Mass Effect Almost Had a Non-Humanoid Squadmate

Cognimancer

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Jun 13, 2012
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Mass Effect Almost Had a Non-Humanoid Squadmate



BioWare had more than few ideas that never made it into the final cut of Shepard's story.

The Mass Effect saga spans a massive, interesting universe with countless opportunities for side-stories. We've witnessed many of them as we followed Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy, but what we saw was the result of a long chain of thought and polish - some events, scenes, and even core characters were dropped during the creative process. Now that Shepard's story is over, BioWare has shared some stories about the content that was never released: the Mass Effect that could have been.

Some of the cut content was dropped because of technical challenges. Mass Effect lore includes a number of exotic alien species beyond the roughly humanoid Council races; the quadruped Elcor, jellyfish-like Hanar, and insectoid Keepers (to name a few) provide some spice in the intergalactic community, but these more outlandish species were largely pushed to the sidelines in the plot of the games. BioWare had wanted to give them more attention, even seriously considering bringing a non-humanoid squadmate onto Shepard's crew, but the technical implementation would have been too difficult. The humanoid races in the forefront share the same basic skeleton, allowing for easy animation for common acts like readying a weapon. The cost of developing a whole new skeleton with the same level of detail, BioWare decided, was better spent by improving the rest of the game instead of pouring that effort into one character.

BioWare also had ideas for scenes that would break up the typical flow of gameplay (watch out for minor Mass Effect 2 spoilers ahead). In the entire trilogy, the only time players control someone other than Shepard is when Joker has to sneak through the Normandy during the Collector ambush. The developers had at least a couple more scenes like this in mind: players would briefly control a Horizon colonist during the Collector attack, and there'd be a moment where you'd play as a Quarian scientist just before Tali's loyalty mission. In the end, these scenes were dropped in favor of keeping Shepard's story as the immersive, primary narrative. It does explain some things, though: there's a cutscene showing the Horizon attack in detail, despite Shepard not being there to see it. It might have made more sense to have the player walk into the situation as blind as Shepard was, but if there were already assets created for the Collector attack scene, why not throw them into a cutscene?

The next entry to the Mass Effect series will provide a chance to see the universe from a different perspective, so some of these more experimental ideas may find a way into that game. Personally, I would buy it in a heartbeat if players got to recruit Blasto the Hanar Spectre. I hear that guy saved the Citadel.

Source: OXM [http://www.oxm.co.uk/53550/mass-effect-bioware-discusses-the-playable-races-and-characters-it-never-released/]

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ThriKreen

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The next one better be about Blasto.

I can see it now, Blasto would have gotten the "hanar purple/pink" ending (destroyed Reapers, saved everyone, survived) - but the reason the Reapers got as far as they did was because all this time, he was busy and let Shepard take the spotlight.

Busy operating behind the scenes that is, taking down the REAL THREAT that the Reapers were trying to prevent. It wasn't really about AIs, but an invasion of body snatchers from another galaxy or something.
 

josemlopes

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I actually talked to a friend about having a quadruped team mate like in Brute Force that would be capable of doing specific things like running faster using his four legs.

Top right corner
 

L34dP1LL

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Mass Effect almost had a decent ending, BADUM TSS!
OT: it's a real shame that they didn't go with those ideas.
 

Quijiboh

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Cognimancer said:
Personally, I would buy it in a heartbeat if players got to recruit Blasto the Hanar Spectre. I hear that guy saved the Citadel.
As a squadmate? This one does not share top billing...
 

Goofguy

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Yeah, the Joker part in ME2 seemed a bit jarring and out of place when I first played it. It didn't seem to fit in seeing as how I'd spent ME and the majority of ME2 as Shepard. I don't rightly know I'd have felt if we'd spent more time playing as secondary characters. Something about it just wouldn't feel... right to me.
 

bjj hero

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Goofguy said:
Yeah, the Joker part in ME2 seemed a bit jarring and out of place when I first played it. It didn't seem to fit in seeing as how I'd spent ME and the majority of ME2 as Shepard. I don't rightly know I'd have felt if we'd spent more time playing as secondary characters. Something about it just wouldn't feel... right to me.
Interesting to hear a different perspective. Playing as joker made me realise what a BMF Shephard really was. I spent my time running and hiding as Joker compared to the Shep would have smashed the lot of em with a shot gun.

Jokers vulnerability was a big change from my Sentinel/tank Shephard.
 

Froggy Slayer

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ThriKreen said:
The next one better be about Blasto.

I can see it now, Blasto would have gotten the "hanar purple/pink" ending (destroyed Reapers, saved everyone, survived) - but the reason the Reapers got as far as they did was because all this time, he was busy and let Shepard take the spotlight.

Busy operating behind the scenes that is, taking down the REAL THREAT that the Reapers were trying to prevent. It wasn't really about AIs, but an invasion of body snatchers from another galaxy or something.
Clearly the Reaper invasion was a mere ruse to distract from an Eclipse Eezzo smuggling ring!
 
Dec 14, 2009
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Did it almost have a good ending too?

Yes, I'm still bitter about it, why'd you ask?

