along to the writers so that they could refer to it when building storylines. Hudson said that this method was not only easier than trying to do everything all at once, and it also gave better results. "It would be impossible to plan it all in advance," he said. "More importantly, we'd never be able to plan as many creative opportunities if we'd do it all up front."

The sheer number of branches that the Mass Effect story can take is incredibly impressive, and even if most of the variations differ only in very small details, it still shows off how much there is to do in the games. BioWare has begun work on Mass Effect 3, but it's not got a release date yet.

Source: CVG [http://www.computerandvideogames.com/article.php?id=258534]




Permalink

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

Interesting...but how many of these variables actually matter?

Probably 25% you'll care about...75% one line references.

That said, that's still a lot of variables.

 

[Macheteswordgun]

Interesting...but how many of these variable actually matter?

Probably 25% you'll care about...75% one line references.

That said, that's still a lot of variables.

Agreed or ill get an email that doesnt do anything

 

[Nimzar]

Interesting...but how many of these variables actually matter?

Probably 25% you'll care about...75% one line references.

That said, that's still a lot of variables.

Still the fact that they are striving for those one-line references is nice.

I mean the game world acknowledges that you did stuff the way you did it!

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I'm interested in seeing what affect smaller choices from the first game might have on the third. Will the Rachni turn up turn up somewhere to help if you saved the queen? For people that let scientists have the one man's wife; will they finally finish their research? I'm eager to see what happens next.

 

[Onyx Oblivion]

I'm interested in seeing what affect smaller choices from the first game might have on the third. Will the Rachni turn up turn up somewhere to help if you saved the queen? For people that let scientists have the one man's wife; will they finally finish their research? I'm eager to see what happens next.

The Rachni was a SMALLER choice?!

Shit. I thought that was a bigger world affecting choice than choosing between K and A, or even the end game choice in ME1!

That's an entire species, right there.

 

[Sam17]

I'd like to see more choices from ME1 have a bigger impact, ie if you let Wrex live on Virmire...if he's alive...he unites the Krogan and comes back with a huge Krogan army to help you fight, however if he's dead in ME2 then the Krogan aren't united making them not a great asset

 

[L4hlborg]

I really liked the small referances in ME2, but it would be nice to see a significant change that even affects gameplay from some decision. The differences you could cause from ME1 into ME2 were basically small ammounts of added dialogue, or some character replaced by another in certain situations. In ME3, I'm hoping (and probably many others) for changes like different allies or differences in the technology of your weapons according to your decisions. It is not easy though, so I really want to see what Bioware does.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

What I'm wondering, how many endings to Mass Effect 3 are there going to be? I mean, it's the conclusion, right? Think about it.

 

[Irridium]

I'm interested in seeing what affect smaller choices from the first game might have on the third. Will the Rachni turn up turn up somewhere to help if you saved the queen? For people that let scientists have the one man's wife; will they finally finish their research? I'm eager to see what happens next.

The Rachni was a SMALLER choice?!

Shit. I thought that was a bigger world affecting choice than choosing between K and A, or even the end game choice in ME1!

That's an entire species, right there.

Eh, I guess the fate of an entire species isn't that big a deal.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to this. Even though most of the references will probably be just an email or one line in a conversation, its still kind of nice that they're acknowledged.

 

[Cody211282]

Should be interesting to see how some of the stuff from game 1 effects game 3.

 

[SomebodyNowhere]

I'm interested in seeing what affect smaller choices from the first game might have on the third. Will the Rachni turn up turn up somewhere to help if you saved the queen? For people that let scientists have the one man's wife; will they finally finish their research? I'm eager to see what happens next.

The Rachni was a SMALLER choice?!

Shit. I thought that was a bigger world affecting choice than choosing between K and A, or even the end game choice in ME1!

That's an entire species, right there.

I guess the Rachni queen could be considered a bigger choice than I was thinking, but if you kill her there's almost no affect on 2 and presumably whatever will happen if you let her live in 1 will not be in 3 at all. There are many smaller choices like if you let Shiala live after fighting the Thorian and isn't there a mission where you choose to either let an asteroid destroy a town or a market district(or is that in 2 I forget)? It has been a little while since I did my most recent playthrough of 1 so I forget the choices.

 

[Aggressor and Usurper]

I only have Mass Effect 2, so I had all the standard decisions from the first game.
So I'm eager to see how my decisions in ME2 affect the new one...

Spoiler: For example,

Tali died during the suicide mission (the only squad member I lost), and I chose the Paragon option for her mission so she was exiled. Will quarians be more hostile now or what?

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

Let's hope it's more of an RPG this time rather than a shooter.

 

[RatRace123]

Wow, that's a lot of variables. You're gonna hundreds of people who have a different story. That's actually pretty impressive, even if most of them are only throw away lines of dialogue.

 

[Thedayrecker]

Yay. and on a side note: Double Yay.

No really it's interesting, but..... *sigh* Mass Effect.... We need to talk. Listen I know you're trying to impress me, but I want to spend time with Mafia II...

We can still be friends... and I promise as soon as your price drops I'll be waiting.

From, Thedayrecker

 

[Danpascooch]

of course it has over a thousand, these sorts of decision trees are exponential

for example:
Choices:

Mass Effect: 10
Mass Effect 2: 10
Mass Effect 3: 10

10x10x10 = 1000 unique decision scenario's

Although I wonder what they mean by "variables" because that would imply that 1000 decisions are made, and I don't think that's what they mean.

 

[Canid117]

I applaud Bioware for their ambition. Most companies would look at something like this and say "Fuck that!" and kill off the main character and everyone he knew or something like that so they could only have 4 major variables to deal with. Bioware gave you the option of doing that or letting their hard work shine. On the downside it is probably going to take a while for ME3 to ship.