Mass Effect 2 Interview

IGN has a fairly lengthy and interesting interview with Ray Muzyka on the response and nature of Mass Effect, and the general direction of BioWare.

IGN: How much do you view games as a forum for discussion? For instance, there was the side-quest focusing on abortion in Mass Effect 1, and practically the whole point of Dragon Age was about the meeting of culture, racism, concepts like that.

Ray Muzyka: I don’t think we approach it so much as a forum for it, as.well, the reality is that these are issues that are out there in the world. There are opportunities to create morally challenging moments in the narrative where you make choices that have consequences, moments that feel real and credible. We look to these areas to help us drive our quest building. I don’t think we’re trying to generate controversy as much as just reflect that this is a real world with similar issues to what you face in real life, so it’s familiar and accessible at the same time. It’s challenging and interesting on a moral level. We’re not trying to make a statement per se, and if we do inadvertently, maybe that’s a reflection as games as art as much as anything.

IGN: Will there be gay relationships for the male Shepard? Here at IGN we’ve heard a lot of positive feedback from the inclusion of gay relationships in Dragon Age; compare that with the somewhat conspicuous absence of them from the first Mass Effect, especially with the chance for a lesbian relationship.

Ray Muzyka: Here’s how the games are different: Dragon Age is a first person narrative, where you’re taking on an origin and a role, and you are that character at a fundamental level. It’s fundamentally about defining your character, including those kinds of concepts. In Mass Effect it’s more a third person narrative, where you have a pre-defined character who is who he is, or she is. But it’s not a wide-open choice matrix. It’s more choice on a tactical level with a pre-defined character. So they’re different types of narratives, and that’s intentional.

We’re not saying that one approach is better than the other. In our previous games, as we did in Jade Empire, as we did in KOTOR, as we did in Baldur’s Gate, and many games before and in the future, we enable those kinds of choices, whereas in Mass Effect it’s more about Shepard as a defined character with certain approaches and worldviews, and that’s just who he or she is. So we constrain the choice set somewhat, but enable more tactical choices and enable a deeper, richer personality, because it’s more focused around defining one character, it’s not as wide open. But that’s by choice.

It’s first person versus third person narrative, and the types of choices you get to make within that are related to that, whether you’ve got a pre-defined character or a wide-open character. Some of our games have been wide open, and some have been more constrained, and we’ll probably continue both kinds of character development in the future.

IGN: What’s your standpoint on morality systems in games, and what do you think the next evolution of morality will be? Dragon Age’s lack of, or Mass Effect’s defined numbers?

Ray Muzyka: Dragon Age’s system was more on an individual companion basis, where they all judged you on their own moral spectrum. We’re all different from one another, so some would like you and some others wouldn’t depending on what you did. You remember, if you had different characters with you, someone would comment on your decisions and their ‘like/dislike’ meter would go up or down accordingly. Just like real life if you do something that I dislike, my mental view of you will change depending on what I see you do.

We’re always trying to innovate in that. Mass Effect 2’s system is different from Mass Effect 1’s where it was much more polar ‘plus minus’. ME2 is actually ‘plus plus’ you can be Paragon and Renegade at the same time, just as you can in real life. Dragon Age has a different system where it’s more the companions looking at you in a different way. We like trying different systems in the way we look at the moral choices and the good/evil world view. I guess we used to be a little more simplistic back in the days of Baldur’s Gate, and maybe that was more consistent with the D&D license. Mass Effect has a different system, Mass Effect 2 is a refined version of that system and Dragon Age has a totally different system to anything we’ve done before. I think they’re all interesting in different ways.