Mass Effect 3 Aimed At "Larger Audiences"

Hmm, this is interesting. The streamlining of Mass Effect's more traditional RPG mechanics that occurred with Mass Effect 2 (the removal of the inventory screen, for example), is going to continue with Mass Effect 3. Eurogamer has the full story- John Riccitiello, the CEO of Electronics Arts, publishers of Mass Effect, yesterday told investors that the game would have greater "mass appeal" and be a "shooter-meets-RPG". As opposed to whatever it was before. An RPG-meets-shooter? The full quote's after the jump. Thanks to RPS reader Edward "Fiasco" Fiala for the tip.

Here you go!

"One of the things that Ray Muzyuka and the team up in Edmonton have done is essentially step-by-step adjust the gameplay mechanics and some of the features that you'll see at E3 to put this in a genre equivalent to shooter-meets-RPG," he said, "and essentially address a much larger market opportunity than Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 began to approach.

"We're huge believers in the IP and are purposefully shifting it to address a larger market opportunity."

What, I wonder, is left to cut? They could bury the character progression a bit so that the default option is for your characters to auto-level up, I suppose. They could package the renegade/paragon stuff more intuitively. What else? Surely they can't be thinking of slimming down the time spent exploring and talking your way around city hubs?

In an interview I did with Mass Effect executive producer Casey Hudson last year, he did say that the second title in a trilogy is traditionally darker than the first, and the third is more climactic. Maybe we will be seeing a more action-focused game than before. Hmm, I say. HMM.