You Can Kiss Shepard Goodbye After Mass Effect 3

This wasn't a bomb. They very specifically said before that Sherpard is done after this trilogy and that future games would have another protagonist.

I love Mass Effect but I don't feel very connected to the whole Shepard character, neither female nor male. So personally I think it would be awesome if ME3 did some Hitchcock's "Psycho" type'o deal with Shepard. That he / she dies (or something) very early on in the game and we get introduced to a new protagonist.

@Mandrewgora said:

so long space cowboy...

Tommy Lee Jones should do a voice for ME3.

As a Reaper.

FemShep has been and always will be blonde. My universe is clearly the only one that matters.

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

@onan said:

@Afroman269 said:

ME 3 as the best jumping in point for new players is still the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.

Can I live in your world? Because I've heard far, FAR stupider things. You didn't have to play ME1 to play ME2 since it was mostly about getting to know entirely new characters, and in ME3 nearly everyone you've partied up with or had history with could potentially be dead except for Liara and Joker, meaning an entirely new crew.

And really, giant robot bugs are destroying the Earth and you need to stop them. While it's nice to know how you got there, realistically you don't need to know more than that to appreciate the game. Those of us who have played the games however can turn to our non-ME1&2 player friends on the couch and say, "you know, my character totally knew this was going to happen." That's pretty much the extent of what we got out of the first two games when you get right down to it.

Sure we'll get a little more out of the experience, we'll recognize people they won't, appreciate ironies they don't, etc, but at the end of the day more people played Mass Effect 2 than Mass Effect 1, and more people will likely play ME3 than ME2. If they make it more accessible for people coming in fresh, that's fine. They handled it well enough with ME2, didn't they?

The keyword is context. I have only played MGS4 and technically it was a brand new beginning for me but doesn't negate the fact that very few things made sense to me in that game(also it could very well be the game and not me in this example). I also played Dead Space2 but not 1 and felt good about it. The difference is Bioware promised a fucking engaging role-playing experience where you build/cultivate relationships and make choices that would span and change now a trilogy of games.

The argument isn't can people join in now and enjoy the third game. Of course they can, you can enjoy everything on some level. You've made a lot of assumptions and simplified a complex thing to make a point but the fact of the matter is these new players will miss out on a lot of stuff. If they're OK with that than that's fine but juxtaposing the good doctor's statements makes you see how it could be a little dumb. What he's saying is just pure marketing as it is directly opposed to the design of his games. It's kind of misleading and certainly (I hate to say this but playing all 3 games is what this series is based on) not the way it's meant to be played.

I played MGS1&2, hated 2, skipped 3 for the most part (although read about it), and 4 was still ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. A better example here would be MGS in relation to the previous Metal Gear games. You didn't need to know who Grey Fox was to appreciate the dude as a cyber ninja. I didn't play through the old Metal Gear games, feel like I got everything I needed to get out of MGS1 and didn't need to go back for further detail.

Also arguing that the Mass Effect series was meant to be played as a trilogy doesn't really hold up. How many people only have a PS3 and only even had the opportunity to play the game starting with the sequel? If they didn't truly think the series could be picked up at any point, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of porting it to PS3. PS3 reviewers in that position would have called the game inscrutable and given it a much lower score. The truth of the matter is that they playtest and focus-group everything, and each time they introduce the Quarians, or the Krogan, it's a good introduction that doesn't need additional backstory from earlier games because the sequels are designed that way. This isn't the Lord of the Rings.

Hey, remember talking to Jacob in ME2, and him mentioning all that history between him and Miranda before Lazarus? About how he foiled a plot by Batarian extremists on the Citadel? You may or may not know that was the plot of Mass Effect Galaxy for the iPhone, but ultimately it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. You probably didn't play it. If not, do you feel your ME2 experience suffered in any way because of that?

People who come in to the middle of ongoing stories tend not to care because they don't know they should care. By the end of it if they do care and can go back to the beginning. Many books and movies are structured this way as well, starting from the middle and looping back around to the beginning. A linear structure doesn't really matter. Generally, the only people who think those late-comers are missing out are people who have been there since the beginning. Did you know there are a lot of kids out there whose first or only experience with Star Wars was episodes 1,2, & 3? And they're okay with that?

