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"Earth Is Burning" In Mass Effect 3

EA's online store will totally let you pre-order a copy of this unannounced game.

 Spotted this Mass Effect 3 listing on the EA Store (via Destructoid) this morning. The page has since been removed from EA's site.

No Caption Provided
The little bit of descriptive text is pretty interesting.

Earth is burning. Striking from beyond known space, a race of terrifying machines have begun their destruction of the human race. As Commander Shepard, an Alliance Marine, your only hope for saving mankind is to rally the civilizations of the galaxy and launch one final mission to take back the Earth.

Earth hasn't really been in play during the last two Mass Effect games, so an all-out attack on the home planet sounds, well, pretty different. No word on if it has a bunch of multiplayer in it, which has been quite the popular rumor lately. Either way, the game is expected to be formally announced during the Spike TV Video Game Awards tomorrow night, so we'll probably know more very soon.    
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232 Comments

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xyzygy

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Edited By xyzygy

Yes. Please make this more like ME1 and put more RPG elements in it. ME2 was barely an RPG at all. 
 
Wait. I just looked at the summary for this... if it's true, you'll be rallying more people together in this game to fight the Reapers -_- 
 
That's basically the exact same thing you did in ME2. Let's hope this is only true to some degree.

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PokeIkzai

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Edited By PokeIkzai
The thing with Mass Effect 1 is, I do believe they could port over the PC edition because that one is not owned by Microsoft. 
 
Edit: which of course they won't because it would be so expensive BUT I don't think that would be legally prohibited.
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Driadon

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Edited By Driadon
@DeeGee: Thank you for this. These are some great answers to some great questions, and actually kind of gets me interested in reading some of the Mass Effect books...
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Aetheldod

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Edited By Aetheldod
@sear:  Ok I was very rude back there and I apologize , but when you attack my favorite game I just went bunkers .... The only one I will give you up is Mordin getting the collector bug , thats indeed a plot hole , as for the rest DeeGee already answered. Just one thing Cerberus has never claimed to be a terrorist group , just a pro human group , also cerberus has a lot of military 'shady' connections , etc. If everything about the reapers was explained in the first game then what would we discover in the third game? I do belive you are being extremely nitpicking regarding the story in ME2 , you have explained your reasons why you do it and ok I ' ll drop the silly name calling and chill out.
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Tankhammer

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Edited By Tankhammer

Hot damn I had a feeling Earth was going to come under attack in this one. I knew there was a reason they never let you visit there and only gave you teasing images.
 
Here's hoping that the world doesn't look as pre-fab and mass-produced as the rest of the Mass Effect planets. I wanna see some old-style architecture.

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sandweed

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Edited By sandweed
@Driadon:  Don't get the books. I love ME, but the books are rubbish.
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DoomedMello12

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Edited By DoomedMello12
@PlasmaBeam44: I assume they are referring to the Collectors, considering they are a race of machines. 
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jagenheim

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Edited By jagenheim
@BeachThunder said:
" Uhh.  Maybe I'll just reply Mass Effect 1 three times. "
You had to replay it three times just to get the achievements. The other 10+ times were for fun... 
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jagenheim

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Edited By jagenheim
@Driadon said:
"  and actually kind of gets me interested in reading some of the Mass Effect books... "
I can really recommend the Mass Effect books. Often videogame related books feels like paid fan-fiction, but following Saren and Anderson in the first book felt 'Mass Effect-y'. 
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Frostler

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Edited By Frostler

Finally get to go to Earth I see, I'm officially excited for this

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FreakAche

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Edited By FreakAche
@DoomedMello12 said:
" @PlasmaBeam44: I assume they are referring to the Collectors, considering they are a race of machines.  "
Do you mean the Reapers? The Collectors weren't machines, they were genetically modified Protheans.
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haggis

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Edited By haggis

I'm actually hoping they copy Assassin's Creed Brotherhood a bit and let us use the very large supporting cast on missions (the post-game in Shadow Broker plays with this somewhat, but not very deeply). That way we could be involved in all those other places without actually having to be there. As for Earth, though ... I'm unsure about this. We've always been able to visit, but other than a short mission on the Moon and a dumb Uranus joke, there's never been much to do there. I'm not opposed to this, but I'd rather not have a large amount of the game on Earth.
 
Now, immediately my mind is already working, and I'm wondering ... would they be bold enough to destroy Earth outright at the beginning? Leave the off-world humans the only ones left to survive? I mean, this is the team that blew up the Normandy and spaced Commander Shepard in the first few minutes of Mass Effect 2. That would be a great setup for future non-Shepard Mass Effect games. But no, they won't do that. That's be pretty cool, though. Humans could save the day and yet be removed from their dominant position at the same time...

