Earlier this year BioWare confirmed that Mass Effect 3 will ship with a fully featured multiplayer component. This announcement received mixed responses; after all, the success of the franchise is attributed to the rich and compelling storyline and the campaign’s comprehensive action-RPG mechanics, making it difficult it imagine where exactly multiplayer will fit in.
Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer will differ from traditional multiplayer games in a few ways. Firstly, the multiplayer will be co-op. There will be no PvP, so forget about deathmatch or capture the flag-style gameplay. Secondly, the multiplayer will be linked to the single player campaign, and will directly affect the outcome of the primary storyline.
At its core, the multiplayer component will adopt the gameplay seen in Gears of War’s Horde mode. Players will team up with friends and battle their way through waves of increasingly difficult enemies. Each map will throw different enemies at you, including boss fights with the likes of Cerebrus and the Collectors. As players progress through the various maps, they will have to complete specific objectives, such as defending an area of disabling enemy hardware.
Players will create their own unique character for the multiplayer portion of the game, with the option to choose between any of the game’s humanoid races. Once you have created your character, you can export him/her using the Galaxy at War map. This ties in the with single player campaign, and gives captain Shepard another hero to help hold off the Reaper invasion. Spending time developing characters in the multiplayer component will increase the galaxy’s readiness level; a statistic that helps determine the ultimate outcome of the single player storyline.
Players will be able to customize their characters when they create them, and they will also earn experience points and currency when you play with them. These enable you to upgrade and buy new abilities for the character, as well as upgrade or buy new weapons.
We’re still not 100 percent sold on the idea of Mass Effect 3 implementing multiplayer, but the fact that Bioware is doing something rather unique, and building it into the Mass Effect 3 storyline is reassuring. Mass Effect 3 is planned for release on 6 March, 2012, and will be available on PC, PS3 and Xbox 360.
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