If you're an Xbox owner and an RPG fan, then you know BioWare. The studio is only responsible for Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire, after all. But now BioWare is moving into the next generation of consoles with Mass Effect and the expectations are high. The sci-fi themed RPG is one of Microsoft's major players for 2007, with an army of fans drooling over the few movies, screens, and bits of information that have been released.
 
BioWare's Casey Hudson, Project Director for Mass Effect, was kind enough to take a break from working to shed some light on what we can expect out of the title when it arrives on store shelves later this year. Read on to learn about the inspiration for the game, details on how BioWare has moved videogame morality beyond simple good and evil, info on character creation and combat, and much more.  
 
IGN: I just wanted to start by thanking you for taking the time to do this. I know how busy you guys can get.
 
Casey Hudson: Oh, no problem. My pleasure.
 
IGN: So let's start from the beginning with the storyline. BioWare is always known for their great stories, so where did the inspiration come for the universe and characters of Mass Effect?
 
Casey Hudson: Oh, well really we were able to start from first principles because we were faced with creating our own universe for this game. So knowing that we were able to really do whatever we wanted with it, it kind of comes down to what do you want to do? What do you most want to do in a science fiction story? That was really the beginning of it is just thinking about what do you really want to do? You want to be able to have a starship and walk around inside it and have all these really great moments. Reasons to, not just the ability to travel across the galaxy, but reasons to scour the galaxy and go out there and look for stuff.  
 
 We wanted players to be really empowered. We wanted them to feel like they're somebody special even from the beginning, which is a challenge in a role-playing game. We wanted people to feel like all throughout the game they're somebody really important and special and to have that kind of feeling that when you arrive on a scene, people take notice. And you always have that kind of exciting level of intensity that you can bring to situations and it causes us to write bigger and better storylines as a result. So that was kind of the beginning, and then to satisfy a lot of these goals, that kind of created the essence of a story structure that could be painted across the scale and scope that we were going for.
 
IGN: So you just spoke about how you want players to feel that they're somebody special. We know that you take the role of Commander Shepard as the main character and I've read that you can create your own character and build him from the ground up. How do you manage to make this game where the two ideas co-exist, where you can create your own character and build your own persona and still fit him into this world and story where he is special?
 
Casey Hudson: Well it's an interesting balance and I think it's a different balance than anyone has ever done before in a role-playing game. I think typically role-playing games in the past have been more about creating a completely empty vessel that you then fill up with whatever choices that you make. And that can be really cool but it also kind of leaves out a little bit of the texture of what it's like to be someone specific or to have a specific spirit to an adventure.  
 
So if you think about some of the really great, memorable science fiction stories or even characters, like Captain Kirk or Jack Bauer. Any story about that kind of a character has a very specific flavor to it and that's one thing we didn't want to miss out on with Mass Effect. Mass Effect is so much more cinematic and real than anything we've ever done before that we really needed that extra bit, those extra sensory aspects to a story that you can't get if you just start out with a completely blank character.
 
So we created the persona of Commander Shepard. And Commander Shepard is an N7 elite which is a member of the human military that really is among the very best of the best and he's already proven himself. And you can also, of course, create a female Commander Shepard. But because we give you a certain kind of experience, which is that nothing is going to hold you back, you will do whatever it takes to solve your mission, to get through that door, to accomplish your objective. And you will go to extremes to do that.  
 
That's really the essence of the experience of being Commander Shepard. But then everything else is up to you. You can create a female Commander Shepard, you can decide everything about the way you look, and you can even decide how you got to be that kind of a character by choosing different kinds of your back story. So you're really choosing all of these different things that customize your character. But because we at least have that aspect of a persona to this character, we can give you a really intense experience that is of a kind of flavor that you've never had before.
 
IGN: A lot of the BioWare "flavor" is that you give choices. You make the player take the good side or the bad side or somewhere in the grey area, but it's always about making choices. How are those choices going to play into how the story is told and how the game plays?
 
Casey Hudson: You may have seen how we have a new interface for interacting with characters in the world. So it's based on a circular wheel that represents different directions for emotional responses. The neat thing about this is that when you interact with another character, you're able to do things that you can't normally do if it is just conversation or just picking dialogue options. So here, you can see the whole spectrum from something that is a simple verbal response to taking a fairly extreme action or making an important decision.  
 
