I’ve been pretty vociferous about my distaste for multiplayer elements being needlessly tacked on to great single player games. Occasionally, as in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, the developers get it right – but more often than not the shoehorned multiplayer just ends up up being a minor diversion, before people go back to playing the COD, Killzone, Gears and Halo they love. It was with no small amount of apprehension that I received news that Mass Effect – one of my favourite series this generation – was to get multiplayer.
If Mass Effect 3 was to be given multiplayer at any sort of sacrifice to the main game, I’d be pissed. Thankfully, that seems to not be the case.
According to reports it seems that Mass Effect’s multiplayer will take the form of a standalone 4 player co-operative mode, not entirely dissimilar from Horde Mode from Gears of War. Players will be tasked with killing of waves of enemies of increasing difficulty using their weapons, tech and adept powers. Personally, I’m not sure Mass Effect’s core shooting mechanics are strong enough to warrant a gametype like this, but I’m glad it’s not coming at the expense of the single player game.
"We haven’t talked at all about multiplayer in the Mass Effect franchise, but we’re exploring multiplayer in all of our games and all of our franchises," BioWare co-founder Ray Muzyka said to Eurogamer at E3 last week.
I’m pretty sure in this case it’s a publisher decision and not a developer one, and it’s pretty sad that publishers fell that games need “multiplayer†as a bulletpoint on the back of the box.
Source : Eurogamer
Last Updated: June 17, 2011