“You have to preserve what I think is at the heart of the franchise, what people remember it was, it’s the choices you made, the characters you met and the encounters you had with them.”
BioWare’s Mac Walters explains why Mass Effect 3’s ending remains unchanged, and why other changes have been made to the trilogy.
More goes into recreating a game than just graphical improvements, as a recent piece from Metro can attest. The coming Mass Effect Legendary Edition splashes a fresh coat of paint on BioWare’s decade old Mass effect trilogy, while also making some minor changes to address things that have been overlooked in the past or that are worth reevaluating in the current era.
A handful of the changes deal with the way the in-game camera frames certain chats, including one for a notorious scene with a serious conversation with character Miranda aiming the camera bizarrely at her buttocks.
In that interview with Metro, project director Mac Walters responds to a question as to whether change of certain character models ever emerged during the development of Mass Effect Legendary Edition. Walters notes that, although characters themselves remain largely unchanged, considerations have been made about how certain characters are portrayed.
“Kevin actually called out some camera footage that just … why focus on Miranda’s butt? In some cases, we said, ‘Okay, we can make a change there,'” Walters explains.
“But in the end, it was not really about changing an entire character model or anything else … it was a decision made as part of a lot of creative decisions and to show it as well as possible so that we can move forward. “is really the choice. for all the art we had.”
In other cases, Walters says his team worked to navigate certain reviews, such as how someone plays Mass effect since his female computer will take positions, it is clearly set up with the male computer in mind. The solutions, he tells Metro, need some clever modifications to solve, as the team did not have the means or the ability to simply change the original animations.
“Specifically around the animations, we could not change much of it, but there were times when you could change the camera not to focus on any of the animations,” says Walters. “A male Shepherd animation would then make him sit quite open with his legs with a low camera where it would be a bit unflattering if you wore a dress. So we can not necessarily change that animation, but you can it slightly raises the camera to reduce the problem. “
The rest of the interview provides insight into some of the other differences between Mass Effect Legendary Edition and the original games, including significant game adjustments for the first game in the series and the studio’s decision to leave Mass effect 3s then controversial end untouched.