But you can do these things almost instantaneously because you start to learn how to react through the system. It's really amazing how fast you learn it and then how much value it has in being able to instantly react to somebody. Your action might be as extreme as hitting them with the butt of your rifle and then when they're on the ground you tell them how things are going to go. It can be very extreme.
 
Those interactions that have a much more visceral and tangible flavor to them, that's where you start to have an experience that immerses you inside the story in a way that we were never able to do before.
 
IGN: Yeah, the conversation wheel is really cool and I think it will add a lot to the RPG experience. But one thing that we've always had a pet peeve with in RPGs is the situation where you walk into a bar and there are 10 people there. Nine of them will give you a generic response and then one will have a real conversation with you. Are you doing anything to alleviate that and make the world feel more real?
 
Casey Hudson:Yeah. One thing we've done all throughout the experience is kind of like sanding off the edges, if you think about it that way. Maybe in a previous role-playing game you've got one piece of the puzzle which is the person that stands there and only has the one line to give you. Then you have the character that pulls you into the conversation that you've got to do. Then you've got another thing that pulls you into a cinematic.  
 
But what we've done with Mass Effect is taken steps so that each of these things is more fluid with the other things around it. So, for example, before we would have had characters in your squad that, when they talk to you, you're in full conversation mode. But actually a lot of the conversation with your other squad members takes place outside of any sort of cutscene or dialog interface and they're really just talking to you as you're walking around. They're commenting on the world and other characters are talking to them and vice versa. So when you come across a room full of characters, they're all talking and maybe commenting on you and your squad is commenting on them. Everyone is doing their own thing to a degree where it is a lot harder to tell what characters are capable of what.  
 
There are a lot of conventions that we're trying to avoid. Like, you're running through an open area but up ahead you can see a character that looks like their purpose in life is that they will stop you and talk to you when you get close. After you play a few games like that it starts to drive you nuts because you see that character and you think, oh I'm not ready to have a conversation with that character yet. Whereas in Mass Effect, you can run past that character and they may call out to you with something that entices you to go over and talk to them. But we avoid having that character pull you into a conversation without you being able to just run past it. We want to make everything a result of decisions that you've made. Even if you're talking to a character about something, we always give you an out so you can say, "Alright, that's enough. Talk to you later."
 
IGN: You just spoke a bit about inter-party interactions. One of the things we've always been looking for in a game like this is seeing the party really develop. In Knights of the Old Republic, you could be the most terrible person in the entire world and yet the good people in your squad would just follow you blindly. But we saw in one of the Mass Effect videos released an actual argument between a couple people in the party. Are decisions you make going to splinter your party and maybe build on themselves?
 
Casey Hudson: Yeah, it definitely will. And that is one of the fun things about giving you a squad where each of the characters has very different motivations. Therefore, you can imagine when we give you really opposite characters, having both of those characters in your squad or seeing how they respond to the things you're doing. We can throw those things in there and allow things to develop and react, but as a player it becomes clear why having certain characters in your squad or taking certain kinds of actions in the world start to really matter.  
 
That is one of the things we were able to see in the X06 demo. As you're doing things, you may have people in your squad that disagree with you. But there may be someone else in your squad that disagrees with them. That's another thing that we do take to extremes where at some point it actually becomes potentially a fight to the death on issues that matter enough. That's one of the cool things about having a storyline that is really emotionally charged and on a big scale. If you're ready to go to extremes to smash down any barrier that 's in your way, the way you go about that could go against the way some of your squad members would like to see. It's something that draws out the importance of your choices in the game.
 
IGN: Now will we see any of this topple over into the actual gameplay, or is that all going to be story related? If maybe two of my characters aren't getting along, will that affect the way they fight in a battle?
 
Casey Hudson: If you end up getting in a fight with your squad members, it'll be something that you will actually play out. But generally their ability in combat, it's kind of in line with the idea that they'll voice their opinion and may object and argue with you, but when you tell them to execute then ultimately you are their commander and they will follow you until they try to bail out or fight you.
 
IGN: Since we're moving over to the gameplay side of things, how open is the game progression? In the beginning when we get our spaceship are we going to be able to travel around to any planet and attack things the way we see fit or is this going to be a linear experience?
 
