Mass Effect 3: Omega DLC to Launch on November 27th

While we have yet to see an official announcement since BioWare revealed a few details at Comic-Con, Eurogamer is sharing quite a bit of preliminary information about Omega, the forthcoming “4 hour” story-driven DLC for Mass Effect 3. This one launches on November 27th, right after the time that the trilogy purchasers finish the series and are ready for more:

Aria is a powerful biotic – one of the most powerful, BioWare Montreal producer Fabrice Condominas tells Eurogamer. And her abilities, created specifically for her use, reflect that power. Flare is (probably one of the most powerful) biotic explosive attacks in the game and is great for clearing groups of enemies. Lash sends a biotic lash out onto the battlefield, attracting enemies to her and doing heavy damage. Lash is particularly useful against shielded enemies – a single attack can drop a shields in an instant. So powerful is Aria that BioWare had to rebalance the combat gameplay to cope.

But it is the second new party member that will attract the most attention. Her name is Nyreen Kandros, the turian leader of the Talon mercenary group and the first female turian to be seen in the Mass Effect video games.

There’s Nyreen, the first female turian seen in the Mass Effect video games. Nyreen is ex-turian military, but, despite this, she is a biotic (turian military hierarchy prohibits biotic powers). Her powers aren’t as devastating as Aria’s, but she’s still useful in combat. Her Biotic Grenade ability does exactly what it says on the tin, and Biotic Protector raises a magic shield, useful for keeping her alive when the chips are down.

Condominas said designing Nyreen was quite a challenge. While a female turian did pop up in one of the Mass Effect comics, there was no video game reference point (and there are female turian soldiers in the game, but they’re background soldiers who go unnoticed, apparently).

(We wanted to make sure the first time you see her you realise she’s female and not a male turian, so we had to do a bit of work. We changed subtly some shapes to give her a smoother face. I can’t wait for the players’ feedback!)

Your first thought upon hearing about Nyreen might have been, ‘I can’t wait to see what Garrus makes of her.’ But, unfortunately, you can’t find out. That’s because when you venture out to Omega you leave all your party members – and the Normandy – behind.

All this is explained by the story, Condominas says. What you get for your 1200 MS Points or £10 is roughly four hours of gameplay. You pick the mission up from the Citadel – the nightclub Purgatory to be precise. There you learn from Aria her desire to reclaim Omega, which is under the control of a Cerberus force headed up by General Oleg Petrovsky. For some reason, which, we’re told, the story explains, Shepard must accompany Aria alone. That means no Garrus, no EDI, no no-one – and no Normandy. It all sounds a bit improbable to me. I mean, if Aria wanted Shepard’s help to fight off an occupying force on a big rock in out of space, surely she’d call for the cavalry. A convenient conceit to fit the standalone nature of the DLC?