Mass Effect 3 Interview

BioWare’s official blog is hosting an in-house interview with Mass Effect 3 associate producer Billy Buskell and senior combat designer Corey Gaspur, during which the pair address questions about how the addition of multiplayer affected the rest of the game, weapon customization, the omniblade’s newfound functionality, and more. A sampling:

How did the inclusion of multiplayer affect how you approached combat?

BB: From my personal experience, I think multiplayer ultimately improved the combat in the game as a whole. The more we played multiplayer as a team (every night at supper for at least an hour 🙂 ) the better we were getting at dealing with enemies, using power combos, etc. Because of this extensive play testing, the team was really able to ramp up the challenge on the higher difficulties. To beat Insanity in the single player campaign, you’re really going to have to work for it! The same can be said for Gold difficulty in multiplayer. You’re really going to need to prepare for a Gold match much the same way as real life N7 operatives would. Know the battlefield, bring the right kits, and equip the best gear to get the job done.

CG: Everything in ME3 was designed to feel powerful but balanced; this philosophy applies to SP and MP. The big challenge was ensuring that fans felt that each character and race had unique powers and builds which in-turn make’s each kit interesting and fun to play. It was very important to us that each power and ability matched the characters race, playstyle and backstory. We pushed very hard to ensure there is very little difference between gameplay in Single Player vs. Multiplayer.

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(Are the classes getting new powers or combat abilities?) -@FrostyDanny

CG: Eric Fagnan was largely responsible for the power design in Mass 2 & 3. Each class has new and exciting powers plus unique branching evolutions. It is truly amazing how many kits and unique builds there are. Yesterday I built a Human Female Infiltrator spec’d solely for shotguns and high damage cloak. A pure weapon build, which let me tell you was so much fun, I felt like the Predator :}