Casey Hudson: No, it's an extremely nonlinear game. The idea is that we start off with a prologue that is the major eye opening hook for what is happening in the universe of Mass Effect. Once you've played through the prologue, you show up on the starship in command of it and you've really got the run of the whole galaxy. At that point it is about trying to uncover new locations to go to and new leads on what is going on.  
 
IGN: So when we get to a new planet, how open is the exploration going to be? Are we going to explore this entire planet, or are we going to find that are maybe one or two places to visit and a town?
 
Casey Hudson: That's one of the things that makes the universe seem much larger than otherwise. You really don't know what is going to be around the corner or in the next star system. Some of the planets are surprisingly large with detailed and extensive interior areas. Other planets you'll go into orbit and you'll be able to tell that there's nothing there except for maybe some radio signals or other things that can help you. It's kind of about exploring the galaxy that is there and going to all of these different locations to find out what is down there for you.  
 
One of the other cool things about it is that the things that you'll find start to criss-cross the galaxy. You've got all kinds of things that will point to clues for things to find on another planet or other places to go and help you to unlock new star systems. And then you've got a whole new batch of areas to go to that might reveal something about somewhere you've already been. So, it's all that kind of really neat stuff that's the fun of exploring because you really don't know how much is going to be on a given planet.
 
IGN: Aside from exploring and traveling about and doing the scans on planets that you just spoke about, is the Normandy going to take on a larger role than the Ebon Hawk did in KOTOR?
 
Casey Hudson: In this game it is basically a place for you to navigate and get around the galaxy. One of the differences is that you have a big military crew that is there. They become part of the storyline of course. It's quite a different feeling from what the Ebon Hawk was which was kind of just like a large vehicle, like a truck that your group loads on to and then you go somewhere. Here, it's a military vessel so it's got its own crew, but because you're commanding them, you're able to do with it what you want. So it has quite a different function in that sense. But generally you'll be using it as story locations and to be able to figure out where you want to go in the galaxy.
 
IGN: Let's talk about combat for a little bit. I saw in a couple of the videos that it seems like a lot of the fights, if you know what you're doing, you can finish them off in a few seconds. We're wondering if that is going to be about the normal length for a battle or are we going to see some epic fights?
 
Casey Hudson: What we're seeing in the footage that's out there right now is that it's taken directly from demos where we've got the character set up so that you can't die and we don't have all of our cover objects in there. What you'll see in the final version of the game when everything's balanced is that, quite often, battles will take quite a bit longer than what you're seeing there and they're going to be a lot more tactical, requiring you to use more cover and position your squad and coordinate the abilities of your squad in some really cool ways.
 
 
IGN: We saw in those videos quite a bit of destructible environments. Now are there going to be specific points that you'll know are destructible? How much interaction with the environment are we going to see aside from cover and what we've seen already?
 
Casey Hudson: It's not a fully destructible environment, but a lot of the objects and things that you'll be able to interact with are destructible. One of the cool things about the way that combat works in general is that you're not just four soldiers that are moving through combat. You actually have some unique characters that have extremely different abilities. The tech abilities are completely different from weapons and what you get with our dark energy powers that we call Biotics. When you get your squad to coordinate on some of these things, it's really amazing what you can pull off by getting this squad of different characters to cooperate.  
 
That's the different feeling we get from combat in Mass Effect. In terms of destructible objects, that's where you're able to use the environment and the things that we've got set up so that you can destroy things or make them explode. And then you're using weapons that are highly modified to get amazing effects going on. The way that we've set up the tactical combat allows you to pull off these combinations without having to fumble with a lot of button presses. You can set up what you want your squad to do or move to a certain location and target certain enemies. It's all operated off of the d-pad in a really elegant way so that when you want to destroy things and perform some of these amazing abilities, you're able to cooperate as a squad of three and that is one of the satisfying things about the combat. You're not just one soldier that's backed up by another couple of soldiers with similar abilities. It's really a different experience of cooperation.
 
IGN: Can you give us a few examples of those abilities?
 