It really, really doesn't matter. These are products first and foremost, and are designed from the ground up to be as inclusive as possible. If the original question is "Can ME3 honestly be a good starting point for new gamers to the Mass Effect universe?" I'm pretty confident the answer is yes, especially when the heads of Bioware say so. Universal accessibility is almost certainly one of the core design tenets for ME3. Sure, we'll get more out of it with plot-modifying saves, but when you get down to it, if ME3 is the first time a player punches reporter Khalisah al-Jilani in the face or the third time, they're going to find it amusing.

Thankfully the Mass Effect universe is varied and interesting enough to have more games based on it.

That female Shepard is really freakin' hot...give me a sweet brunette or a fiery redhead and I'm happy...preferably both though :P

MASS EFFECT 4: RISE OF THE HANAR

MASS EFFECT 5: JACOB'S JOURNEY

MASS EFFECT 6: EXTREME MAKO KART RACING

Mass Effect MMO. Would seem logical

ME 4 should be held off till at least the next generation of hardware. They need to leave it as a solid trilogy per hardware generation. Also, short black hair femshep all the way.

@ChosenOne: Well, we'll see if BioWare Austin can pull off this story thing in TOR.

I can see a more straight forward action game based on the First Contact War being produced, probably alongside the movie. Would actually make sense as a Call of Duty-ish first person shooter, maybe with some squad tactics. You play as Lt. David Anderson, story is mostly linear but still has the BioWare writing. Maybe run into that other FCW vet (spoilers) Jack Harper.

@AngriGhandi: You laugh dude, but I'd play an ME racing game in a heartbeat

Yo, bro, I'm gonna have my lady Shepard be did by a dude. And I'm gonna watch. VIDEO GAMES.

@GunslingerPanda: Y'know, a lot of women hate blondes. Stupid as that is, she is not alone.

I love the way Alex delivers the news, sweet and hilarious.

it is so easy for a successful series now to keep going...companies do not risk introducing new IP's to the public and keep reusing the same formulas.In my opinion ME made a great trilogy even if the second one felt like a side mission before the epic conclusion..that being said i would not want it to go further than number 3.Comparisons with the Assassin's Creed series are definitely there and dragging a story for too long will not be in favor of them...At least this is what i believe.

This article just doesn't make any sense. Shepard is a dude.

My FemShep has always been a redhead, don't know what this noise is.

Did they change a Omni-blade thingie? In the demo I played at PAX it was on the right wrist, but in that image and the new DudeShep shirt on their site its on the left where the Omni-tool was/is.

@onan said:

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

@onan said:

@Afroman269 said:

ME 3 as the best jumping in point for new players is still the most fucking stupid thing I've ever heard.

Can I live in your world? Because I've heard far, FAR stupider things. You didn't have to play ME1 to play ME2 since it was mostly about getting to know entirely new characters, and in ME3 nearly everyone you've partied up with or had history with could potentially be dead except for Liara and Joker, meaning an entirely new crew.

And really, giant robot bugs are destroying the Earth and you need to stop them. While it's nice to know how you got there, realistically you don't need to know more than that to appreciate the game. Those of us who have played the games however can turn to our non-ME1&2 player friends on the couch and say, "you know, my character totally knew this was going to happen." That's pretty much the extent of what we got out of the first two games when you get right down to it.

Sure we'll get a little more out of the experience, we'll recognize people they won't, appreciate ironies they don't, etc, but at the end of the day more people played Mass Effect 2 than Mass Effect 1, and more people will likely play ME3 than ME2. If they make it more accessible for people coming in fresh, that's fine. They handled it well enough with ME2, didn't they?

The keyword is context. I have only played MGS4 and technically it was a brand new beginning for me but doesn't negate the fact that very few things made sense to me in that game(also it could very well be the game and not me in this example). I also played Dead Space2 but not 1 and felt good about it. The difference is Bioware promised a fucking engaging role-playing experience where you build/cultivate relationships and make choices that would span and change now a trilogy of games.

