Mass Effect 3 Interview, Part One

CVG has cranked out an extensive, multi-part interview with Mass Effect 3 executive producer Casey Hudson and art director Derek Watts, with the first installment giving us a better understanding of the game’s scope compared to the first two entries. A snippet, as uusal:

Where does Mass Effect 3 kick off?

Casey Hudson: It’s a few months after the ending of Mass Effect 2. The DLC ‘Arrival’ is basically the last piece of story that bridges the two games. Admiral Hackett sends you to investigate this mass relay where the Reapers are going to make their entry point into the galaxy because their original plan – the Citadel – is closed off.

You have to sacrifice thousands of people in order to slam that door shut on the Reapers. So Shepard’s kind of stuck trying to explain all this stuff. But as you’re doing that the Reapers actually arrive and take the Earth.

It’s not an alien invasion story where you’re fighting off the invasion; they are unstoppable, you narrowly escape, and your goal is to figure out how to rally the forces of the whole galaxy. That’s what it’s going to take in order to return and take back the Earth.

It’s kind of like ME2 where you’re building a team of twelve people, but here you’re building an entire army from across the galaxy.

…

All the characters have been given a redesign for Mass Effect 3. Do you ever worry about fan reaction?

You know, they’ve been pretty receptive to the changes we’ve made. We haven’t really had much negative feedback from them. We changed Tali – that was tough because people were very passionate about her. A lot of people want to have her face revealed and obviously people are going to be pissed off either way.

Like “I thought she was going to look beautiful!” or “I thought she was going to be the most hideous thing ever!” So we’ve had a lot of debate over Tali’s face, but that’s the one we kind of dread a lot. We’re always “well, let’s talk about something else for a while!” That’s something we’re going to have to decide.