Casey Hudson: Sure. For example, the dark energy abilities: Generally, if you imagine if we were able to affect another physical force kind of like gravity, then what kinds of things would you be able to do with it? Like being able to create a small singularity that pulls everything towards it. If you develop one of those around an enemy, then they become immobilized, but things in the environment start flying towards them causing damage and then that sets them up for things like grenade attacks. You can also throw things around. You can warp space in a way that creates a temporary shield that you can hide behind so you can create your own locations for cover. You can lift really heavy objects. So if someone is hiding behind a boulder and taking cover behind it, then you can lift it up and then they're basically stuck out in the open. You can imagine that there are really great opportunities for that kind of cooperation if one of your other squad members is a sniper, for example, when somebody doesn't have any cover then you can take them out pretty easily.  
 
Through your tech abilities: A lot of the enemies are synthetic so to some degree they respond to electronic hacking and things like that. You can do hacking that causes them to turn on their friends and they become chaotic for a little while and create a distraction. Or you can throw an EMP burst which basically just destroys an enemy's shields.  
 
A lot of the things that are really cool about what you can do in combat are also just in the ways that you can modify the weapons that you've got. So you'll find a weapon and it's pretty cool on your own, but then you can start using some of the mods that you've found or bought so that you can start to customize that weapon so that it becomes something special. It's really unique to you and your play experience. For example, you can put in high explosive ammo that destroys the enemy in a flash and turns them into ash that just floats away. Or you can vaporize an enemy. Or you can freeze them so that if they take further damage, then they'll shatter and you have little pieces bouncing all over the place through physics.  
 
You can imagine how when you combine all of these things with a squad that is moving through enemies doing all of these things in combination with each other, the surprising effects that you get are constant. You lift something up and now that he's got no cover, your squadmate takes him out with a sniper. You tell them to switch to the high explosive ammo and you're able to take out their shields and your squad takes them out and they blow up in a cloud of ash. It's just all kinds of shocking and surprising things that just make it a blast to play.
 
 
IGN: In the past, we've found games with morality systems tend to be much easier to play if you take the evil route. Just kill everything instead of going and completing all of these little good quests. Has anything been done to address this?
 
Casey Hudson : Well, I think the thing is that previously the morality thing is about good and evil. Good and evil is a strange abstraction of what a person is normally faced with in those kinds of situations. Usually people aren't evil just for the sake of being mean and likewise there's really no such thing as people being 100% heroic for no other reason than being purely good. It is kind of an artificial approach if you really think about it. What we're doing with Mass Effect is trying to make it more like the kinds of issues that you would face if you're trying to solve a problem that is big enough to justify almost any course of action, but then how do you navigate the morality of the different kinds of extremes that you would go to to achieve the goal? Instead it's more about, do you try to go to an extreme where you accomplish the objective by being brutal at all costs except the objective? Or do you take the other approach where you're just as brutal and just as extreme but you're finding the other balance where you're trying to find a compromise where you're taking some other value into account? It's not so much about evil and good, but it's different approaches to how you handle extreme situations. That kind of solves a lot of the weirdness of the typical good and evil, because this way both sides involve combat, both sides involve extreme measures, and having difficult and challenging gameplay and difficult decisions to make. But we don't have to deal with, if you're purely a good guy, then why are you fighting?
 
IGN: You guys initially told us way back at E3 last year that we were going to have a constantly expanding universe through downloadable planets and other content. Do you have any other word on any other Live functionalities like multiplayer or anything?
 
Casey Hudson: It's not going to be multiplayer. But we are going to have this larger galaxy that is constantly expanding through downloadable content. It's definitely a game that has all the other Live aware features. We have an awesome achievement system that incorporates some really cool stuff you can do on replays and things like that.
 
IGN: So both Knights of the Old Republic and Jade Empire eventually went to PC. Can we expect Mass Effect to head to PC anytime soon?
 
Casey Hudson: We actually don't have any announcements yet about PC stuff. We're pretty much strictly focused on the 360 for now.
 
IGN: All right. Thanks for taking the time. It was a pleasure.

Tout juste passé gold, Crackdown se paiera une démo pas plus tard que demain. Elle devrait être disponible via le marketplace à partir de 11 heures, mais seulement pour les abonnés au service Xbox Live Gold. Le jeu complet débarquera, lui, dans nos rayonnages le 23 février prochain.