The argument isn't can people join in now and enjoy the third game. Of course they can, you can enjoy everything on some level. You've made a lot of assumptions and simplified a complex thing to make a point but the fact of the matter is these new players will miss out on a lot of stuff. If they're OK with that than that's fine but juxtaposing the good doctor's statements makes you see how it could be a little dumb. What he's saying is just pure marketing as it is directly opposed to the design of his games. It's kind of misleading and certainly (I hate to say this but playing all 3 games is what this series is based on) not the way it's meant to be played.

I played MGS1&2, hated 2, skipped 3 for the most part (although read about it), and 4 was still ridiculous for the sake of being ridiculous. A better example here would be MGS in relation to the previous Metal Gear games. You didn't need to know who Grey Fox was to appreciate the dude as a cyber ninja. I didn't play through the old Metal Gear games, feel like I got everything I needed to get out of MGS1 and didn't need to go back for further detail.

Also arguing that the Mass Effect series was meant to be played as a trilogy doesn't really hold up. How many people only have a PS3 and only even had the opportunity to play the game starting with the sequel? If they didn't truly think the series could be picked up at any point, they wouldn't have gone through the trouble of porting it to PS3. PS3 reviewers in that position would have called the game inscrutable and given it a much lower score. The truth of the matter is that they playtest and focus-group everything, and each time they introduce the Quarians, or the Krogan, it's a good introduction that doesn't need additional backstory from earlier games because the sequels are designed that way. This isn't the Lord of the Rings.

Hey, remember talking to Jacob in ME2, and him mentioning all that history between him and Miranda before Lazarus? About how he foiled a plot by Batarian extremists on the Citadel? You may or may not know that was the plot of Mass Effect Galaxy for the iPhone, but ultimately it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things. You probably didn't play it. If not, do you feel your ME2 experience suffered in any way because of that?

People who come in to the middle of ongoing stories tend not to care because they don't know they should care. By the end of it if they do care and can go back to the beginning. Many books and movies are structured this way as well, starting from the middle and looping back around to the beginning. A linear structure doesn't really matter. Generally, the only people who think those late-comers are missing out are people who have been there since the beginning. Did you know there are a lot of kids out there whose first or only experience with Star Wars was episodes 1,2, & 3? And they're okay with that?

It really, really doesn't matter. These are products first and foremost, and are designed from the ground up to be as inclusive as possible. If the original question is "Can ME3 honestly be a good starting point for new gamers to the Mass Effect universe?" I'm pretty confident the answer is yes, especially when the heads of Bioware say so. Universal accessibility is almost certainly one of the core design tenets for ME3. Sure, we'll get more out of it with plot-modifying saves, but when you get down to it, if ME3 is the first time a player punches reporter Khalisah al-Jilani in the face or the third time, they're going to find it amusing.

Aright Duder, that is a lot of words let me try breaking this down.

MGS4 is the first game I played and an example of entering a series late in the game having no previous knowledge of it. It wasn't meant to be used as an example to contrast which Metal Gear game is the easiest one to get into or which ones you don't have to play. It was merely to show how coming in late in a series would affect my view on a game. Also, very importantly MGS isn't an RPG.

Look at a certain extent we're arguing semantics. I have played both ME 1&2 on 360 and than ME2 on ps3. Believe me when I say this the motion comic didn't do a good job at explaining the intricacies of the Mass Effect 1 plot. It simply introduced certain things that happened without the why or emotional resonance behind them. I didn't see how anyone would care about the beginning of ME2 without having played ME1. Shepard dying, losing your team, Normandy being destroyed it is certainly not the ideal way to get into the series, in fact I thought it was horrible. Although, I see your referring to the lore of ME while I am talking about character relationships and the experience of building them. Look man ME2 is on ps3 because EA wants money and ME1 is not because Microsoft owns the publishing rights. If it was up to Bioware they would have put both on there or none at all. This was just the way things ended up.

This one comes down to personal taste so I will say this. I come to this medium to play video games. Bioware promised a trilogy not trilogy plus iphone games, facebook games, comic, books, or having to pay an extra 10 more dollars for a block of text that carries a vital piece of information that will help me make the right choices in the end . If it was truly relevant to the plot they better fucking tell me this stuff in the video games in either, ME1,2, or 3 as everything else is extended universe and not pertinent to the plot.

