The success of The Old Republic was only part of the current Bioware story, however. Mass Effect 3 is on the way, and it has much to live up to after the first two games. Does the game have any chance of sticking the landing? Will it offer a conclusion that satisfies the fans? “I just finished an end to end playthrough, for me the ending was the most satisfying of any game I’ve ever played… the decisions you make in this game are epic,” Dr. Muzyka promised. “The team has been planning for this for years, since the beginning of the Mass Effect franchise. Largely the same team, most of the same leads have worked on this for years and years. They’ve thought about [the ending] for years and years. It’s not something they’ve had to solve in a week or a month even, but over the course of five or ten years.” He used all the expected buzzwords to describe the ending: visceral, powerful, and rewarding. We’re also promised the feeling of wanting more and, of course, after the credits…

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How do you make an effective demo for a game as expansive and ambitious as ME3, particularly with the size limit restrictions imposed by XBL? How do you decide what aspects of the game to emphasise?

Robyn: It’s tough. It’s really tough to narrow it down and give players a taste of what they want. For returning fans it’s especially tough because they want to know what kind of impact their decisions will have on the game, but you can’t really show that in a demo. What we can do, though, is show how the combat works, give players an idea of what they’re getting into, and what to expect later on. There’s no exact method to it – for us it’s pretty much a process of testing, figuring out what works, what represents the game best, and then sticking with that.

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Is there any facet of the project that you don’t really get the chance to really highlight that you wish you could?

Robyn: Very few people have an understanding of how complex it is — and how long it takes — to make a game. We have 150 people over the span of two years to develop Mass Effect 3. I think in general the process is under-appreciated, but Audio in particular, I think, are the unsung heroes of the game. They come in at the eleventh hour, and they’re at the very end of the dependency chain. They’re constantly fighting to get access to assets — and things approved – so they can start their work.

I like to say that if the audio’s bad, it’s instantly noticed, but if the audio is good, you’re so immersed in the environment and what’s happening in the story, that you don’t even notice it.

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Which, of course, begs the million dollar question – just what’s so different in the ME3 UI?

“It got really stripped back for Mass Effect 2,” Robyn said, “but we’ve tried to bring back a lot more customisation. The game’s gone deeper again with the things you can tweak and upgrade, so we’ve had to make sure the GUI is up to all that.”

“There are more powers, now, more detailed progressions with skills, and armour and weapon customisation is much more detailed.” The lack of detailed gear, and an inventory, in ME2 was possibly one of the most contentious changes between the first and second Mass Effects, and some loved it, others... not so much. “You can do all kinds of things with weapons now, like adding different clips, scopes and ammo,” Robyn told us, sounding quite pleased. “We’ve added a lot back.”

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