Traditionally RPG’s have followed a line that includes both a main storyline for players that want to get in see the game and complete it, and sidequests for the more adventuresome. In Mass Effect 3 it looks like side questing is going to play a much larger role in the game than before by having a significant impact on the ending of the game. What this means is that players who tend to rush through a game’s main storyline, will get a lesser ending in Mass Effect 3 than those who complete more of the optional quests.
Casey Hudson of Bioware recently sat down with PC Gamer and told the magazine that the game’s most amazing conclusion will be seen by only the players that experience and accomplish the majority of the game.
“If you do a little side quest, or you go off and do a major plot, these things contribute to the war effort,” he explained. If you just rip straight down the critical path and try and finish the game as soon as you can, and do very little optional or side stuff, then you can finish the game. You can have some kind of ending and victory, but it’ll be a lot more brutal and minimal relative to if you do a lot of stuff. If you really build a lot of stuff and bring people to your side and rally the entire galaxy around you, and you come into the end game with that, then you’ll get an amazing, very definitive ending.”
Mass Effect 3 is arriving sometime in early 2012.