I agree with everything you said here as I also stated if people are OK with coming in late to a series and can still enjoy it than that's fine. I've done the same many times. Also, side note that was well written.

Once again another paragraph chalked up to personal tastes. I don't believe anything anyone from Bioware says anymore as it seems they will say really anything despite it being true or not, These statements are pure marketing. Everything can be as inclusive as it wants, you're right they are designed that way. Although, just as by the seventh Harry Potter book or say a third Mass Effect game you know that they are by their very nature not as inclusive as the good doctors at Bioware would like them to be. There shouldn't be needless exposition or awkward writing to make up for newcomers in the plot of the game,instead that should be relegated to character bios and your index. ME3 will be a starting point but I don't think it will be a good one.

All in all, I really hope our saves will finally make a difference in the ME universe.

No no no no no no no no NO NO NO!

This COMPLETELY ruins my ongoing online erotic novella; flowing red hair does not emphasise her rosey pink nipples, damn it! And what are Wrex and Garrus going to think of a red landing strip?!

DAMN YOU BIOWARE!

"  Plus, after all the fervor over how FemShep's new hair style would affect gender stereotyping in video games, today's news that the world chose redheaded FemShep to represent female empowerment or something seems just a little less impactful than it would have otherwise. Which is to say, less impactful than already not impactful at all, because Jesus Christ people, it's a goddamned default hairstyle for an editable character in a role-playing game. There are Teen Choice Award voting categories with greater societal meaning than this nonsense." 
 
Jesus, thank you Alex. 

I don't think it would be too hard for Bioware to produce two different covers for ME3. One for FemShep and one for MaleShep. Kinda tired of having MaleShep be the only option.

My female Shepard was already a redhead, so...yeah.

Oh well, at least this woman will be happy, I guess?

@UnsungHero said:

"There are Teen Choice Award voting categories with greater societal meaning than this nonsense." *claps* well put sir

Yes! +1 to this :D

Redheads.  
 
Oh my, do I love redheads.

Of course this will be the final Shepard story. After she saves the galaxy, Shepard will settle down, get fat, and have tons of little blue children.

Alex, you more than anyone should know why people give it importance. I just finished the 4th season Madmen the other day and couldn't help but notice how Joan's hair got lighter with time. This happens in a bunch of shows (Pam from The Office comes to mind who pretty much turns into a blonde completely). People in the U.S. consistently ask for lighter and lighter women (and men) as protagonists. They want them White and preferably blonde.

It's significant because defaults represent the status quo. It's as easy as asking why is default Shepard not Black? or Hispanic? or Asian?

I think it'd be cool if they kept him around as a supporting character in Mass Effect 4ever (or whatever). Especially if they continue to import your save and character design into the NPC's design.

Commander Shepard has to either die in a blaze of glory and save the human race, or shuffle off into retirement. I'm unsurprised the character won't continue onwards because they want to keep the mystique around Shepard alive. I think that's a good thing.

P.S. I'm used to original female Shepard now: This new one is just confusing.

I had a feeling they were going to cut Shepard loose. I do believe they said something about a Mass Effect multiplayer effort/extending the universe and fiction. I mean, if you played ME 2 to the end There is the possibility your entire team, including Shepard, dies. I'm also going to point out that Mass Effect 1 story line picks up pretty much while humans are freshmen in the universe and we're watching them start to dominate space by the time Mass Effect 2 starts. It only makes sense to go in a different direction after this trilogy.

Mass Effect 3 is simultaneously a couple of different things: a thrilling and epic conclusion to the trilogy as we promised our fans we'd provide for Commander Shepard, but it's also a brand new beginning - it's an entry point for new fans.

I don't like it when Bioware tries to make each new game in this series an "entry point for new fans".  It bothers me.  This is the conlusion of a trilogy.  I don't want any part of it to be about pandering to latecomers. 

 

I sort of liked blonde shep better.

You're all nuts.  Female Shepard does not have any hair.  Also, she's black. 

@nomorehalfmeasures said:

Aright Duder, that is a lot of words let me try breaking this down.