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stephengotlost

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Edited By stephengotlost

Mass Effect 3 was already announced in the loading screens for ME2

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alcamin

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Edited By alcamin

Considering my love for the previous games I actually feel like I'm already at peak excitement for the third one. In fact, I was excited about ME3 before I had even finished ME2, although I suppose that's just another reflection of my love for the series (have I mentioned that?).   
It always seemed a bit strange that you could never have any interaction with the home worlds (apart from the Moon mission in ME1), although I suppose it just wasn't necessary or relevant to the story, so the idea that we will have the chance to see Earth, whatever state it's in, would be an exciting addition to the series. Looking forward to hearing more info in the future. Don't let us down, Bioware!  
 
Also,   

@FreakAche said:

" @DoomedMello12 said:

" @PlasmaBeam44: I assume they are referring to the Collectors, considering they are a race of machines.  "
Do you mean the Reapers? The Collectors weren't machines, they were genetically modified Protheans. "
What he said! :)
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GrandMarshal

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Edited By GrandMarshal

pre ordering unannounced games is the future.

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SMTDante89

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Edited By SMTDante89

Holiday 2011, confirmed on VGAs

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Kontrapunkt

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Edited By Kontrapunkt

Result is the correct word if this is some sort of marketing ploy. At any rate, hooray! Exciting.

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EnchantedEcho

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Edited By EnchantedEcho

Not exactly unannounced considering that they said a trailer would be shown for this game at the VGA's a few weeks ago.

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GhostlyEnigma

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Edited By GhostlyEnigma

I'm going to burn BioWare's studio down to the ground if they add a multi-player component.

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Mrnitropb

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Edited By Mrnitropb

My psychic powers predict a November release. 

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GiantEnemy

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Edited By GiantEnemy

Rally the civilisations, eh? sounds like more dialogue based comabt!

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mewarmo990

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Edited By mewarmo990

So are we going to spend all of Mass Effect 3 trying to get the rest of the galaxy to care?

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Jugglerman

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Edited By Jugglerman

That should be pretty fun, yea espeically because nobody really cared about the Council after the first game. Heck, I didn't even care about them in the first game anyways :) 
 
Renegade FTW!

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TheLongshot45

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Edited By TheLongshot45

Groovy. 

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unsolvedparadox

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Edited By unsolvedparadox

SHEPARD!!!

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mracoon

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Edited By mracoon

Very hyped for this game but it better not involve recruiting new teammates because I've already done that twice now.

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joeybagad0nutz

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Edited By joeybagad0nutz
@mracoon said:
"Very hyped for this game but it better not involve recruiting new teammates because I've already done that twice now. "

Nope. This time, I bet you, you are going to recruit entitre civilizations to join your side.
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MaddProdigy

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Edited By MaddProdigy
@haggis:  Dude I totally agree you should be able to send members of your team on missions and upgrade them in a Brotherhood-ish way, that would be awesome and it fits the game so perfectly.
 
As far as I remember humans are in no way in a dominant position, in fact they tend to get bitched on quite a bit by the other races in the Mass Effect universe. They're more like young upstarts. Also, the game description says Shepherd must mount an attack to re-take Earth, it won't get destroyed in the first few minutes. On top of that, the Bioware guys seems intelligent enough not to use the same game starting hook again, like you said we've already seen a main character die in the first 2 minutes. 
 
As for my opinion of this, I'm stoked. It's a little weak to learn plot this way instead of an epic trailer, but any info about Mass Effect is good info to have.
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Marius138

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Edited By Marius138

The trailer was f-ing epic!

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haggis

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Edited By haggis
@MaddProdigy:  Well, you're right about not getting destroyed right away. As for humans not being in a dominant position, I guess it depends on how you finished ME1. In Bioware's "canonical" ending, Shepard lets the council die and humans basically take over. But that's not necessarily how everyone played it.
 
@mracoon said:
" Very hyped for this game but it better not involve recruiting new teammates because I've already done that twice now. "
I think it will be more along the lines of using people you already recruited to help convince other races to join the fight. The setup is pretty transparent: we know the races in play, their conflicts, and have allies in each of them. The question will be how to resolve, say, the Quarian-Geth conflict (three obvious options: recruit either by aiding one against the other, resulting in either the Quarians or Geth as allies, or somehow resolving the situation that allies both of them with you). This structure has been pretty clear from the beginning of the first game.
 
I know there's a lot of disappointment with this structure, and I suppose they could have changed things up a bit, but it's not all that different from most other games, where we're forced through the motions of recruiting/persuading people to join up for a final battle. In fact, just about every RPG is like this. Collect the Eight Sacred Objects so as to destroy the Big Bad Guy. Yadda yadda. Not terribly original, I know.
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mithhunter55

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Edited By mithhunter55

I was late to the mass effect party.. I love the universe now! Glad that they are released on PC.

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charlie_victor_bravo

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But can I have some hot alien sex on top of scorched earth?