Mass Effect 1 & 2: News, Walkthrough, and Screenshots

Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of speculation about when we might see Mass Effect 2. I remember years ago, we went through the same thing when trying to guess when the original Mass Effect would be released, and then Bioware moved the release date several times.

A moderator over at the official Bioware forums had this to say about the topic.

All I can say is over the years I was on the forum… a great many people including myself attempted to predict when the first Mass Effect would be released… and the vast, vast majority of us got it completely wrong .

To be fair ME:2 is a different case, for the first time since Baldurs Gate 2 BioWare are working with a rule set/combat system, user controls and interfaces, not to mention the game engine (kind of a biggie ). And of course they already have plot, world/IP backgrounds and stuff all sorted… basically they are creating content (not to diminish the importance or time consuming nature of that task).

Back in the last generation, the length of time it took Obsidian to turn out KOTOR 2 (a large complex western RPG) was about 18 months… and that arguably wasn’t finished. I find it hard to believe even with the development team sizes that Bio now use, that given the complexity of next gen games, Bio will manage to finish ME:2 in less than 18 months, personally I think it could end up being quite a bit longer. I am however sure that we will read plenty about ME:2 in previews and at games shows etc well in advance of release.