Last month Tom spoke to executive producer on the Mass Effect series, Casey Hudson, about your romance options in Mass Effect 3. While ME3 will introduce new characters, including new squadmates, Casey says all your romance options will be with familiar faces. And since all the romance options from Mass Effect 1 are back as full time squadmates, many players are going to have some awkward moments when their old flame meets the new squeeze.
PC Gamer: How are the romance options compared to previous games? In Mass Effect 1 you only had a few, and then Mass Effect 2 had loads.
Casey Hudson: It had a few more. In this one, we don’t really have new characters that are part of the romance stuff in the way that we did in Mass Effect 2, where we introduced a lot of characters. So this is more about how you, if you’re a new player, how you start these romances with the existing characters. If you’ve had relationships with previous characters, then it’s your opportunity to resolve those. And again, it’s in the context of a ‘World War II’-type setting, so you don’t really know if you’re going to survive, or what kind of a world is going to live beyond the story. So it’s kind of that situation.
But we also have some interesting things happening, where you’ve got Ashley and Kaiden from the first game, you’ve got Liara, and there’s sort of a love triangle there. And then we gave people a bunch of new characters. People said “Well, I just want my Mass Effect 1 characters, and I’m not interested in any of these characters.” But then a lot of people had romances with those characters, and now the fun is bringing back some of those characters from Mass Effect 1 and putting them back in the mix, and looking at what you did in Mass Effect 2 and bringing some... interesting scenarios around those things.
PC Gamer: It must be a nightmare, because if you think about all those combinations of who you might have started dating, stopped dating then started dating somebody else, you've got to figure out how they react to each other in every case...
Casey Hudson: Yep - it’s fun! (Laughs) I think sometimes when we do certain things, it makes players realise what kinds of things are possible, and then they think about a different level of meaning in terms of why they’re doing things, in terms of how the characters relate. So even something like: if you had a Mass Effect 1 romance and you didn’t have a Mass Effect 2 romance, so you stay true to the character from the first game, there’s a scene where you look at the picture of that character, and that’s essentially the romance scene in Mass Effect 2.
I think when people realised that we were thinking about that kind of thing, and that we were going to reflect those kinds of decisions, then it’s like “Wow, the game actually knows that I didn’t cheat on my Mass Effect 1 love interest. So if it knows that, then it probably knows other stuff that it will reflect. Then that means I need to think about that stuff talking to characters and making decisions and the like.”
PC Gamer: So it’s all existing characters... I’m just trying to think what gay or lesbian characters that gives you. That would leave Liara?
Casey Hudson: Well yeah, it’s going to be similar to Mass Effect 1 and 2. Like I say, we’re not introducing any new characters that are going to be love interests. There’s some new characters, but generally it’s going to be the interplay between the characters from 2 and the returning ones from 1, and then Liara as the one that's... either asexual or omnisexual, depends on how you look at it.
Casey also told us Tali will return as a full time squad member, but implied Wrex won't. We'll have another chunk of Mass Effect 3 details tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

When Tom was out at BioWare's Edmonton office last month, executive producer Casey Hudson confirmed that our favourite Quarian, Tali'Zorah vas Normandy, would return as a full-time squadmate. The obvious next question: would Wrex?
Casey Hudson: Wrex will be... basically everyone that’s a main character is in Mass Effect 3. Everyone - every single team character in the entire series - is in Mass Effect 3, but not necessarily as a squad member. So Wrex will be there but not necessarily as a full squad member.
The squadmates we can confirm are Garrus, Liara, Ashley or Kaiden, James Vega, and the one that we can mention that we haven’t mentioned before is Tali.
PC Gamer: Will some of the main characters who aren’t full squadmates tag along for one mission?
Casey Hudson: Yeah. Basically when the story moves to deal with that particular main character, there might be a plot where they join you for a little while, and they’re with you for that mission.
Casey says the returning characters, particularly Shepard him or herself, make the Mass Effect series unique.
Casey Hudson: I would argue that this is the only trilogy in games. There have been games where there were three, but in terms of planning it out from the beginning, with a story that was meant to span three games, and actually finishing all three games - I don’t know if that’s ever been done before.
Certainly bringing your character across and those decisions, that hasn’t been done before. So we have a really, really exciting opportunity, which is to take all of the stuff that we’ve built and it’s not now just about continuing it, but it’s about letting people end it. And end it in ways that, especially if you’ve been following the series, you know what it would mean to end certain conflicts in certain ways. You know the values behind it, and the history behind it, and especially the people that are affected.
We talk about the Genophage, and how you could resolve that in different ways, because you know so many people affected by it: Grunt and Wrex and Mordin and these characters that you can actually put a face on. So it’s pretty exciting to be able to finish it.
You can hear more about what Tom thought of Mass Effect 3 in the PC Gamer UK podcast, and we'll have more juicy info from Casey tomorrow. You can subscribe to all our Mass Effect 3 news and previews if you use an RSS reader.

