bioware A Mass Effect FPS?

[Muhammad Farrukh]

There Was Going to Be A Mass Effect First Person Shooter

BioWare's Montreal studio was developing a competitive first-person shooter called Mass Effect Team Assault in 2010 before transforming that effort into the third-person multiplayer mode in Mass Effect 3, according to a new behind-the-scenes iPad app created by gaming journalist Geoff Keighley.

"The goal was simple," Keighley reports in The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3, "to create a standalone multiplayer experience in the Mass Effect universe that would mix the play styles of Unreal Tournament and Battlefield 1943 ? and likely be released as a downloadable game."

The game was in development for four months and was presented, in March 2010, as the prototype seen in the images in this story. (Those images are captured from Keighley's app, which features video of the prototype.)

The powers-that-be at BioWare liked the idea of a multiplayer shooter, because it presented an added view of the wide-ranging war occurring during Mass Effect 3. The idea morphed into the development of a co-op mode for Mass Effect 3 itself. The main game's engine wouldn't allow gamers to play co-op in the main campaign of Mass Effect 3, but it would allow them to team up in a separate skirmish mode, which is what BioWare delivered in the sequel that finally came out earlier this month. As the BioWare developers shifted to that, Mass Effect Team Assault "was put on the back burner."

The Final Hours of Mass Effect is packed with stories like these (though maybe no others quite so juicy!). If you want to read a ton more about the making of Mass Effect 3, watch video interviews with the developers, check out deleted scenes from the game and even swipe through some panoramic photos shot inside BioWare HQ, grap the app from iTunes. It's iPad-only for now but will be released for PC in the next couple of days as well. (Look for an announcement on the app's official site.)

Kotaku

[Phouchg]

Yeah, well, I suppose it wass highly unreasonable of me to hope they'd just wrap series up and then leave it alone. Instead of developing new IPs they'll now keep milking the huge cash cow, making metric tons of shovelware. It's not like we had Battlefield 2142, with Atlas-Riesig-Bogatyr, and gunships that ME just copy-pasted. Or perhaps make an RTS with EDI saying "You need to build additional pylons"?

[Muhammad Farrukh]

I am still unsure about this.

I love Mass Effect series because of how it is designed and how it plays. It plays exceptionally well as a third person shooter, with all the cover shooting and powers thing.

I can't imagine any of this looking half decent as a first person shooter. :wacko:

[CelticWhisper]

I am still unsure about this.

I love Mass Effect series because of how it is designed and how it plays. It plays exceptionally well as a third person shooter, with all the cover shooting and powers thing.

I can't imagine any of this looking half decent as a first person shooter. :wacko:

As a tactical shooter, I'm inclined to agree that the third-person view worked very well, and that the experience would lose something in the transition. If they could figure out a way to do it as an all-out frenzy like Painkiller or Serious Sam, or a high-tension guns+powers shooter a la Bioshock, that would probably work. Given some of the creepy levels in the trilogy proper, I can see a Bioshock-styled semi-horror Mass Effect FPS being a decent play.

[ThisSiteHasLostItsCharm]

why are all the nice things always cancelled :(

[gkl]

Yeah, well, I suppose it wass highly unreasonable of me to hope they'd just wrap series up and then leave it alone. Instead of developing new IPs they'll now keep milking the huge cash cow, making metric tons of shovelware. It's not like we had Battlefield 2142, with Atlas-Riesig-Bogatyr, and gunships that ME just copy-pasted. Or perhaps make an RTS with EDI saying "You need to build additional pylons"?

I would be pretty idiotic to leave such a big name in the industry with an amazing world simply die off due to some bull**** called "honor". If I was in EA's position, ME3 most certainly would not be the last game in the series. And personally I'm OK with that.

Unless those games end up being crappy shooters...