Mass Effect 3: Development Starting Soon

[Boneasse]

BioWare's lead technical artist Adrien Cho has revealed that early plans for pre-production will soon start for the third Mass Effect game, even though the second hasn't been released yet. Speaking to VideoGamer, Cho said;

Right now the team's still working on finishing the game. But we've also migrated to working on all the downloadable content. That's our next focus. And then a select team of people have, as they get back next week, will start envisioning the very early pre-production phases of Mass Effect 3... oh sorry, the Mass Effect trilogy.

Cho has been answering many questions in interviews for multiple videogame sites, including one in which he stated that he is not worried about the competition of other highly anticipated games in Q1 2010.

Mass Effect 2 will be released in January 2010 for the Xbox 360 (and PC).

Wow.. They're out there fast, huh? Mass Effect 2 isn't released yet, and the team is starting the pre-stages to 3. BioWare's effective!

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Uh... Shouldn't they wait till they get feedback from Mass Effect 2?

 

[Editos]

Im not surprised, they always said that it was planned over 3 games so why not work on the concepts now?

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

i think before ME:1 was released Bioware had said it was designed as a trilogy, so its not that surprising to me

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

@Editos: d'oh, you got there 1st!

 

[The Shade]

Uh... Shouldn't they wait till they get feedback from Mass Effect 2?

For game mechanics, yes. But pre-production will largely entail the assembly of development teams, funding, advertising talks, and story planning. None of that really hinges on ME2's reception, unless, by some dark wizardry, the game totally bombs. But I don't envision that happening...

 

[scnj]

No sense in having the team sitting around doing nothing. They still have to be paid.

 

[YurdleTheTurtle]

Uh... Shouldn't they wait till they get feedback from Mass Effect 2?

A lot of work can still be done without the previous game's feedback. They need to work on the story and concepts, among other things.

Remember, it doesn't mean they automatically start jumping into the gameplay stuff and all that during the early stage.

 

[JoGribbs]

This is how development works. Mass Effect 2 development probably started shortly before Mass Effect 1 was released also. For such huge games to come out just two years after each other is actually pretty amazing when you think about it.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

This stage of pre-production will probably just be things like storyboarding and early character development. They'll wait until the second game is finished to mvoe people over to designing worlds, then once it's released they can start collecting feedback for gameplay enhancements.

Just because it was designed as a trilogy doesn't necessarly mean they detailed the entire story before they started, and just because they are 'envisioning the early pre-production stages' doesn't mean they're abandoning ME:2 to start on the new game.

 

[Adzma]

I'm actually surprised that they haven't already started ME3. Proably won't see it until 2013/14 I'm guessing.

 

[Irridium]

So long as ME2 gets some decent DLC, I'm fine with it.

If there's a repeat of Mass Effect 1's second DLC I will be pissed.

At least Bring Down the Sky introduced a new race and brought a bit more backstory to the game, the second DLC (whos name I can't remember) was just awful.

 

[Pimppeter2]

will start envisioning the very early pre-production phases of Mass Effect 3.

Very Early Pre-production?

That's a synonym for nothing. They're just announcing it.

 

[dancinginfernal]

They better not make any public announcements about content.

Mass Effect 2 has officially left me out of jizz for video games already...two fucking discs.