[sub]I wanted Blasto...[/sub]
 

Therumancer

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bjj hero said:
Goofguy said:
Yeah, the Joker part in ME2 seemed a bit jarring and out of place when I first played it. It didn't seem to fit in seeing as how I'd spent ME and the majority of ME2 as Shepard. I don't rightly know I'd have felt if we'd spent more time playing as secondary characters. Something about it just wouldn't feel... right to me.
Interesting to hear a different perspective. Playing as joker made me realise what a BMF Shephard really was. I spent my time running and hiding as Joker compared to the Shep would have smashed the lot of em with a shot gun.

Jokers vulnerability was a big change from my Sentinel/tank Shephard.
The ironic thing about this is that how limiting Joker's injury is seems to vary depending on the needs of the plot. I and a few other people had a sort of "WTF" moment when Joker showed up in the hatch of the Normandy firing an assault rifle at the end of Mass Effect 2. One would think that the recoil would shatter is bones if he was as crippled as was previously established, and it did raise some questions as to where he got the rifle from (time to gimp down to the armory, and then gimp up to the door, just as he saw the team running for the hatch?) if he had it handy and could fire it, it makes you wonder why he didn't have it during the invasion scene and... yeah well, it's classic over analyzing. It used to a bit of a joke on gamefaqs forums (I think that was the site) that Joker was obviously faking to avoid doing real work and collect disabillity bonuses, as revealed by that cinematic in ME2. I admit it would have been funny if Bioware ran with that and we had Joker as a squadmate in ME3 with constant dialogue about how his snow job was over with. :)

At any rate, I always kind of thought the problem with a non-human squad member would have been balance issues. Truthfully I'm not sure I can envision a Hanar using guns to begin with, but if they could just imagine them firing like 6 pistols at once. The Elcor order of battle is that entire "living tank" thing, and I'd imagine it would be overpowerd to actually put into the game, I mean a squadmate running around in ultra-heavy armor with computer aimed field artillery on it's back would realistically having you wonder why you even need Shepard for some of these firefights. Of course I think that would have been highly amusing for the ME3 multiplayer as some kind of ultimate unlock. :)
 

chiefohara

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Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
 

Phrozenflame500

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Mass Effect almost had a squad mate that actually weren't just slightly different humanoids with human ideals? Thank God Bioware hasn't violated it's "No Interesting Races Allowed" rule yet.
 

Parakeettheprawn

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Goofguy said:
Yeah, the Joker part in ME2 seemed a bit jarring and out of place when I first played it. It didn't seem to fit in seeing as how I'd spent ME and the majority of ME2 as Shepard. I don't rightly know I'd have felt if we'd spent more time playing as secondary characters. Something about it just wouldn't feel... right to me.
Really? For me, it worked, since Mass Effect 2 (my first taste of the series) felt a lot like a TV show. KotOR had these sort of non-main character interactive sequences when applicable, and it seemed all the better for them. KotOR 2 especially, during that split-action between Dxun and Onderon.
 

Parakeettheprawn

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chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
 
Oct 2, 2012
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Parakeettheprawn said:
chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
Thats because a Human is controlling them :p

OT: I'd kill to ride an Elcor into combat as a battlemount. Put some mako cannons on their shoulders and some armor and bam, instant death mount.
 

Parakeettheprawn

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Beffudled Sheep said:
Parakeettheprawn said:
chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
Thats because a Human is controlling them :p

OT: I'd kill to ride an Elcor into combat as a battlemount. Put some mako cannons on their shoulders and some armor and bam, instant death mount.
That's what you assume, human....
 

1337mokro

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Don't really know why the Elcor couldn't be squadmates? Sure they move slow and deliberate on their home planet but they are not on their home planet. If the gravity really is that big they would be fucking monsters in combat because guess what >Fz = >Fmuscle + >Bone density they should be able to move like we do on the moon, though it might give them a bit of a burn because of the atmospheric friction when they leap over buildings in a single bound. Which also explains why they were not in the game as squadmates because the Elcor are basically the Mass Effect version of Superman, normal on their homeplanet, but under our gravity (read sun) they gain superpowers! Having them would nullify the GOW cover shooting and we can't have actually interesting strategic combat can we?

No make that GOW clone with a third rate SyFy channel plot! Pump it out the idiot fans will gobble it up! Muhahahaha!

We already saw just HOW lazy Bioware had become when they photoshopped that picture or when they just slapped assault rifles and pistols on everyone regardless of the weapon loadout you had or your squadmates class. Somewhere around the time Bioware started working on SWTOR they also lost their soul.

Kalezian said:
here's hoping for a new story, just based in the Mass Effect universe.
Here's hoping for not.

The Mass Effect universe has now thoroughly been fucked sideways by a combination of plotholes, bad continuity, retconning, laziness and Mac Walters, who is to story telling what Larry the Cable guy is to Pixar.

A complete reboot I could get behind but any attempt to "continue" the story is basically impossible. Telling other stories within the universe is also kinda tough because they would essentially be nothing more but sidestories to the grander save the universe story or they would be forced to explain away the ME3 endings.

Imo the best thing they could do is just wipe the slate clean, fire Walters, kick Casey in the nuts and actually expend some effort on their games this time. Craft an actual story that is not riddled with stupidity and stop trying to be GOW or at least stop sucking at trying to be GOW. Maybe we could actually have a continuation where ME2 and ME3 were nothing but fever dreams experienced by Shepard allowing them a second chance at not fucking up and basically making ME2 and ME3 non-canon.

Though we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves. Bioware might not even be around anymore if they fuck up Dragon Age 3 like they did 2.