So you finished Mass Effect. You went to a bunch of planets, shot a bunch of killer robots, (probably unethically) romanced a bunch of colleagues, and – if you were smart – abandoned the immensely annoying Ashley to her much deserved death just before finding out a bunch of stuff about another bunch of killer robots and everything coming to the sort of totally inconclusive ending that obviously meant a sequel. That’s quite a lot of stuff on Captain Shepard’s career record over at Spectre HQ, and by an esoteric coincidence, it’s also a lot of stuff in some character config log on your hard disk.
Bioware’s been talking about importing original Mass Effect saved games into the sequel for months now, and they’ve finally dropped some hard info on the subject. Assuming those saved game files are present on the system (on Xbox 360, this means the hard disk itself, and not a Memory Unit, for some reason), the option to import will be available from the game’s main menu. it will be possible to import 11 game-end saved character profiles. Back in the real-pretend world, then, and what does this actually mean in Mass Effect 2?
“Did you save the Council? Who survived Virmire? And how did you handle your most ardent fan? We don’t want to list everything out and spoil the surprises we have in store for you,” says Bioware’s Chris Priestly, “but rest assured you will be pleased when you see just how much carries over into Mass Effect 2.”
Crucially, of course, this means Ashley stays dead forever. Everything else is just a bonus. But speaking of bonuses, there’s more. While importing a character into Mass Effect 2 will magically, tragically rob them of all their hard-won stats from the first trip around the universe, they’ll still get a few gameplay perks. These depend somewhat on the final level of that character – so a 50 character scores more than a level 35 character. Scores what exactly? Priestly cites “a monetary boost at the start of the game, or additional research resources for use at the Normandy’s Tech Lab” as examples, adding that the necessary absence of these bonuses should have no detrimental effect on brand new characters. Besides, Ashley’s still dead.
And finally, despite denying its inclusion in the game until now, Bioware’s apparently putting a New Game+ mode into the sequel too. “If players start a New Game+ after beating the game, they will be able to re-use the same character import file they did for their first playthrough.” So there.