Mass Effect 3: everything you need to know

If you’ve been following the Mass Effect retrospectives, you’re probably clued up on the events that have lead up to this point – and sufficiently spoiled of many of the plot twists and turns that have paved the way.

But now the final chapter of Commander Shepard’s epic saga is mere hours away from arrival – and we take a spoiler-free look at what to expect.

The final chapter

After the events in the Mass Effect 2 DLC “Arrival”, Shepard has returned to earth to stand trial for making a call that made the Batarians a little bit unhappy.

Of course, there’s not much time for such trivial things, as the fated hour approaches, and the Reapers make their arrival – right there on Earth.

Shepard is forced to flee so that he/she can sound the call to alien alliances to fight back – but obviously things are never that easy; the galaxy is full of issues, and Shepard has to contend with those issues, Reapers, and even Cerberus.

Mass Effect 3’s plot will be shaped heavily by your actions over the past 2 games, but BioWare have confirmed that this is the end for Shepard, one way or another – and marks his/her last appearance in the series.

Decisions, decisions

Mass Effect 3 will reportedly factor in over 1,000 different variables from across the series when it comes to plotting out different aspects of the story.

These variables can be small – like if you have a penchant for punching reporters in the face – to the larger decisions you’ve had to mull over – such as who lives and who dies.

Here are some of the bigger decisions that will likely have consequence or see resolution in Mass Effect 3:

Mass Effect

Shepard’s love interest: Liara, Kaiden (FemShep) or Ashley;
Fate of the Rachni Queen;
Fate of Wrex;
Who you sacrifice on Virmire;
Fate of the Citadel Council;
Who you elect to the Council.

Mass Effect 2

Shepard’s love interest: Tali, Miranda, Jack (Male Shepard); Jacob, Thane, Garrus (Female Shepard); None (neutral or loyal to ME1 romance);
Who survives of the suicide mission;
Accepting or rejecting Spectre re-instatement;
Whether Tali was exiled from or redeemed on the Quarian fleet;
Whether the genophage cure data was kept or deleted;
Whether you decide the rogue Geth should be destroyed or reprogrammed;
Whether you decide the collector base is to be destroyed or sanitized.

Mordin is back - if you let him survive.

Choose your way

Mass Effect 3 has three game modes, suited to your preferred play style:

Action Mode takes away manual narrative pathways and instead lets you focus on combat and battles. That means the story plays out automatically, and you simply handle technical fighting.

Story Mode is the exact opposite, giving you full control over the branching conversations, while down-playing combat.

RPG Mode is the traditional play-style (similar to that found in Mass Effect 2) that strikes a balance between action and story.

The game will also feature an “Insanity” difficulty level, for players who feel particularly daring, and want to wring a little more out of combat than simply shooting everything in sight.

The RPG elements have also been refined, giving you more options when it comes to developing Shepard’s abilities – as well as modifying your weapons with scopes and attachments to better-customise your style of play.

As always, the choice is up to you

Battle it out

Combat itself, has been worked on – sticking very much to the Mass Effect 2 style of fighting, Mass Effect 3 will focus on third-person shooter combat, but with added features.

Shepard is more nimble – with a wider variety of movements compared to typical cover-shooting and occasional charging.

Running, rolling, blind-firing, climbing ladders and performing melee attacks now form part of Shepard’s combat repertoire – which will be needed to overcome smarter enemy AI.

Notable new additions to the armoury include the Omni-tool blade – used in melee attacks – as well as different kinds of grenades which can be tossed at enemies.

Combat has changed, but stays the same.

Galactic scale

Mass Effect 3 features cross-platform ‘meta-gaming’ involving a score known as ‘galactic readiness’ – a figure representative of how ready the galaxy is to face the onslaught of the Reapers.

Galactic readiness is influenced by many different components of Mass Effect 3, played out in various forms – from social network apps, iOS games or even Mass Effect 3’s own multiplayer.

Galaxy at War is Mass Effect 3’s multiplayer mode and involves a user-created team that embarks on various missions running parallel to the events of Mass Effect 3, thus not involving any of the characters from the single player campaign.

The multiplayer characters are customisable, with different alien races available, each with special abilities native to their race. The missions are designed specifically for co-operative play.

Through interacting with the other platforms and online components, the galactic readiness score is improved, thus having an impact on Shepard’s single-player quest.

These are all purely optional, however.

No matter where you go, husks will always be part of the package

Everything else

Mass Effect 3 will need Origin to play – not only for PC, but also to amass your galactic readiness score on other platforms (Facebook, iOS).
BioWare have alluded that there’s more to come, and you should keep your game-saves.
Mass Effect on the PC does not officially support controllers and gamepads.
The reputation system has altered, with Paragon and Renegade filling up the same reputation bar, as well as the new addition of “general” reputation.
The game can be enhanced with the Kinect, but (thankfully) doesn’t require it. You can use the Kinect to bark orders or make conversational decisions.