MGS4 is the first game I played and an example of entering a series late in the game having no previous knowledge of it. It wasn't meant to be used as an example to contrast which Metal Gear game is the easiest one to get into or which ones you don't have to play. It was merely to show how coming in late in a series would affect my view on a game. Also, very importantly MGS isn't an RPG.

Look at a certain extent we're arguing semantics. I have played both ME 1&2 on 360 and than ME2 on ps3. Believe me when I say this the motion comic didn't do a good job at explaining the intricacies of the Mass Effect 1 plot. It simply introduced certain things that happened without the why or emotional resonance behind them. I didn't see how anyone would care about the beginning of ME2 without having played ME1. Shepard dying, losing your team, Normandy being destroyed it is certainly not the ideal way to get into the series, in fact I thought it was horrible. Although, I see your referring to the lore of ME while I am talking about character relationships and the experience of building them. Look man ME2 is on ps3 because EA wants money and ME1 is not because Microsoft owns the publishing rights. If it was up to Bioware they would have put both on there or none at all. This was just the way things ended up.

This one comes down to personal taste so I will say this. I come to this medium to play video games. Bioware promised a trilogy not trilogy plus iphone games, facebook games, comic, books, or having to pay an extra 10 more dollars for a block of text that carries a vital piece of information that will help me make the right choices in the end . If it was truly relevant to the plot they better fucking tell me this stuff in the video games in either, ME1,2, or 3 as everything else is extended universe and not pertinent to the plot.

I agree with everything you said here as I also stated if people are OK with coming in late to a series and can still enjoy it than that's fine. I've done the same many times. Also, side note that was well written.

Once again another paragraph chalked up to personal tastes. I don't believe anything anyone from Bioware says anymore as it seems they will say really anything despite it being true or not, These statements are pure marketing. Everything can be as inclusive as it wants, you're right they are designed that way. Although, just as by the seventh Harry Potter book or say a third Mass Effect game you know that they are by their very nature not as inclusive as the good doctors at Bioware would like them to be. There shouldn't be needless exposition or awkward writing to make up for newcomers in the plot of the game,instead that should be relegated to character bios and your index. ME3 will be a starting point but I don't think it will be a good one.

All in all, I really hope our saves will finally make a difference in the ME universe.

Fair enough. Quick summary: The MGS4 thing was me saying I'd pretty much played most of the previous MGS games and still hardly knew what was going on, so I don't know how much me having played the older games helped matters.

As for your experience with the motion comic, it's pretty similar to what everyone goes through when they see their favorite book turned into a movie. Things end up on the cutting room floor, but for the most part they get their point across (usually). Using the Harry Potter books as examples, I know people who LOVED the movies and felt there was no reason to go back and read the books, while many people feel the movies miss a ton of important stuff in the books. Try to look at ME2 objectively. New people don't have to care you spent 40+ hours on a ship that blows up in the first 5 minutes of the sequel, dying in the first 5 minutes is still pretty impactful and attention grabbing, as it has been since the original Silent Hill. People get different things out of it, the important thing is that they get something out of it.

Ignore ME Galaxy for a moment. I'm one of the few people who was so excited about the Mass Effect franchise that, before the first game was released, ran out and got the first book (Mass Effect: Revelation) written by the game writer Drew Karpyshyn. Assuming you haven't read it (or someone else reading this post hasn't), it was effectively a prequel to the game. I got so much more out of the first game just by reading that than someone coming in fresh, I almost couldn't see playing the game without it. Before I fired up ME1, I knew exactly what what all the species were, the First Contact War, how awesome David Anderson was (and how conflicted he must have felt congratulating Shepard on becoming the first human Spectre), what an evil, untrustworthy jerk Seren was, what the Citadel was used for. I was super excited to see the Citadel when I went there the first time in ME1. Mass Effect 1 already was a series for me, the first game was more like catching up with old friends.