Just we were get excited by the latest screenshots, Bioware have announced on Facebook that Mass Effect 3 has been delayed until the start of 2012. No specific reason for the delay is given beyond executive producer Casey Hudson's explanation that "the development team is laser focused on making sure Mass Effect 3 is the biggest, boldest and best game in the series."

Still, at least it gives those of us planning a mammoth total Mass Effect replay more time to save the universe again before the final part of the trilogy comes out. Okay, I admit, that's not much consolation. Get your Mass Effect fix from our Mass Effect 3 news feed instead.

Eight new Mass Effect 3 screenshots have landed showing Shepard rifle butting his way through squads of white armoured opponents. Tucked away in the screenshots is our first look at a Krogan Geth (Krogeth?), and what might just be the back of Liara's head. Also, Anderson is back! You'll find all of the new shots below.

The new screens arrived via Igromania, spotted by CVG. There's an emphasis on the close quarters combat that will play more of a part in Mass Effect 3. One of the enemies is wielding an electrified baton, and Shepard is shown giving one enemy a good old whack with the butt of his assault rifle. Find out more about Mass Effect's story and combat here, and more on the game's expanded skill trees here.

Eight new Mass Effect 3 screenshots have landed showing Shepard rifle butting his way through squads of white armoured opponents. Tucked away in the screenshots is our first look at a Krogan husks, and what might just be the back of Liara's head. Also, Anderson is back! You'll find all of the new shots below.

The new screens arrived via Igromania, spotted by CVG. There's an emphasis on the close quarters combat that will play more of a part in Mass Effect 3. One of the enemies is wielding an electrified baton, and Shepard is shown giving one enemy a good old whack with the butt of his assault rifle. Find out more about Mass Effect's story and combat here, and more on the game's expanded skill trees here.

Bioware have launched a charity auction to raise money to help the victims of the recent earthquake in Japan. Posting on the Bioware forums, community co-ordinator Chris Priestly announced that a number of items signed by Bioware's founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk would be hitting ebay, with all proceeds to be donated to the Japanese Red Cross. The auction is live now. Items for sale include some custom painted consoles, signed Bioware hoodies, and signed copies of Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect. The items have raised more than $5000 already.

More pearls of Mass Effect 3 knowledge have dropped form the latest issue of Game Informer. There's news on Mass Effect 3's updated combat, and some spoilery plot details. If you don't want to know anything about Mass Effect 3's story, steer clear. Otherwise, here's the latest on Shepard's latest mission to save the universe.



The overarching quest in Mass Effect 3 is to take down the Reapers. The apparently invincible alien forces trashing Earth at the start of the game do have a weakness. Figuring this out will be a large part of the game, and Bioware promise a number of red herrings before the secret is discovered. Earth can be saved, and there will be a few different ways to do it.

Whatever the Reapers' weakness, Shepard will still need to roam the galaxy to recruit help. Getting the aliens on side won't be a matter of completing a series of sidequests. There will be multiple ways to earn the loyalty of each species.

Combat in Mass Effect 3 is going to be more difficult. Fights will be set in larger arenas, and melee attacks will feature more prominently. Targeting different sections of an opponent's armour will have different effects, and you'll also be able to pick up dropped enemy weapons.

So far we've only seen humans fall prey to the Geth's robotic zombification process. In Mass Effect 3, other species can also become husks.

Finally, decisions you made all the way in Mass Effect 1 will come back to haunt you. If you saved the Rachni, expect to hear from them in the third game.

For more on Mass Effect 3 news, check out last week's Mass Effect 3 info-splurge, with news on which characters will be returning, and promises of deeper RPG systems and expanded skill trees. The game's due out later this year.