”Fans want a definitive end,” Flynn stated, ”They’ll be the judge of that ultimately when they play it and see how we do that. Certainly, what this game absolutely does represent is the culmination of almost a decade’s worth of work for the studio and for Casey (Hudson) and his team in terms of exactly what we’re trying to do with the game we kicked off almost ten years ago. They’re working really hard to make it a real proper conclusion, something that’s fitting to what they’ve worked on for so long, and what the fans are telling us they’re dying to see.”
Flynn then compared the first two games to the regular season of a football season, with Mass Effect 3 being the Super Bowl, the final game where everything comes to a head.
”In the story it starts at a time with a very singular focus and purpose in the galaxy,” Flynn described, ”You could say the previous games were just a preamble to this moment. Everything has been building to this. It’s like the Super Bowl. Who cares what happened in the regular season? Now’s the one that matters.”
Players who come into the series at this stage won’t be left out of the drama, though. ”We want to make sure that if someone is new to the franchise they feel very comfortable playing Mass Effect 3,” he promised.
Veteran Mass Effect players will get their own thrills, however, as Flynn states there will be ”surprises” in store for those who’ve followed the series since its debut on the Xbox 360 in 2007. ”It feels good for them. They’re excited about the story they’re going to tell and what’s going to happen in the game. They’ve got lots of surprises up their sleeve and stuff they’ve been holding onto for a while.”
Mass Effect 3 will launch in March 2012 for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and will be the final chapter of the Commander Shepard trilogy. While additional Mass Effect games are planned, 3 will conclude Shepard’s storyline.