My point is simply that no matter where you jump into a fiction piece, creators want maximum penetration so they try to keep it pretty simple. Mass Effect as a series has been pretty self-contained and ultimately a simple story that makes it easy for them to bring new people aboard with each iteration. Mass Effect 1 was about the conflict with Saren and the Geth, and the discovery of the nature of the Mass relays and introduction of the Reapers. Mass Effect 2 was about putting together a good team to take out the Collectors, and finding out more revelations about the nature of the Reapers. Neither Saren nor the Geth were any real focus at all in ME2. They were pretty much meaningless. Even coming off of ME2, as much as I love that game it too was pretty meaningless, almost an outer space Ocean's Eleven or Inception. I suspect the only purpose at all of ME2 was to give Renegade players a platform (somewhat literally) to launch from that didn't require they kowtow to the Alliance or Council. Seeing how I played Paragon and pretty much ended up at square one after the events of ME2, I'm almost positive this is the case. I'm alive, I'm experienced, I have the support of a trustworthy crew and command structure, and I'm ready to take on the Reapers.

This is reductionist, I know, but the only differences between my Shepard going into ME3 and my Shepard starting ME1 is that I know what a Reaper is, and that they're coming. Based on the trailers showing the razing of Earth, in the first 5 minutes, even the total newcomer is going to know that much too. Everything else is gravy. I expect a lot of cool stuff that I'll really appreciate and newcomers won't see, like that incredible line from the Shadow Broker DLC when your opponent takes a hostage The line "Is that it? Vasir, I sacrificed hundreds of human lives to save the Destiny Ascension. I unleashed the Rachni on the galaxy. So for your sake, I hope your escape plan doesn't hinge on me hesitating to shoot a damn hostage." gave me chills it was so badass. , but that's not going to make their experiences any less awesome from confusion over what's going on, they're just going to miss out on some nuance.

Thats what they said about Halo...

My FemShep is a blonde, thank you very much. Also, this sucks....I'm going to miss her. I just hope they don't kill her...again.

Which is to say, less impactful than already not impactful at all, because Jesus Christ people, it's a goddamned default hairstyle for an editable character in a role-playing game. There are Teen Choice Award voting categories with greater societal meaning than this nonsense. 

@phrosnite

The first thing I"m gonna do when I get ME3 is to change her hair - short and black. F you all ginger junkies!

My fiancée is a redhead. So, you know, fuck you right back. All my video game female characters are lovely redheads.

I think wrapping it up on this generation is awesome so there's no pressure to stay with the franchise if it turns to shit after ME3.

Honestly i am glad they are branching off, shepard was never really that interesting, that's not to say the games are amazing i would just like to play as other characters in this universe, i think a "prequel" game where you play as Thane would be AWESOME. because it could introduce interesting new gameplay mechanics in the universe.

I normally don't care about things most people would consider "spoilers".  I think the only thing that I ever had spoiled that I would have cared about is the ending to Empire Strikes Back.  That being said, I'm a bit peeved that this was something they thought was something to just blurt out.  It may not affect the game at all, but seems like a big deal to me, potentially.

All things must end. I just hope Bio keeps the playable character just as editable as Shep has been, I hope they don't lock us into a character look* and history of said character. If so, then they might as well end ME with Shep.

I normally don't care about things most people would consider "spoilers".  I think the only thing that I ever had spoiled that I would have cared about is the ending to Empire Strikes Back.  That being said, I'm a bit peeved that this was something they thought was something to just blurt out.  It may not affect the game at all, but seems like a big deal to me, potentially.

@DonaldLee said:

I normally don't care about things most people would consider "spoilers".  I think the only thing that I ever had spoiled that I would have cared about is the ending to Empire Strikes Back.  That being said, I'm a bit peeved that this was something they thought was something to just blurt out.  It may not affect the game at all, but seems like a big deal to me, potentially.

How does this spoil anything? It doesn't mean Shepard's going to die no matter the ending or he's going to put himself into indefinite cryogenically frozen status or something. It just means that he won't be the star of future ME games and his story has ended. Shepard could appear as a cameo in a news report or something.

It doesn't spoil anything.  I didn't say this was a spoiler.  In fact, I was very specifically not calling it a spoiler.  It's just information I would rather not have known going into the game.  It creates expectations regardless of whether or not they are realized.

Sooo.. Shep dies at the end of ME3 as the ultimate sacrifice to stop the Reaper invasion. Christ on the cross and all that stuff.