BioWare Interview, More Mass Effect 2 DLC Incoming?

Eurogamer was able to corner BioWare’s Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk during their visit to London this week for a two-page Q&A about Dragon Age II, the Mass Effect franchise, Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the recent claims made by the notorious “EA Louse”. A couple of the more interesting questions:

Eurogamer: Let’s talk about Dragon Age II. What’s the plan for the franchise? Do you have a story mapped out for X amount of games?

Ray Muzyka: We haven’t announced other products in the franchise yet, but we are working on some other ideas in the Dragon Age universe already.

It’s more of a universe view as opposed to a chronological story view. We’ve always seen it as a world and there are many stories being told throughout this world.

We’re bringing it to a new area, like Free Marches in Dragon Age II and some other areas, Kirkwall and so on. Dragon Age: Origins had some different areas in Ferelden. Other products in the Dragon Age universe will probably bring it to other places, still.

So it’s more of a world view, and there are lots of cool areas we haven’t explored yet. So we’re excited to show fans those.

Greg Zeschuk: It’s probably fair to say it’s less precise than the Mass Effect trilogy concept, because Mass Effect had a real distinct trilogy. But a similar amount of thinking went into it.

Dragon Age: Origins, there’s an enormous amount of back story. When we create a property like that, you think about major world events. It’s fun then to make the games around the major world events.

Ray Muzyka: There’s a whole timeline written out, a story arc that goes before and after the Dragon Age: Origins events or the Dragon Age II events. It’s neat to see this roadmap of history. We’re just showing a snap shot of time in this universe. There’s all this other cool stuff on both sides and all this other stuff that’s there and gives the world a place.

You might run into characters from other parts of the world. It’s not just a random character running around. The two games overlap geographic and timeline overlaps. The last part of Dragon Age II occurs during the tail end of the Blight, when you’re fleeing Lothering. You see some flames and you’re a refugee at that point and you ascend to greater heights as a champion.

Eurogamer: Are we done with DLC for Mass Effect 2?

Greg Zeschuk: We’re told we’re still in development. We’re not done yet. We’re still ongoing.

Ray Muzyka: We haven’t announced details of the next ones yet. We’re still working on stuff in the Mass Effect universe actively. We haven’t announced any details of what that is yet, but we’re working on lots cool stuff.

Greg Zeschuk: We have a pretty long DLC plan for Mass. We’re still doing lots of stuff there.

I suppose they could just be talking about the rumored six-hour bonus mission in the upcoming PlayStation 3 version, but if not, then I guess we should mentally prepare ourselves for even more BioWare Point purchases.  Something tells me that every BioWare release from now on will have several $5-10 post-release addons.